Camp and Travel in New Mexico [pp. 347-369]

34Camp and Travel in New Alexico.
contented themselves with peeping bashfully in at the open doorway, with an
occasional half-suppressed giggle. For
a time some of the older men, too, remained outside, no doubt whispering
flittering approvals of the toilets and
dusky beauty of the ladies awaiting their
partnership in the waltz. A young boy
was set to grinding out the music, and
then all timidity vanished like a flash;
and while the stupid fellow turned the
crank in jerks, a few turns fast and a
few slow, producing the most shocking
burlesque on time and slaughter of tune,
the couples whirled dizzily from side to
end of the clay-floored room, and back
again, chattering and laughing the while.
Clark was a favorite with the girls, and
engaged for the night, it seemed; Johnson, too, was dancing clumsily under the
spur of a fat, middle-aged woman, who
had used some energy in getting him
into the whirlpool.
This scene was continued, with change
of partners and short rests, until two
o'clock, when one after another of the
cups yielded its last drop of oil and sputtered out. In the dim light, clouded by
fine dust and cigarette smoke, the dusky
men and women in this merry revelry
seemed shrouded in ideal existence, and
the spirit of it finally possessed me irresistibly. Johnson dared not approach
me-. Clark, who was fairly good at dancing, had begged me several times. Happily, though their eyes had cast me many
inquiring glances, none of the Mexican
men had addressed me. As the hour
grew late, however, I concluded to have
a share in it with the hero of the goblinlike fandango, who was quite a handsome and manly fellow; and risking an
assassination by the stilettos of the two
belles, who kept their jealous eyes upon
him while yet they seemed wholly engrossed by the gayety of the hour, I
approached him with a smile. All the
dancers immediately cleared the floor in
our honor, and we waltzed and whirled
around and around, until the dimming
lights'looked to my eyes like a single
thread of fire encircling us, and my partner's ability, too, to steer clear of the
human palisade, began to fail. That
was, indeed, the dance of all the dancing
I ever did, and all seemed pleased, the
two belles with the rest, that none of
them had enjoyed their dances more than
I did mine.
The poverty of the Mexicans makes
their mania for dogs a serious violence
to self-interest. When we entered the
suburbs of a town, the dogs would come
out in a phalanx that would puzzle, if
not terrify and deafen, the best scholar
in Darwin's school. They were a halfstarved swarm, whose vocal and threatening powers verged on madness. Among
them was found any breed but a thoroughbred. Surely no part of the globe
could muster a greater variety of nondescript creatures, all members of one
family. Some were hairless and ratty
looking things, while others were shaggy
in spots; and still others were half coyote, wolf, cat, or sheep, and all bounded
around and over each other in a sort of
fermenting huddle, alternately barking,
yelping, and howling at us desperately.
My pet, Buffer, was dead. He had
been of little good as a watchdog, and
would probably have gone with wagging
tail to meet an approaching band of savages; yet I mourned his loss. He had
in honesty and trust given his whole
heart to me, and its abundant overflow
of good will to the wide world as he met
it, and my love-hungry soul could not
readily forget him, nor bear being deprived of the care and comfort he had
given me daily since he was but a waddling lump of silky black wool, which no
one who knew me dared touch.
"What are you doing, Mrs. Phelps?"
asked Mrs. Baker in the morning, as we
were driving along through a stretch of
heavy sand,, free from the stones and
unevenness that usually jolted the wagons and made so much clatter that conversation between wagons was difficult.
384
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