Mexico -- History -- 1910-1946; Mexico City (Mexico) -- Social life and customs
Farther along, huddled up on the steps of the gaudy Spanish exhibition
building, were two tiny Indian boys not more than five or six years
old, so sound asleep that their little hands refused to close over the
pennies we tried to give them. We finally put the money, not in their
pockets (they did not have enough clothes on to have pockets), but
behind their little backs. They have probably been cold every night of
their lives, so damp stone steps and a rainy street could not prevent
their slumbers.
[Illustration: MADERO AND OROZCO IN 1911--MADERO AT THE LEFT]
Well, Madero is coming to change it all, to heal the antique sores of
Mexico. "_Ojalá_" (God grant), as I have discovered they are always
saying when they aren't saying, "_Quién sabe?_" I must put out my
light. It has been an exciting day. Even if you have not been fired on
yourself, it's nervously disturbing to know that near-by people have
been.
_Ascension Day._
This morning the mob was shot down at the top of our street in the
broad Plaza de la Reforma, between the Foreign Office and the statue of
the Iron Horse. I felt myself not an innocent bystander, but a foolish
one, as to the sound of quick-firing guns and screams I stepped out on
the balcony and saw the mob running in all directions, some dropping as
the guns placed by the statue turned with a horrible, regular slowness
across the street.
N. had rushed home from the Embassy by a side way, hearing that our
street was the scene of action. I felt we ought to do something besides
remaining behind closed doors when that agony was being enacted; but
I was told by N. and Mr. Seeger, who came up from his office below to
see how things were going, that Americans in general and the Embassy
in particular should keep out of the trouble. In fact, it wasn't our
funeral. Police-attended stretcher-bearers appeared on the scene a
little later, and the streets were cleared of dead and wounded.
N. sent a note to Limantour, to the Ministry of Finance, when things
were at their hottest, thinking it might possibly suit his needs to be
within our extra-territorial walls for a few hours. He sent back the
most appreciative of notes, saying, however, that he had no alarm.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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