Whatever be their amoosements? Everything on earth amooses ’em. They has so many holidays, Mexicans does, they ain’t hardly left no time for work. They’re pirootin’ about constant, grinnin’ an’ chatterin’ like a outfit of bloo-jays. No; they ain’t singers none. Takin’ feet an’ fingers, that a-way, a Mexican is moosical. They emerges a heap strong at dancin’, an’ when it conies to a fandango, hens on hot griddles is examples of listless abstraction to ’em. With sech weepons, too, as guitars an’ fiddles an’ a gourd half-full of gravel to shake an’ beat out the time, they can make the scenery ring. Thar they stops, however; a Greaser’s moosic never mounts higher than the hands. At singin’, crows an’ guinea chickens lays over ’em like a spade flush over nines-up. Most likely if I reelates to you-all the story of a day among the Mexicans you comes to a cl’arer glimpse of their loves an’ hates an’ wars an’ merry-makin’s. Mexicans, like Injuns when a paleface is about, lapses into shyness an’ timidity same as one of these yere cottontail rabbits. But among themse’fs, when they feels onbuckled an’ at home, their play runs off plenty different. Tharfore a gent’s got to study Mexicans onder friendly auspices, an’ from the angle of their own home-life, if he’s out to rope onto concloosions concernin’ them that’ll stand the tests of trooth. It’s one time when I’m camped in the Plaza Chaparita. It’s doorin’ the eepock when I freights from Vegas to the Canadian over the old Fort Bascom trail. One of the mules--the nigh swing mule, he is--quits on me, an’ I has to lay by ontil that mule recovers his sperits. It’s a _fieste_ or holiday at the Plaza Chaparita. The first local sport I connects with is the padre. He’s little, brown, an’ friendly; an’ has twinklin’ beady eyes like a rattlesnake; the big difference bein’ that the padre’s eyes is full of fun, whereas the optics of rattlesnakes is deevoid of humor utter. Shore; rattlesnakes wouldn’t know a joke from the ace of clubs. The padre’s on his way to the ’dobe church; an’ what do you-all figger now that divine’s got onder his arm? Hymn books, says you? That’s where you’re barkin’ at a knot. The padre’s packin’ a game chicken--which the steel gaffs, drop-socket they be an’ of latest sort, is in his pocket--an’ as I goes squanderin’ along in his company, he informs me that followin’ the services thar’ll be a fight between his chicken an’ a rival brass-back belongin’ to a commoonicant named Romero. The padre desires my presence, an’ in a sperit of p’liteness I allows I’ll come idlein’ over onless otherwise engaged, the same bein’ onlikely. Gents, you should have witnessed that battle! It’s shore lively carnage; yes, the padre’s bird wins an’ downs Romero’s entry the second buckle.