BarbarousMexico JOHN KENNETH TURNER

112 BARBAROUS MEXICO
crowd sitting there near them—four were happy Mexicans
returning home for a vacation after a season at
wage labor in the United States. We sang a little and
we made some music on a violin and a harmonica. But
not one of that family of six behind us ever smiled or
showed the slightest interest. They reminded me of a
herd of cattle standing in a blizzard, their heads between
their front legs, their backs to the storm.
The face of the old patriarch told a story of burdens
and of a patient, ox-like bearing of them such as no
words could possibly suggest. He had a ragged, grizzled
beard and moustache, but his head was still covered
with dark brown hair. He was probably seventy, but
was evidently still an active worker. His clothing consisted
of American juniper and overalls of ordinary
denim washed and patched and washed and patched—
a one-dollar suit patched until it 'Was nothing but
patches!
Beside the patriarch sat the 01(1 lady, his wife, with
head bowed and a facial expression so like that of her
husband that it might have been a copy by a great painter.
Yes, the expression differed in one detail. The old
woman's upper lip was compressed tight against her
teeth, giving her an effect of perpetually biting her lip
to keep back the tears. Perhaps her original stock of
courage had not been equal to that of the man and it
had been necessary to fortify it by an everlasting compression
of the mouth.
Then there was a young couple half the age of the two.
The man sat with head nodding and granulated lids
blinking slowly, now and then turning his eyes to stare
with far distant interest upon the merrymakers around
him. His wife, a flat-breasted, drooping woman, sat