# Myths and Legends Beyond Our Borders/The Humpback of Colima

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THE HUMPBACK OF COLIMA
IN Colima, which stands in the shadow of peaks that spire to a height of sixteen thousand feet above the sea, lived a wood-chopper, hump-backed, poor, but merry and kind, beloved by all the children, ready to share their games and make toys for them. Juan worked hard, lived hard, but sang all day long. For neighbor he and his wife had Emilio Romero, who had also been a peon, but was now rich, and people said he had gained his money in a devious fashion, if he had not actually robbed men in the highway. With money Romero took on a "nasty" pride that made him snub his old companion; yet he put on none of the decencies of life to support his state, for he would get drunk, beat his wife, and was an uncomfortable citizen. It was while chopping a tree in the wood one afternoon that Juan suffered what he thought was a misfortune, so soon as he was in any state to think, for he was stunned by a falling limb, and did not regain his senses until the rise of the moon. Propping himself on his elbow, he rubbed his noddle and looked curiously about him, for he had heard voices, and presently he could see in the dusk a crowd of elves dancing about the glade. They were singing the Spanish words for "Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday—three," over and over again.
"Why don't you sing the rest?" asked Juan.
"We don't know it," piped the little creatures.
​"It's like this: Thursday, Friday, Saturday—six."
The elves leaped and tumbled about in delight at being able to learn the rest of the song, and they chorused it with zest. After a little one of them said, "We ought to pay Juan for his goodness. Let's take off his hump."
How they did it he never knew, and the neighbors said it was the falling tree that did it, anyway; but Juan arose from the earth a straight, sound man. Ah, but he went home with a hump on his back none the less,—a hump nearly as big as the old one, only it was made of gold, and carried in a bag. With many good-byes and kind wishes the elves took leave of Juan, and in the moonlight he tramped away to his home, where he astonished his wife by showing the quantity of treasure that the fairies had given to him. Juan immediately bought a house and set up a shop with his money, and this led Romero to wonder whom he could have robbed, to grow so suddenly wealthy; for it never occurred to him that honesty could have its rewards no less than industry. By persistent questioning of Juan's wife the envious fellow learned the story, and at first he disbelieved it. "Dwarfs!" quoth he. "There are no such creatures in Mexico. Yet, I do remember it was a savage dwarf that built the Soothsayer's House, in Uxmal, in a night. Perhaps it is so, and if I see them, I, too, shall win my share of elfin gold." ​It irked him to think that his once poor neighbor was richer now than he. So he went to the wood and pretended to sleep, and presently the little people came out, sure enough, and danced about, singing, as before,—
"Why don't you end it?" asked Romero, suddenly sitting up.
"How?" they cried.
"Domingo—siete." (Sunday—seven.)
They tried it, then shrieked, "Why, it doesn't rhyme. It spoils it all." And they fell upon the intruder, pulled his hair and cuffed him soundly. Then they recognized him as a proud, mean man and a robber, and they put Juan's old hump on his back, which he wore ever after. That is why people who interrupt, or make needless and foolish remarks in company, are quieted by saying, "Domingo—siete."