Litchfield enquirer., 1877-05-31

knees. dragging tlis cross. Crowds of fwonaen accompany them, singing and 4 himself on the ground, they lay the cross Ion his breast and fall on their knees around him and pray: then they rise up, Eplac6 the ctoss on his back again, and ssake up tled dreaaffi journey. Now and then She band will enter house and eat "a little food, which Tn all good Catholic I houses is kept ready for them. After ishort rest, the leader gives asignal, and they set out again.
 Last spring, in the eighteen hundred land seventy-sixth year of our merciful l Lord. four of these young men died from Ithe effects of their tortures. One of them, Eafter running for three days under the Icactus scourge, lay all Easter night naked I upon, the threshold of . church. Easter fmorning he was found there dead. What
 Ia comfort in the. thought that the old ipraFer can never cease to ascend, "Fatn-
 ct forgive them, for they know not what .I they 8-,s @-~
 I The twilight had deepened into night Ebefore the tale drew. to g close, and 1t was
 with sense of grief and horror. almost assif we had been transported to the very
 hllIof Calvary, that we drove into the lit
 tie Mexican town of Walsenburg, which lies in the Cucharas meadows only few
 miles from the base of Na.ha-toy-a.
 From the tragedy we had been hearing
 to the cheerful low comedy of Sporleder's Hotel was a grateful change. A mud Iwalled. rafter-roofed. rambling but very
 .comfortable old place was Sporleder's.
 From the porch you stepped at once into Ithe 'sofice," and through the office you came and went to your bedroom, and to the dining-room by a mysterious dim ilighted passage-way. or through somebody 4 eise's still dmmer-ighted and more mys- Fteripus bedroom, too; it held three beds. a wooden settle,-which was no doubt 8
 bed also, though by day it held saddles 4 and hunting gear of all sorts, ,-aa desk, and a three-eerHereds fireplace built out,
 in the pieturesque Mexican fashion, ch1m- q .iniey and alI into the room. They look as 1 if children might have built them for
 play, these Maxican ire-places, but they T draw well and are wonderfully pictur-
 esqne. The mud-walled bedroom was not
 damp: it's one little window looked into a high Jefferson currant bush, and cross
 dranght was established by the accident of tiny opening at the caves OH the left hand side of the room, just above the
 edge of the white-cotton ceiling which was | nailed on the rafters Through this little
 hole moonlight twinkled all night, and daylight twinkled in the morning long before the sun had pierced through the Jefferson currant bush. The beds were clean and not very hard. The food was
 wholesome One might easily fare worse 1 in many pretentious. house. The land I lord looked as if he had belonged to the
 childhood of Hans Christian Andersen. I He was an old German tailor; he wore an ancient blue dresscoat and long black
 velvet waistcoat, and did the honofs of his I clean little mud house with an old-fash' toned, and pathetic courtesy of manner. He had evidently seen much sorrow Tn the j strange viclssitudes of life which had
 brought him to be an inn-keeper in Colo I1rado.s3s} es .tla. E l Walsenburg is an old Mexican town.
 There are perhaps fifty houses in it, and .l more than f1alf of these are the true Mex. a inan mud huts,-mud Hoors mud wall. Ebak1ng mud till you conld see through it, Ikiiey would have had mud windows af . well As there was not, they compromis.
 ed on WIndoMs, and have but one ln 2 room, and many rooms without q wIndow
 at all. These houses are not as uncomtort able as one would suppose, and by nc means as>ugly. The baked mud is of a good color, and the gaudy Roman Catho- lie prints and efigies and shrines with
 which the walls are often adorned stand
 out we'll on the rich brown. The mud
 floors are hard and for the most part clean and smooth. Gay blankets and shawls
 are thrown down upon them in the better class of houses; chairs are rare. The sI houses remind one more of bee-hives thar
 of anything else, they do so swarm al
 their one small entrance; women and girls are there by dozens and scores, all wear ing bright shawls thrown over their heads
 in an indescribably graceful way. Ever ,I toddlers of six and seven have their bril- liant shawls thrown over their heads and
 trailing in the dust behind; am not sure that they are not born in them. The lit
 tie boys,are not 80 much clothed; in fact many of them are not clothed at all. The i, | most irresistible one I saw wore shor
 white shirt reaching perhaps one third o1
 the way to his knees; over this, for pur poses of decoration, he had put heavy
 woolen jacket much too big for him; thu'
 arrayed he strutted up and down with ai
 pompous an air as if he were king II
 state robes; but the jacket was heavy; h'
 could not endure it long; presently h' shook one arm free of its sleeve. then the other. and then in moment more drop ped the garment in crumpled pile On thu ! ground, and with an sxultant fling of his , thin brown legs raced away, his shir ! blowing back like Q scanty wisp tie(
 round his waist. Ills mother sat on -th ground leaning against the wall of he house, nursing her baby and laughing til all her teeth showed like row of whit } piano keys on her shining brown skin. stopped and praised her baby; she spok .. no English, but she understood the prais , of the babys eyes. By gesture sh
 summoned the hero of the shirt, said t him single word, and in second nor he had sprung into the house. reappeare'
 1 with wooden char, and placed 1t for m
 with shy grace. Then he darted ava sidewise, like dragon fly.
 : All the women's voices were low an B ! sweet: their eyes were as dark and soft a : the eyes of deer, and their unfailing cour n l tesy was touching. An old woman one. 0 n the oldest in the town, took me over he ? house, from room to room, and stood b 8 with gratified smile while I looked ca $ gerly at everything. The landlord D daughter, who had accompanied me, ha entioned to her that was 8 stranger an D kQ never before seen l0AlCaH boWI ? hen took leave of her said thrOug 2 ' interpreter, T am greatly obliged t ' en for showing me your house.
 2 With rapid gestures and shrugs of tn : honlders she poured forth sentence afte 2 Entenee, all the while looking into m 2 ce with smiles and taking my hand i V prs. aa 19a Na @
 2 "What does she say?" asked.
 :'She says" replied my guide, 'tha 2 er poor house ls not worth looking a nd she is the one who is obliged that s D sautifnl h,dy should enter it." An d tnIs was poverty stricken old woman h single garment of tattered calico, wltt ,f out chair or bed !
 l- . Early thenext morning we set out agal ,r to drive still farther west. Our erran e was to find the engineer corps who wer y surveying the route across the mountain l. into the San Juan country. The bra' v little narrow-guage railroad. the Denve 1t and Rio Grande, which is pushing dow
 toward the city of Mexico as fast as