The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1883-03-11

gaUion of worshipers slowly made
their way. Already awaiting them
there was a motley row of tTatick-
ers, with an odd and poverty
stricken show of goods for sale:
little tables spread with peppers.
onions, withered peaches and pears,
"a handful or two of each; small
wheelbarrows half filled with cakes
of dusky bread; boiled sweet pota-
toes, or boiled yellow squashes. Be
hind these tables, or on the ground
by the WheelbarrowS, squatted ola
women, who anxionsly eyed every
possible customer. At intervals,
new vendors arrived, met with I'M
welcome glances by those on the
spot. Some brought a half dozen
cakes or loaves of bread in basket
neatly covered with white cloath ;
some brought single watermelon,
or boiled squash, which they cut
into small pieces, and sold
with as much gravity and
precision as would suffice for the
most important business trapsac-
lions. Every one had roasted corn
for sale, roasted in the husk. 1t
seemed the favorite Wand; men,
women, children, all ate it,stripping
off the huskS and throwing them on
the ground. For a few minutes the
spectacle was grOtesque; hundreds
of hands holding corn ears at open
mouths, white teeth gnawing,
clicking all around. a squad of
Mexican soldiers, with neat white
linen Jackets and trousers and
bright blue caps, were the greatest
deVourers of the corn. The ground
under their feet was piled with the
husks they had thrown down, and
they laughingly shuffled them away
with their feet as they tossed down
fresh ones. An old beggar woman,
half naked and with long streaming
gray hair, went about picking up
the husks, and examining them into
her skirt, held up high, leaving her
gaunt old legs bare to the knees.
| Another beggar had had the gift of
half a watermelon. He leaned back
in corner of the plaza, his head
resting on the wall with one hand
holding the melon on his knee, with
two fingers of the right he laZily
scooped out mouthfuls of it. and
carried them slowly to his mouth,
the juice dripping like water all the
way. at each mouthful. he shut
his eyes and sighed with satisfac-
ton. Lounging up and down in
the crowd went sWarthy-faced
man, wearing red fez and the full
gathered Turkish trousers, selling
rosaries of pearl, and of olive-Wood.
He said the rosaries came from Jeru-
salem, and he was a Syrian. His
face seemed strangely familiar to
me- where have l seen you be-
fore?"I exclaimed. Where you
not at Ober-Ammergau, at the last
Passion play"
Eyes, lady," he replied.
It was, indeed, the very man
from whom had bought rosaries
and Jerusalem roses, in the Am
me1gau Valley, two years ago. He
smiled with superior calm as he
passed on. To his oriental mind
there was nothing surprising in the
encounter anu Dc WOuIO, no QOuDG,
compassionate me as the victim of
an imagination bootlessly active, if
he had known how pertinaciously
my eyes and my wondering fancy
followed him, as he strolled back
and forth, swinging his crimson and
pearly beads on the fingers of his
right hand, offering them with a
mute gesture, so slight it seemed
hardly to demand recognition, and
regarding with an equally noncha-
liant glance those who bought and
those who turned away, From
Ober-Ammergau to Paso del Norte
to sell strings of beads? 1t must
have been some other errand that
brought him.-March Atlantic.