The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1897-09-08
SELECTED STORY.
"Little Brother"

English girl, tall and shapely. The
Mexican girls, who ordered out their
carriages If they had block to go, used
to look upon her with amazement as
she tramped down their steep streets
with a fine, swinging, heel-and-toe
gait.
She was picking her way one day
among the vendors in the plaza, stop.
ping once in while to give some whin-
ing beggar or tattered monstrosity a
centava, when she felt her skirt pulled.
Looking, she saw tiny hand held out,
and a childish voice piped the usual
formula for aims. The little creature
was no taller than child of four. But
the facet 1t was old and withered.
The eyes were sunken and 80 old Miss
Stanley pulled back the rebozo-the
hair was gray.
"a dwarf" she thought, with little
feeling of repulsion. "How old are
your"
"Fifty-tour piped up the wee thing.
Then, true to her sex, "The priest will
tell you 6fty-eight, but 1 am not; 1 am
only ffty-four." She said her name
was Rosita.
Rosita, it appeared, did nearly any
thing for a living, begging preferably,
although that is somewhat over
crowded profession in Mexico. Some
times she sold chickens or vegetables
on a commission. She had another
source of income, being pensioner on
the bounty of a young mana centavo
a week-but she confessed sadly he
made her jump for the coin, and if he
held his arm out straight she might
jump in vain, she could not reach it.
"The brute!" said Miss Stanley.
Rosita did not know the meaning, but
she looked up pleased. That was good,
the English lady was taking an interest
in her, for the expletive sounded pro-
fame, and profanity from a feminine
source indicated strong emotion, which
she construed favorably.
The poor in Mexico are always
hungry, and Miss Stanley, knowing this
failing, took Rosita to one-room res
taurant. The menu was confined
strictly to Mexican dishes.
Miss Stanley noticed that Rosita put
half her dinner to one side, wrapping
the carne and frijoles in tortillas.
When she came to dulce of some
tropic fruit, boiled in syrup of cane
sugar, her little wrinkled eyes looked
wistful.
elbow can 1 take some to my little
brother?" she asked.
Miss Stanley asked another question:
Is this food you have put away for
your brother?"
eyes," answered Rosita, in her
squeaky voice, " take all the care of
him. We are alone, and l work for
him. He is locked in tie room, now,
see," and she held mp the massive key
peculiar to Mexican doors.
"Why is he locked in?" asked Miss
Stanley, as she directed the mozo to
put the dinner in a couple of olas for
Rosita to take to her brother.
He has combats with the children
in the streets, and l am afraid some
one will get hurt" she answered.
Miss Stanley watched her trot away,
laden with the dinner for her brother.
So little and so old, unlike many dwarfs
not bulky-indeed, pitifully thin. 1t
was not until she reached home that
Miss Stanley remembered she had not
asked where the little brother" was.
She often met Rosita after that,
sometime in the Jardin, where the
roses nodded overhead and violets
bloomed under foot, and the band
played softly and sweetly as Mexican
bands do. Rosita would dart from the
circling stream of pelado into the inner
circle, where the quality walked under
the trees or sat on the iron benches.
Miss Stanley could seldom resist the
little, dirty, badly worked square of
drawn work held out by the tiny hand.
Sometimes in the plaza, where the
vendors called their various fruits and
vegetables with long-drawn, wailing
cries, Miss Stanley would suddenly
Rosita as she praised the virtues of an
attenuated hen. "Muy gordo, ninal-
take it-weigh it in your hand-it is
heavy beyond Belief" she would in
sist, holding up the unattractive bun
die of feathers to the "child."
Constance Stanley had no father or
mother, and, living with brother, who
was endeavoring to effect the drainage
of "the richest silver mine in the
world" she wandered unchecked
through the crowded, narrow streets of
the old town, with young criada her
only safeguard.
She had often longed to explore a
dark street that plunged downward
from the paved and civilized one. 1t
was damp and murky. A staircase of
stone, with crumbed adobe walls, two
and three stories high. Across the
streets narrow width futtered strings
of washing. The women, with their
red petticoats and blue rebozos, made
bright blots of color The men loafed
about, lean and ragged. 1t reminded
her of Naples. The doorways swarm
ed with babies and dogs - poverty
marching always side by side with
those innocents.
Down she went. The street made
an abrupt turn. AT the corner she was
startled by seeing, prOtruding from a
hole cut in squalid doorway, several
long, black fingers. They were with