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 jumper 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 old 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
