All This Was At The End Of Another Morning When We Had Set Out With The
Purpose Of Seeing The Rest Of Ronda For Ourselves.
We chose a back
street parallel to the great thoroughfare leading to the new bridge, and
of a squalor which we might have imagined but had not.
The dwellers in
the decent-looking houses did not seem to mind the sights and scents of
their street, but these revolted us, and we made haste out of it into
the avenue where the greater world of Ronda was strolling or standing
about, but preferably standing about. In the midst of it, at the
entrance of the new bridge we heard ourselves civilly saluted and
recognized with some hesitation the donkey's harness-maker who, in his
Sunday dress and with his hat on, was not just the work-day presence we
knew. He held by the hand a pretty boy of eleven years, whom he
introduced as his second son, self-destined to follow the elder brother
to America, and duly take up the profession of teaching in Puerto Rico
after experiencing the advantages of the Escuela Mann. His father said
that he already knew some English, and he proposed that the boy should
go about with us and practise it, and after polite demur and insistence
the child came with us, to our great pleasure. He bore himself with fit
gravity, in his cap and long linen pinafore as he went before us, and we
were personally proud of his fine, long face and his serious eyes, dark
and darkened yet more by their long lashes.
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