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There were peanuts, narrow strips of cocoanut, plantains, bananas short and fat, sickly little apples, dwarf peaches, small wild grapes, oranges green in color, potatoes often no larger than marbles, as if the possessor could not wait until they grew up before digging them; cactus leaves, the spines shaved off, cut up into tiny squares to serve as food; bundles of larger cactus spines brought in by hobbling old women or on dismal asses and sold as fuel, aguacates, known to us as "alligator pears" and tasting to the uninitiated like axle-grease; pomegranates, pecans, cheeses flat and white, every species of basket and earthen jar from two-inch size up, turnips, some cut in two for those who could not afford a whole one; onions, flat slabs of brown, muddy-looking soap, rice, every species of frijole, or bean, shelled corn for tortillas, tomatoes tomate coloradito, though many were tiny and green as if also prematurely gathered peppers red and green, green-corn with most of the kernels blue, lettuce, radishes, cucumbers, carrots, cabbages, melons of every size except large, string-beans, six-inch cones of the muddiest of sugar, the first rough product of the crushers wound in swamp grass and which prospective purchasers handled over and over, testing them now and then by biting off a small corner, though there was no apparent difference; sausages with links of marble size, everything in the way of meat, tossed about in the dirt, swarming with flies, handled, smelled, cut into tiny bits for purchasers; even strips of intestines, the jaw-bone of a sheep with barely the smell of meat on it; all had value to this gaunt community, nothing was too green, or old, or rotten to be offered for sale.
But there is something cordial about a pie's countenance, especially if it be a pie of one's own country, and still more especially if one has been living regularly on frijole beans. She cut her regrets short and accepted. It seemed to her, though, that all human companionship was being rather strictly confined to the process of eating.
It hardly did seem the right thing to set before such a guest. But Janet, as good as her word, steadily made way with the frijole beans and did full justice to the hot bread; and soon, inspirited by his powerful coffee, she continued the story of how she was frightened by the steer and baffled by the brook, and how she was foolish enough to think she was going straight forward all the time.
There is beef and chicken, the frijole, or red bean of Spain, and other vegetables prepared in a tasty manner peculiar to Spanish cooking, so we do not doubt that the cook has been taught his trade by the padre himself. The Indian boys who wait on the table also show careful training, performing their duties quickly and quietly.
All that day we travelled over mountains as fast as the mules could carry us, Antonio trotting by our side. At sundown, having seen nothing more of the brigands, who, I suppose, took it for granted that we were dead or were too idle to follow us far, we reached an Indian hut, where we contrived to buy some wretched food consisting of black frijole beans and tortilla cakes.
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