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If we enter the rancho of Carlos we shall see the fair-haired Rosita seated upon a petate, and engaged in weaving rebosos. The piece of mechanism which serves her for a loom consists of only a few pieces of wood rudely carved. So simple is it that it is hardly just to call it a machine.
These, crumpled up, were tucked into the case of the pillow which Mrs. Hervosa used on board. Later, rolled up in her blankets and bed mat, or petate, they went to the custom house along with the other baggage, and of course were discovered in the rigorous examination which the officers always made.
In five minutes the change was complete. The cage-looking structure had disappeared, and a house with walls of yellow petate stood in its place. "Now, Senores, all is secured," said Don Cosme. "Let us return to the drawing-room." "I should like to see the first burst of this tornado," I remarked, not wishing to intrude upon the scene of sorrow we had left. "So be it, Captain.
Rosita followed him in without a word, and without a word he was received by her mother, who, seated in the corner, took no notice of his entrance, not even by looking up at him. The dog made a circuit around him, growling angrily, but his young mistress chided him off; and the brute once more couched himself upon a petate, and lay with eyes gleaming fiercely at the intruder.
With much enthusiasm, he told us of an "animal" which he had seen and tried to catch upon the road. From his description, it appeared to be an armadillo. Before he lay down on his petate, he kissed my hand, wished me a good night's rest, and asked my good-night blessing. He was happy in possession of a real's worth of aguardiente, from which, at intervals during the night, he drank.
After the sixth performance of this kind, one being at a street crossing where some raw cocoa beans were drying on a petate in the sun, and the three others at the different outposts, we decided among ourselves that we had best dismiss our cochero and return to the ship, since it had taken us more than two hours to drive where we might have walked in thirty minutes.
The furnishings consisted of a wardrobe, a table, a washstand, several chairs, and a Filipino four-poster bed with a mattress of plaited rattan such as we find in cane-seated chairs. A snow-white valence draped the bed. The mattress was covered with a petate, or native mat, and there were two pillows a big, fat, bolstery one, and another, called abrazador, which is used for a leg-rest.
However, I found a bed not occupied by anyone else, but of my bedding there was not a sign. So I stretched out on the petate of my bed, only to wake up later shivering with cold, which I tried to remedy by fishing around for cover in a pile of straw mats, from which I extracted what turned out in the morning to be a jusi table-cloth, through which you could have shot straws.
On one of these I made my bed, while my companions spread a large petate on the floor, and our little indian carrier put down a small one for himself, as he declared he should not leave us until morning. He had a good supper, and in a fit of generosity, presented Louis with what was left of his package of posole.
Local tradition disapproves of the appearance of near female relations at a funeral, so the dead man's escort consisted only of the four bearers, and three small boys, all under eleven years of age. The coffin was one in general use rented for the trip to the cemetery! Once there, the body, wrapped in its petate, or sleeping mat, would be rolled into a shallow grave.
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