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With the women it was different, and full half a day was taken in getting together our twenty-five types; not but what there were plenty of them, for our second day at Pantepec was market-day, and the plaza was gay with women, but they did not wish to be measured, and the whole town force, from presidente to the meanest topil, was afraid to meddle with them; at first, too, we had none but the most wretched cases, women broken down and worn out with years of labor.
That day, as usual, the boys had in their topil for dinner only boiled camote vines, such as the hogs eat, and a small allowance of rice, just as much as a dog is fed. At night the boys brought some very good wood wood of the pitch-pine tree. In the morning the mother complained that such wood blackened the house.
She gave them pig food in their topil, saying: "Pig food is good enough for you because you do not work well." That night each boy brought in a large bundle of runo. The mother was angry, and scolded, saying: "This is not good wood; it leaves too many ashes and it dirties the house." In the morning she gave them dog food for dinner, and the boys again went away to the mountains.
Along the glen-road near Tepanapa all sorts of flowers seemed to be pink or flesh-colored, while along the jungle-bank, near the coffee plantation, everything was blue or purple. When we reached Zautla, neither the presidente, the secretario nor the segundo was in town. The big topil, whose head was healing, did the honors of the place.
In spite of the commands of the segundo secretario, we started for the scene of the disturbance, but long before we reached the spot, met a big topil with his head cut open and blood streaming down his face, soaking his garments. His arm was thrown around another man's neck, whose wrist he held, dragging him thus a prisoner toward the jail.
Two others followed, holding a bad-looking little man between them. The two had fought, and when the topil tried to take them, the little man, seizing a rock, split open his head. The two persons were thrust into the jail and a guard set. Great effort was made to find the stone with which the blow was dealt, in order that it might be used as evidence.
Most of the returning men and boys carry the empty topil, the small, square, covered basket in which rice for the noon meal is carried to the sementera; sometimes a boy carries a bunch of three or four, and he dangles them open from their strings as he dances along.
The secretario told the topil not to staunch nor wash the wound. With natural curiosity, the presidente and other men were clustered around the jail, looking in at the prisoners, when the segundo secretario ordered them from the door. This man is a strange one. He is a Cuicatec, who married a Chinatec wife. He is little, but important. He ever carries a queer old sword.
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