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The Magic Scales of Popa

By H. Bedford-Jones

S

AN LUIS DE LA PAZ, "Saint Louis of the Peace," is almost at the end of things. Certainly it is at the end of the railroad, and is filled with the usual shiftless peons, hated Americanos, and toiltrodden women that you may find in any Mexican town. It is a place of peace, indeed, of ambitionless, lazy, live-for-today peace; but in the very heart of it you may find one atom of inspiration, consisting of a very ancient pair of jewelers' scales.

They were a family of three. Juan was probably one of the most utterly shiftless Mexicans in all the land. He traced his pedigree back to the Conquistadores, and was quite satisfied with that glory. His wife, Pepa, was redeemed by a trace of Indian blood, but their son Juanito promised to fully live up to all Mexican traditions of laziness. The curse of Mexico is the lack of ambition; and this is the very strange little tale of how one woman lifted the curse from her family.

One hot afternoon, Pepa was taking some ill-done washing to the Gringo miner. As she stood waiting for the money to be given her, she heard a scrap of conversation between two of the other Americanos who were sitting with her employer. As usual, they were heedless of her presence, probably thinking that she could not understand or not caring if she did.

"That woman typifies the whole country," declared one. "If these peons could only have a trifle of ambition there is no limit to what they could do."

"Yes; all they care for is to have a hut and a few clothes," agreed the

other. "It seems a pity, though. If one could only give them something to work for "

Pepa closed her dirty hand on the money and turned away. As she crossed the plaza the dull germ of a wonderful idea came to her. "If one could only give them something to work for!" She thought of Juan, and her heart sank in helplessness. He was like all the rest, she concluded. There was nothing ahead, nothing to work for. And Juanito would grow up just the same, unless

At this juncture she met Juan, who was gazing listlessly into the window of a jeweler's shop on the plaza. Submissively she handed over the five centavos she had just received; then, instead of returning home, she clutched her husband's arm impulsively, and stared into the dirty window before them.

"What is the matter, woman?" asked Juan, half-angrily, for he did not like his dignity to be thus menaced in public.

"Look!" Pepa pointed to the far corner of the window. There Juan saw a very ordinary pair of jeweler's scales, such as is used for weighing gold.

"Well," he laughed, "have you never seen such things before, good wife?"

"Look at it!" insisted Pepa in a low voice. "That scale charms me, Juan! To be sure, it is like any other, but I feel that if we could own it our fortunes would be made. I think it must be a magic scale, Juan! It would possess a charm if we could buy it!"

"That is a foolish notion," replied

Juan, but he gazed at the scales nevertheless, with a frown. Knowing that this wife of his had Indian blood, he had a fixed belief that she was just a little of a witch. Juan was fully as superstitious as his fellows, which Pepa knew very well.

"It would be a plaything," he continued. "You are not a child, good wife. Besides, it would cost many pesos, and where would we get them? We need all that we can earn for bread."

Pepa reflected that they certainly did need all that she earned, but she diplomatically refrained from saying so. She only opened her eyes wider and stared at the scales with more intensity.

"They are charmed!" she repeated in a deep, thrilling voice that made Juan start nervously. "We might not be able to use them, but they would make our fortunes, Juan. I who say it know. Something tells me that this scale is one of great magic!"

The descendant of the Conquistadores listened with growing belief. Had not this terrible wife of his once cured Juanito of fever by a charm and a magic white powder? After all, Pepa was descended from los Indios, and all the world knew that they had been great sorcerers, who could smell gold for miles. What if he should What if he should own those scales? A new thrill came to him, a feeling he had never known entered his soul. He gazed more eagerly at the scales as his wife talked -he counted the tiny pile of weights, and his imagination was stirred into life.

Perceiving that she had accomplished her almost unhoped for object Pepa suddenly loosed the arm of her husband and threw off the tones of mystery in which she had spoken.

"Oh, well," she declared, drawing her reboso over her face, "it is far beyond us, Juan. We could never hope for such a wonderful thing as to actually own those scales."

"What!" Juan straightened up as from a dream. He had never heard of ambition, but he was conscious of a

feeling greater than the mere superstition aroused by his wife's words. "Am I not a descendant of the Conquistadores, woman? This thing is not beyond us, and we shall own it. Here, take back this money. Beneath my couch you will find an empty cigar box thrown away by the Gringo. In that we will keep our money until we have saved enough. To-morrow I go to work, I, Juan Martinez!"

The unbelievable was accomplished! Pepa made no stops for the usual gossip, but hastened home for the first time in years. Her Indian blood asserted itself, also, to the extent of bestowing a hearty cuff on Juanito, who was stretched out beside the doorway, sound asleep in the sun.

"Maldito!" ejaculated that amazed youth, springing up and staring at his mother in astonishment. "Is it thus that a descendant

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"Enough!" snapped out Pepa. She half believed her own story, and in the sudden glory of her new exaltation was not disposed to hear any further mention of the Conquistadores. But she remembered that she was not working for her own good, and with the thought her tone softened. "Come with me, and I will show thee a great thing." She led him back toward the plaza, after first locating the cigar box and hiding it anew.

Meanwhile Juan had proceeded from glory to glory. His vacant mind was occupied with a definite reality, and as he walked across the plaza Pablo, the muleteer nudged his companion.

"Look at Juan, there! See how straight he holds himself, and how he picks up his feet! Surely he must be drunk.”

But Juan was moving in a dream world, and simply forgot to shuffle along as formerly. He vowed that with the help of his patron saint that scale should be his. He was actually about to work to obtain it, which was the surest sign that ambition had gripped hold of his soul.

Juanito was also converted, although with more trouble. He, too, went to work for Pablo, the muleteer,

THE MAGIC SCALES OF PEPA.

and every day he and his father would pause as they crossed the plaza, drawn by the fascination of those battered scales in the shop window. Their Their sole object in life was to possess this "plaything." Their wages were small, but centavo after centavo was laid aside in the cigar box as the weeks passed.

Pepa found herself working harder than she had ever done before. She had begun the deception, if it may be called that, in the desperate hope of awaking Juan from his life-long lethargy; but she found herself also

gripped in the toils of ambition. She washed, baked tortillas and cooked frijoles, and sold them to the Gringos. Before many weeks her cooking came to have a reputation among the Americano miners, and she was able to give up the harder work of washing. And she too, during the siesta hour, would cross the plaza to stare in the shop window, in mortal fear that the scales would be gone.

At length, after starvings, self-denials innumerable, and work inconceivable to a Mexican mind, the cigar box held the desired sum. It was the proudest moment of Juan Martinez' life when he stepped out of the jeweler's store and bore to the whitewashed hut the coveted scales. When they were unwrapped and set on the floor, he and Juanito gazed at them in rapt delight; but strange to say, Pepa felt an unaccountable desire to cry. She was afraid.

For now that she really owned the scales, she realized the folly of her mad inspiration. How was she to use them? And when, after an hour of rapture, Juan turned to her with that question, her heart sank. But only for a moment; another equally desperate idea had come to her, and she refused to give up in the hour of triumph. "This is the way," she said, with heart beating fast lest Juan should be angry at her presumption. "Now we have the scales, but before the charm will work there must be gold in them." She stopped to think for a moment. Now that Juanito was

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working, she would not have him stop. "The shop of Jose Marcial is empty, is it not?" Juan nodded, his brows knit. "Go, thou, Juan, and ask him to let us place these scales in the empty window. Nay, do not ask me questions."

Puzzled, but compliant, Juan sought the owner of the little shop. Marcial heard his request, and looked at him curiously.

"What will you stock the shop with, Juan ?" he asked.

"I have nothing, Senor, but these scales. I need nothing more, for it is a magic scale, and will bring me much wealth."

"Then use the shop," laughed Marcial, "and keep the rats and scorpions away until I find a tenant."

So the scales were set up in the empty shop, and Pepa sent out a message to the Indians in the hills, by what means she alone knew. But the stimulus was not lost; she insisted that there must be gold in the scales to draw other gold, so Juan and Juanito kept at work. Once more the centavos began to accumulate in the cigar box, and with sublime faith the father and son kept on saving. In fact, they found that the work was not so bad as they had always thought!

Then one day an Indian came to the hut where Pepa was baking her tortillas for the Americanos. He spoke one word, by which the woman knew that her message had reached the hills, and she answered it. The Indian dropped his zerape and pulled out a little bag.

"Do you, then, buy gold, Senora? You are of our own people, and will deal with us honestly, perchance."

"Si," replied Pepa, quickly. "I have scales, and I will deal honestly, which is more than these Mexicans will. Come with me."

So she led the Indian to the little shop, and there weighed out his gold dust on the scales. Every Mexican knows the value of gold dust, and she found barely enough in the cigar box to pay the Indian.

"It is well," he grunted. "Tell not

the rurales whence the gold comes, and we will bring it often."

Paz, there is a neat little whitewashed farmhouse, with a dozen acres of corn and beans around it. If you stop in for a plate of tortillas, you will find them most deliciously baked by an old half-caste woman. If you are there about sunset you will see an erect old man come in with his hoe over his shoulder, followed by a strapping young descendant of the Conquistadores, and you would go away wondering how on earth such prosperous, industrious family ever came to live in that land of lazy inhabitants. That is, unless you happened to see a battered old pair of jeweler's scales in the corner, and can persuade the smiling To-day, just outside San Luis de la Pepa to tell you their story!

The following day, Pepa sold the gold dust at a good profit, but said nothing to Juan about it. He was getting better wages now, and after several more visits from the Indians, Pepa announced one day that the magical scales had produced enough money to buy a small plot of ground with, but that if the ground were not cultivated they would most assuredly have bad luck. Juan, who now had full faith in whatever his wife said, promised faithfully that it would be cultivated, as did Juanito, and the ground was purchased.

ELECTRICITY

Behold! I am king of the world! I am Light!

I, enrobed in a rainbow of color and crowned
With the stars, am come forth to do battle with Dis
And his dreadful dominion of discord and dark.

Yet again I am Queen. I am Motion. I wield
A scepter that sways all the movements of men.
And my chariot outriding the courier of Death
In its swiftness brings Life; in its sureness brings Joy.

Yet, too, I am Mother of Earth. I am Warmth.

My deep cradling arms are to shelter the world;

To draw men together in strong, kindred ties,

And to give them a resting place, home, peace, health, love.

LANNIE HAYNES MARTIN.

A Half-Ripe Persimmon

By Bernard Freeman Trotter

I'

F you take my advice, Kenneth Kent, you'll let those people strictly alone," warned Rogers.

"Of course the girls may be all right-nobody seems to know anything about them-but the brother is more than a doubtful proposition, and some of the company they have at their camp off and on would make you feel like slipping a gun into your pocket just to look at them."

"Well, I haven't seen either the girls or the ex-convicts yet," laughed Kent, taking down his favorite Winchester and wiping the oil out of it, "so I'm safe for the present; but I met Sadie Richmond up in San Francisco, and she told me that when I came back here I must be sure to strike up an acquaintance with 'those awfully mysterious and romantic people' who were camped on the flat. She was quite chummy with one of the girls, but didn't find out much about them for all that. The girl was like a clam when it came to her family and its affairs. Sadie's just dying to know more about them; so I suppose I must oblige her if I can."

"If you follow Sadie Richmond's lead you're more than likely to get scorched," said Rogers. "She's playing with a very dangerous sort of fire when she allows herself to be courted by that young Harry Maber you met at her home. He's been down here visiting these people several times, he, and a pal named Hodgekin; and if I'm any judge of character I'd advise Sadie Richmond to cut them. Don't go hunting for trouble, Ken."

"I'll try not to; and in the meantime I'll go and have another skirmish

with that confounded squirrel."

So saying, Kent went out, tested his sights at a knot in the barn door, wandered over to within a few yards of the squirrel's hole, sat down, and waited for him to come up and be killed. He didn't come—but someone else did.

She knew where she was bound for: Mr. Kent realized that the moment she appeared coming up the drive. She walked with that determined air and gait which might be translated: I'll get there if it takes me all day. But it was quite as evident that she did not know how to get there. She made a feint at every trail she passed, and finally strayed along the path to the swimming hole. She was back in a minute. Mr. Kent grinned: Rogers had hung up a dead skunk along there to prevent interruptions during their ablutions. Then she caught sight of him, and headed direct.

"Buenos dias!!" she hailed from the far side of the squirrel-hole.

Kent nodded. He was watching the hole. It would have been just his luck to have that fellow pop up when he couldn't fire for fear of hitting her. All was serene, however, and she came on.

"I beg your pardon if I've interrupted your sport; but can you tell me how to get to that little cabin up there?" She pointed to a tiny brown dot far up on the mountainside above them. "I saw it from down in the valley-we're camping on the flatand made up my mind to see what it was."

So this was one of the girls from the ex-convicts' camp, eh? Kent felt

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