Page:Creole Sketches.djvu/123

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.

A MEXICAN'S GRATITUDE[1]

A pretty little story comes to me from Algiers.[2]

Some years ago, during the spring months, a vessel sailing from Vera Cruz arrived at this port with a swarthy Mexican crew. While toiling under the hot sun, one of the men became seriously ill; and when the vessel was ready to sail, it was found necessary to leave him behind. The circumstances are not precisely known to us, beyond the fact that a young girl found him early in the morning lying in the shadow of a pile of timber, a prey to one of those strange fevers that make one shiver with cold even under a sky of fire. He asked for water in his broken English, and the girl procured assistance from her home, which was not far off. Pity pre-

  1. Item, April 12, 1880.
  2. A suburb of New Orleans.