a day or two before (of course you have long since eaten them); that the Doña told her to sell them at a certain house, and she had made the mistake. You ask her the price, that being the only alternative, and it is a startling one. She is paid, and perhaps never again appears in your house, but she has amply paid you off for not buying the first article she offered.
Happily these people do not exist in great numbers, and, though incorrigible wherever found, strangers soon discover their transparent tricks.
The rebozo is the boon of all these women, as they can carry securely concealed any number of articles without being detected by human eyes.
The rebozo also often assists in making the head of the wearer assume a ludicrous shape. Take a rear view, as the women sit cuddled up in groups of several dozen, or even hundreds, on the celebration of some feast, and with the flickering lights of a thousand torches dancing over their tightly drawn head-gear, the resemblance to a school of seals, with their heads peeping out of the water, could not be more perfect.
The molendera is a woman who does the grinding on the metate, whether corn for tortillas, coffee, or spices. Should the molendera set up an establishment of her own, and make tortillas for sale, or, as is sometimes the case, go at certain hours each day and make them for families, she then becomes a tortillera.
These tortilleras are a separate and distinct class, and have their own rules and regulations for conducting business. They employ ten or a dozen women, who grind the corn and make the tortillas. When made, the women who sell them in the markets and streets come with their baskets and take them away, paying wholesale rates.
The proprietress of the establishment is called the patrona, and the Queen of Sheba never moved about with more dignity and consequence.
She pays her employés each day a real y medio, I have made it convenient to drop in at the hour for settling up with them.
