cotton clothes and a palm-leaf hat, invited the captain and the cabin boy to his home for breakfast.
Inside the walls of the city were low, one and two storied houses. They were colored pink and blue and lemon yellow. They were roofed with fluted red tiles from Spain. The streets were narrow. There was a public square, a palace for the royal governor, and a cath-e-dral where ladies went to church. They wore black gowns, and shawls of black lace on their heads. In the house they wore white or gaily colored silk.
Juan (Wan) and Dolores (Dol'o-rees) ate their breakfast in the patio. The patio was inside the garden of a Spanish house. The house was built all around it. The patio was paved with marble. It was open to the blue sky. There was a fountain in it. Palms and pink o-le-an'ders, and orange trees with white blossoms and golden fruit, grew in tubs. It was cool and quiet.
The children were cool and quiet, too. They wore white cotton clothes, and sandals without stockings. They had soft black eyes and pale, cream-tinted faces. They were very polite, but rather lazy. Negro slaves waited on them. They ate oranges and bananas and pineapples. They drank chocolate and cocoanut milk. They gave their visitors salted olives and sugary raisins from Spain. If a visitor admired anything they said: "Take it, señor; it is yours." But unless it was some trifle he was not expected to take it.
These Spanish children were rich—oh, very rich. Their father had been to Mexico, or Central America, or South America. He went with Spanish soldiers who had guns and swords and cannon. They found Indians who were different from those in the north. These Indians had built cities and palaces and temples. Some of them had built stone roads over mountains and deserts. They worked the mines, and had treasures of gold and silver. But they had no guns or cannon. The Spanish soldiers killed the strong men, and made slaves of the children. They made these slaves go into the mines for more gold and silver. Most of them died. Ship loads of wealth were sent back to Spain. Rich Spaniards went back, too. Only some poor soldiers, and black slaves and dying Indians stayed behind, to build towns and make farms. After the gold and silver was all taken away, the Spanish king still kept soldiers and officers in Havana and other towns. He made all these poor people pay taxes. It was four hundred years before all these Spanish countries in America won their freedom from Spain. One of the
