No one who had not seen such a walk would realize how well whales'
vertebrae will answer for paving. Some of the old vertebrae had now
sunk below the original level of the walk, so that the path by which
a person went to the old adobe house beyond the red hollyhocks was
somewhat uneven as to surface.
The long, low house was partly roofed with tiles, and the adobe
walls of the dwelling were a yard thick, as any one might see who
looked at the windowsills.
On one of these broad sills Isabelita leaned, her black eyes fixed
on the bone gate-posts that she could see through the blossoming
hollyhocks. There was a displeased expression on the young girl's
face. She was watching for her brother Timoteo, who would soon come
from school.
"He must go for the cow tonight," resolved Isabelita aloud in
Spanish. "I will not go! I wish the Americans had never come to this
town! In the old days, my father says, there were no cattle notices
on the trees. My father did not have to go for cows every night!"
And Isabelita frowned as she remembered the notices about letting
cattle run loose upon the highway.
These Spanish--and--English notices were now nailed on pines here
and there along the roads, and proved a source of inquiry to
wandering Americans who saw the boards with their heading:
"AVISO!!"
preceded by two inverted exclamation points and followed by two
others in the upright position--that some Americans have perhaps
been wont to think is the only attitude in which an exclamation
point can stand, Americans not being accustomed to the ease with
which an exclamation point can stand on its head, when used in
Spanish literature.
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