Mayflower (Flor de mayo)

rregular line of housetops was just beginning to stand out against an ashen background of sky brightening with the first glow of morning. The night watch-men were unhooking their lanterns from t

g to clang with the first calls to the mass of sunrise, some of the bells droning and indistinct like the voices of old women, others shril

sky was growing gradually brighter as if numberless thin veils were being torn asunder one by one from across the pathway of the invisible sun. A gray, cold pallor was stealing over the darker alleys and side streets, while, like a fade-in on the cinema screen, the contours of the town began to come into clearer vi

s throwing out its final belches of thick black smoke, which spread curling over the field of space in an ever-widening blotch. In the neighborhood of the Sea Bridge, the customs agents, burying their faces in

ever successful in reaching market without a string of brawls with the guards who laid the duties on their goods. The produce wagons and the milch cows with their rattling bells had gone through before daybreak. Only the fisherwom

nly because the drivers, huddled low in their seats, their coat collars turned up over their ears, kept pulling at the reins. The black bodies of the two-wheeled wagons pitched about over the ruts in the road like old belly-cracked boats tossing at the mercy of the waves. The wagon-hoods showed their

Fishmarket, sitting in rows with their baskets, might have been seen, each woman wearing a checkered shawl, with a colored kerchief covering breast and shoulders. So the rickety carts came on, leaving behind them as the

he platform of the scales, each covered with a wet cloth. From underneath the strip of canvas shone the silver of a herring or the vermilion of a salmon, or the greenish blue of a lobster's claw, quivering with the tremor of agony. Alongside the baskets lay the bigger fish, broad-tailed sea-bas

d to bring a fragrance of life into that nauseating ambient of sea-carrion. Waiting for their turn, the fish-women were blarneying with customs men or idlers who stood about looking at the big fish with the curiosity of landlubbers. Mean

epithet native to the shores of the Mediterranean. Rivals, on meeting here again after a set-to on the beach the day before, would revive the passions of the unsettled argument, annotating insults with obscene gestures, emphasizing accusations with cadenced slapping of hands on thighs, or lifting clenched fists

, were not the men to accept such taunts in silence. Indecencies, blasphemies, slanderous genealogies be

her arms folded behind her back, her magnificent bust thrown forward, smiling with satisfied complacency at the interested glances that reached her tan shoes and the red stockings so blatantly advertising her well-shaped ank

a mind to use it! The wife of Pascualo el Retor, besides, a good-natured fat-head who ate out of her hand and never dared peep inside his own house

ticed her real pearl earrings, or the Algerian scarf, or the red-flannel petticoat from Gibraltar the Rector had given her! In fact, the only woman she thought quite her class was "Granny" Picores, agüela Picores, a veteran of the Fis

bdomens and adding a grotesque enlargement to those already conspicuous bulges. But at last the weighing of the fish could begin: "Hey there, me first, you--!" "No, my turn, you--!" "You were first yesterday!" The usual morning fight for precedence was on, waiting for arbitration by tia Picores, with her cannonading voice and formidabl

en the laggart fish-woman had reached the nearer end of the bridge, near the customs offic

And what can you expect from a

d at Dolores, with what hatred her exhaustion could let gather in her eyes. Then she sat down on the burden she had been car

afraid to be seen walking. She couldn't hire a coach-in-four-by playing fast and loose with her husband! "And it's me you're talking to!" exclaimed Dolores, stepping forward with blood in her eyes. But she did not go far. For her "Granny's" clawed talons were upon her shoulder, pulling her back. "Into the cart with you! Your fish is weighed! No public scenes to-day! I

e vorem,

osario, her arms really so weak and flaccid, laid hold on a heavy bas

house fronts and window-panes with the reddening brilliancy of a conflagration. The town was now quite awake. The street-cars were crowded with people, and the sidewalks on either hand were lined with still drowsy laborers on

intervals were being milked. The sheet-iron coverings of store windows were being raised, letting the light in upon the colorful displays inside.

osses, they trooped in line through the narrow cell-like doors of the fish-portico, fetid air-holes, through which the stenches from inside poured out. The baskets were dumped on

hen, weather-beaten features indigence was drawn in its most ghastly outlines. Every eye was aglow with the wild gleam of fever; and the odors that came from clothes, here, had not the vigorous pungency of the open seashore, but the subtle nausea of swamp land and the infectious muck of stagnant pools. The bags these women were emptying on the tables were squirming masses of life. As the eels came out they twisted into rings of black slime, or wriggled on t

come running by, sniffing at the offals lying around and with a snort of disgust passing on toward the neighboring porticos, where the butchers were holding forth. The fish-women who had been playfully twitting each other an hour before in their tartanas or at the customs house now sat watching each other, whenever a marketer came along, with hostile jealousy. An atmosphere of struggle, of relentless competition pervaded the ill-smelling, reeking environment

r maids; and her drawling voice always had the last word in the disputes that went on. Her hair-raising obscenity and the apothegms from her philosophy of shame, which she got off with the solemnity of an oracle, were the principal sources of mirth throughout the portico. The stall across the aisle in front of her belonged to Dolores, who worked with her sleeves rolled up, playing with the bright, gilded scales she owned or showing her beautiful teeth in coquettish smiles when men came by. F

n. "Thief! Thief! He was my customer-one of my best! And you've taken him away! I sell fish, I do; but you sell ...!" And the pale, bony cheeks of the frail, overworked Rosario flamed red with spite and her gleaming eyes flashed fire. Dolores,

re you steal my customers and down at the Caba?al you steal ... well, you steal ... something else ... something else.... She's not fooling me, I can tell you, even if she is pulling the wool over her husband's eyes ... dolt that he is, fool of a Rector, who don't know his chin from his elbow." But Dolores was not moved from her patronizing self-possession. She could see from the faces of the onlookers that every one was wondering how she would take those allusions to herself and her good-natured husband; and she was not going to let the Fishmarket have a day's fun at her expense. "Close your mouth, deary, be

rward over their counters with the eager appetites of furies, clacking their tongues as though they were sicking two dogs upon each other an

Don't talk to me

d a resonant slap on the pair of spacious hips that trembled un

section doubled up in the gripes of joy, while the hilarity found its outer boundaries in the meat-market, stalls and stalls away. Staid

that stall! Show your face out here where I can get at you, you low-lived street-walker!" And Dolores did show her face. Rolling her sleeves up still higher, as though clearing for action, she strode forth fr

antagonist. It was a shock of nerve on muscle. Dolores was scarcely stirred, and the blows Rosario rained on her did not seem even to ruffle her temp

gony and raised both hands to one

"Was that the way to fight fairly?" she moaned. That showed the kind of woman she had to deal with. People had gone to jail for life for less than that! Then, whipped to a violent rage by the pain she felt, she started once more for her enemy. B

at all!" Some one threw a big handkerchief over the bleeding ear of the wounded girl. The women were all in their places looking straight ahead as solemnly as in church, and calling off their prices with laughable mechanicalness. As the officers passed from counter to counter the market was again in turmoil, but of a different kind. "What are those dudes doing in here? Some people never kn

turned toward her enemy, but she was doing her best to stifle the cries that her pain was almost tearing from her. Tia Picores seemed to be in a thoughtful mood, as she talked aloud and in monologue to the fish lying about in front of her. And those spit-fires would keep at it for the rest of their lives, eh

ping chops-and she swallowed it in a few hurried mouthfuls. Then, wiping her furrowed face with her dirty, greasy a

ia Picores made up her mind to a thing, she got what she wanted, even if God himself got in the way, even if she had to lick half of Spain to get it. Tia Picores had a bit of a tempe

clenching her fists and s

l in the family! And lucky you are in the family, both of you. That gives you a chance to make up. She tore your ear? Now, now, Dolores, think of those blows

like that-sneaks, do you hear? When you fight, you fight straightforward and honest. Strike as hard as you want, but where it won't do any harm. Man alive! In my time I've pulled the hair of every wench in the market. You get their skirts up, and you take your shoe, and there, where it's all soft and tender, whack, whack, whack, till they have to sit on one side for a week. But after that ... a cup of chocolate in the café, and then ... better friends than ever. Yes, sir, that's the way respectable people fight. And that's what you are going to do, if I have to lick you every inch of the way. You won't, eh! Well, we'll see! Dolores is stealing your man, eh!

ent the sturdy dean of the fish-women went mutteri

collecting their baskets, large and small, and piling them up in the tails of their rickety tartanas. Tia Picores was putting on her checked shawl and chatting, in the middle of the portico, with a group of old women of her time who went s

skirts went out of the Pescadería, the flagstones echoing to the clatter of heavy shoes. In Indian file the women crossed the crowded market, where the last bargainings were in progress, tia Picores opening her way through the throngs with her vigorous elbows, behind her the bevy of wrinkly-faced, yellow-eyed veterans,

tchen. Tia Picores gave a grunt of satisfaction as she settled into a chair. Chocolate after the day's work was her greatest comfort in life. How well she knew that little café, with its striped matting on the floor, its white tiled walls, its frosted glass windows with red

t there, however, barely touching the good things in front of them, their chins on their breasts and avoiding each other's eyes. But when tia Picores's cup was almost empty her thundering voice came out to change the situation. "Did you ever see such a pair of sillies! Still mad, still mad! Well, well, the girls in the Market these days are not what they used to be! Once their faces are out of joint, there's no ironing them out again! Mad once, mad for always, eh! Couldn't be worse if they were tony folks up town! No, there's something wrong with the hearts of girls nowadays. And if you don't believe it just see here. Is there one of you at this table that at some time or other hasn't had her hair pu

así no has

llet, y got

n-water instead with gulps and gapes of satisfaction. Tia Picores, meanwhile, was getting angry at the steadfast balkiness of the two rivals. "Well, now, speak up, numskulls! Haven't you tongues in yo

embarrassment with the ends of her shawl. She muttered something or other ab

tarted li

the time, and be made the talk of half Spain. All those stories about me and Tonet are lies of people who don't know how else to make trouble in a good family.... Tonet went with me before Pascualo and I were married. Well, was it wrong to marry his brother? Bosh! Was I the first to do a thing like that? Well, why

that girl after all, come now! Well, Rosario! Are you satisfied

got so much more hold on you. No, indeed, women have got to stand their ground, good and hard, the way I did. My husband? Why, if he ever went on a rampage, I brought him to order mighty quick, I did; and the first thing he knew he was for asking my pardon. Was there ever a man in the world worth getting jealous over? Not much! Why worry then? Do you ever know where your man is when he is away from home? Of course, you

like quarreling and lying all the time. But the old woman did not let her talk. "All nonsense! Nonsense! Good wife, good husband! Such rot makes me sick! You've got to take men as God made them, haven't you, girls?" And the "girls" assented with approving nods of their aged heads. "Count t

majestically. "Put those bags back where they belong! This is all mine, all mine! I'm celebrating to-day. We've put some sense into these girls' heads!" And lifting her skirt and petticoat, she unhooked her own bag from a belt she wore next to her skin. From it came a pair of scissors she used in opening fish with

the sidewalk with Dolores. The two girls were lo

Picores suggested. "We'll be a bi

t. The wagon creaked under these two solid additions to its burden, but finally drove off with a music of squeaking joints and loose wheels. Rosa