e next morning all
the ground was strewn with locusts trying heavily to fly. The ancient
drum of the town-crier ushered in the day of work, and those who took
this opportunity to pay their taxes gathered at the _municipio_--about
a hundred ugly-looking men. They were equipped with working bolos,
with their blades as sharp as scythes for cutting grass, and, looking
at them, you were forcibly reminded of another day, another army
with a similar accouterment. Even the _presidente_ went barefooted
as he gave directions for the work. Some were dispatched for _nipa_
and bamboo, while others mowed the grass around the church. Another
squad hauled heavy timbers, singing as they pulled in unison.

On Sunday mornings a young carabao was killed. The meat hacked off with
little reference to anatomy was hung up in the public stall among the
swarms of flies. Old women came and handled every piece, and haggled
a good deal about the price. Each finally selected one, and swinging
it from a short piece of cane, carried it home in triumph. Morning
mass was held at the big _simbahan_, where the doleful music of the
band suggested lost souls wailing on the borders of Cocytus or the
Stygian creek. Young _caballeros_ dressed in white, the _concijales_
with their silver-headed canes and baggy trousers, and the "_taos_"
in diaphanous and flimsy shirts that they had not yet learned to tuck
inside, stood by to watch the _senoritas_ on their way to church. The
girls walked rather stiffly in their tight shoes; but as soon as mass
was over, shoes and stockings came off, and the villagers relaxed
into the bliss of informality.

I learned, when I last went to _La Aurora_, that Felicidad was going
to be married; that the banns had been announced last Sunday in
the church. The groom to be, Benito,--or Bonito as we called him on
account of his good looks,--had recently returned from college in Cebu,
bringing a string of fighting cocks, a _fonografo_, and a piebald
racing pony. "When he sent me the white ribbon," said Felicidad,
"I was surprised, but mamma said that I was old enough to marry him--I
was fourteen--and that the matter had been all arranged. And so I wore
the ribbon in my hair, and also wrote my name _Felicidad_ beneath his
on the card that he had sent. And after that, when we went walking,
the _duena_ was unnecessary."

She confessed naively to a serenade under her balcony, of which I
seem to have retained a hazy memory. And so the usual