With the splashing and the
leaking and the dripping, the floor turned to mud and the white
clothes and towels were covered with it, and I myself was a
sight to behold. The Indian stood smiling at my plight. He spoke
only a pigeon English, but said, "too much-ee wet."
I was in despair; things began to look hopeless again to me. I
thought "surely these Mexicans must know how to manage with these
floors." Fisher, the steamboat agent, came in, and I asked him
if he could not find me a nurse. He said he would try, and went
out to see what could be done.
He finally brought in a rather forlorn looking Mexican woman
leading a little child (whose father was not known), and she said
she would come to us for quinze pesos a month. I consulted with
Fisher, and he said she was a pretty good sort, and that we could
not afford to be too particular down in that country. And so she
came; and although she was indolent, and forever smoking
cigarettes, she did care for the baby, and fanned him when he
slept, and proved a blessing to me.
And now came the unpacking of our boxes, which had floated down
the Colorado Chiquito. The fine damask, brought from Germany for
my linen chest, was a mass of mildew; and when the books came to
light, I could have wept to see the pretty editions of Schiller,
Goethe, and Lessing, which I had bought in Hanover, fall out of
their bindings; the latter, warped out of all shape, and some of
them unrecognizable.
