“If religious instruction can be called education.” “At any rate, the nuns provide you orphans with an education,” I said.
“Well, you have heard him stutter and stammer and flounder when he speaks here in class.” “And ay de mi, so he is,” said Rebeca with a pearly grin. “Both his names mean ‘dim, foggy, stupid’!” “Ayya!” I exclaimed, half laughing, half pitying. “But that ‘drab’ yonder”-she discreetly indicated him-“the pardo boy, the ugly one, being also an orphan living at the Refiigio, was named by the nuns Niebla Zonzón.” “At least I was given a decent first name,” Rebeca went on. Every child was dear to us, and any one of them left alone in the world was instantly, eagerly adopted by some man and wife, whether they were forlornly childless or had a home teeming with other children. And that was simply because no child was ever abandoned or cast away or foisted upon the community. But we had no word for orphan in any of the native languages that I knew. Among us indios, there were of course children who suffered the loss of father or mother or both-to disease or war or some other disaster. Here was an aspect of Spanish custom that I had not encountered before.
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