THE LITTLE MATADOR
This is the story of three brothers who lived in Mexico.
As you know, in each country of our wide wonderful
world there is one sport that brings fame and
identity to its own land.
Boys in Sweden hope to become champion skiers. In
Switzerland, being a fine mountain climber and guide is
important to the young men. In the U.S., boys look to their
idols in baseball and football. But in Mexico, to be a bullfighter
is to reach a goal of importance and one much
sought after.
And so I will you a tale of three fine Mexican
brothers.
Juan Luis, Fernando, and Jose lived on a
beautiful ranch not far from Mexico City.
The land was rich and green. Mrs. DeCita and
her sons had a great love for this ranch and the magnificent
bulls that were raised there.
Since her husband had died, she and the boys continued the work
with the help of old Carlos who knew everything there was to
know about these big ferocious looking animals.
Fat lovable Carlos rode around the ranch all the long day
seeing that everything was being done well. Usually seven-yearold
Jose could be found beside him. Jose, more than anything
else in the world, wanted to be a matador like Juan Luis, his
eldest brother.
Juan was a bullfighter of great fame.
Whenever he was to appear in the
ring many thousands of people
would crowd the arena to see him. Fernando, his
second eldest brother, was quite good at bullfighting
also. Of course it would be many years before
Fernando would be ready to make his debut in
the ring, but at fourteen he was already practicing
with the young bulls on the ranch.
On this particular day Juan Luis was at home.
In two days he was to enter the ring with the great
bull Toro in Mexico City. No one had yet dared to
fight this big animal. He was huge and black and
mean. But Juan Luis knew that he could never call
himself the greatest bullfighter in all Mexico until he
