Part 19

Reeking with inherited consumption, they live the one life which is certain to kill them before they are forty. Wet through and chilled, they are called upon again and again to suddenly exert enormous strength, since no man can desert his cart. He must "get there." He must get out of his trouble. He eats largely when and how he can, and when he has saved any money the merry "Taba" bone charms it from him in a way too universal perhaps to call for any remark. Sometimes he finishes his carting days through too decided opinions as to the other man's integrity in playing "Taba"; sometimes on his canvas bed in a hut of mud and branches, his browny yellow face and sunken eyes asking no pity, betraying no emotion; in either case he is rarely over thirty-five and often leaves a wife and children.

I say "wife and children," since it sounds the usual thing; but, as a matter of strict fact, the ceremony of getting married is deprecated among them, as it signifies "Putting on side," and is only resorted to when they are in a village and there is a chance that the presents that are given will more than compensate the tremendous expense they have to go to. Speaking to a gentleman of this kidney, I was informed that when the cross-eyed blacksmith Strike got married, it cost him three dollars and a-half (say 5s.) in fire crackers alone, and my informant went on to say that the only case he knew of where marriage had been really successful was that of the fair-haired carpenter, who was married and asked all the bosses on the place, who each gave something, with which he was able to buy a sewing machine for the eldest girl, then aged six.

But, mark you, lest you should judge them lightly, remember that their unwritten pact is just as binding to them as our formal marriage tie is to us, and that in their way they are probably better husbands and fathers than your Balham clerk. In their young days they may chop and change, which changes are generally marked by little iron crosses in the woods, but, once they have settled down, desertion is far rarer than in civilised countries. I have seen a native workman with his shoulder blade in his arm-pit, his face cut to ribbons, and with pieces of casting sticking to his back through the carrying away of a crane, cavil against the idea of being taken into the township where the doctor was, lest his old woman, unused to a town life, should find the surroundings uncongenial. This in a broken, muttered whisper, twelve hours after the accident had happened, during which time every new arrival had been called upon to witness the peculiar nature of his injuries.

Much has been said about the terrible wickedness of the lower-class native, his gambling, his immorality, his almost fanatical desire to murder everyone he sees; and for complete and detailed lists of crimes and monstrosities appeal to any newcomer, who will be delighted to hold forth on the subject; but when one has lived with them and worked with them under varying conditions, and has suffered in some degree what they suffer, one hesitates to condemn them offhand.

Blackguards they are--but manly, humorous blackguards. Immoral, one must confess them to be, according to our lights, but even in England "Custom from time immemorial" is held as law.

The vast majority will steal raw hide gear as a cat steals fish, but will not touch your money, much as in a community of young men property is common to all with the same exception. They will lie if scared, or rather will substitute for the truth something they think you would like to hear, and they will do as little work as you will let them.

But, have a bad case of sickness in the house and ask a man to go out at midnight with the carriage to get the doctor, or to go on horseback on his own horse twenty miles for medicine, and he goes as quietly and pleasantly as though he were going about the most commonplace work. He expects no tip, no extra wage, nor is he lauded as a hero. He may have come down, horse and all, in the dark, but is happy if he has not smashed the bottle of medicine, and he resumes his work on return, just as if he hadn't been up all night riding at a hard canter over broken ground full of holes and snags.

No, he is by no means an ideal worker, neither is he half so bad as he's painted, and I'd rather meet him in the next world than lots of men who boss him in this.

MY FRIEND THE AXEMAN.

MY FRIEND THE AXEMAN.

Eighty square leagues of dense forest. One is inclined to feel a trifle small and overcome when this fraction of Mother Earth is put into one's hands (metaphorically), with orders to know all about it and to be able to answer all questions as to what is going on in it.

The work is like most other occupations: not quite so romantic as it sounds at first, but as interesting as one cares to make it.

One's main employment can best be illustrated by a leaf out of a mental diary.

Fulano de Tal, axeman, wants credit for provisions at the almacen or general store--Has he sufficient wood cut to warrant it? It is the Mayor-domo's business to find out.

With this end in view, he rides along "The Mangy" watercourse till he comes to the lowland of "The Blind Cow." The barking of half a dozen mongrel curs leads him into the edge of the forest, and he comes upon the residence of Fulano de Tal. The man has perhaps recently moved to this spot, and has not had time or energy to build himself a "rancho," and therefore the homestead consists of about four yards of canvas stretched across the branch of a tree like the roof of a tent.

Beneath this is a "New Home" sewing machine, a Brummagem bedstead, and a small trunk, made burglar-proof by innumerable bands and fastenings of bright tin, or even gilt wall-paper. Scattered around are the little Fulanos, in costumes varying from nothing to very little.

Their mother ceases her cooking operations, wipes her hands on the nearest child's head, and invites the visitor to dismount.

He answers that he is looking for her husband, and she directs him with a sweep of the hand which covers a quadrant of the compass and includes several square leagues of thick forest. Taking a likely track, however, he soon hears the ring of axe-strokes, and finds his man patiently chipping away at a felled tree, which is rapidly taking the form of a baulk, with the sides as smooth as if sawn.

His horse is tied up near, and he takes the Mayor-domo through his "corte," showing him the wood prepared for the carters. Give him a chance and he will count every log twice (most likely he has already plastered mud over the marks which show the rotten patch in the wood, and is wondering whether he has cleared the black sufficiently off a piece of "campana" to persuade a reasonable man that it is really fresh wood).

It is part of the inspector's stock in trade to know these and a myriad other tricks, too numerous to take separately.

The typical axeman in the Santa Fé Chaco is more genuinely "childlike" than, and quite as "bland" as, the famous Celestial. He never quite grows up; he will spend his last dollar on a mouth-organ when he is forty, and give a wild war-whoop of delight as a stack of newly piled sleepers falls crashing to the ground.

He loves sweets and the bright clothes which he wears with childish dignity on feast-days and holidays.

His amour propre is tremendous, and influences his code of honour to a great extent. The first ten commandments he will break most cheerfully, but the eleventh--"Thou shalt not be found out"--he respects to the best of his power.

Stealing, for instance, he regards as a pastime, but call him a thief and you must be prepared for trouble. A perfect instance of this can be quoted in the case of an estanciero who found a peon wearing one of his shirts.

"You are wearing my shirt," said the master. "No, Señor; I bought it in the store." "But you stole it from me," insisted the estanciero, pointing to the tab at the front, where his name was written in marking ink; "there is my name on it."

The man, being quite illiterate, had not reckoned on such damning evidence, but he recovered himself and replied with dignity: "Very well, Señor; if it is yours, take it; but don't call me a thief."

Honesty is with them, admittedly, a matter of degree. A man will always say if questioned about some small deficiency, "Do you think I would swindle you for a matter of two dollars?" or "Do you think I would risk my credit with the Company for the sake of one calf?" To be honest in a case where a larger profit is involved is a height of integrity to which he does not even pretend. "I am going to be frank with you"--that is an expression which puts the wise man on his guard, for it is generally followed by a cascade of lies.

Business must be done on a completely different basis to that which obtains in England. To return to our friend Fulano, for instance: he wishes perhaps to ask for an increase of fifty cents per ton on his wood, and introduces the subject by a short conversation about the points of his horse, passing on to the bad state of the bullocks and enlarging on the chance of a rainy winter. You have just decided that he has nothing more to say and are preparing to leave him, when he makes his request with as much circumlocution as possible. To have come straight to the point would have been contrary to all his ideas of correct procedure.