La Paja Brava was the name of the estate my
ancient friend and neighbour, Don Evaristo, had bought so many years
before:
No doubt I should find some of the family, and they would give
me a horse and anything I wanted.
The house, when I approached it next morning, strongly reminded me of
the old home of the family many leagues away, only it was if possible
more lonely and dreary in appearance, without even an old half-dead
acacia tree to make it less desolate. The plain all round as far as
one could see was absolutely flat and treeless, the short grass burnt
by the January sun to a yellowish-brown colour; while at the large
watering-well, half a mile distant, the cattle were gathering in vast
numbers, bellowing with thirst and raising clouds of dust in their
struggles to get to the trough.
I found Don Evaristo himself in the house, and with him his first and
oldest wife, with several of the grown-up children. I was grieved to
see the change in my old friend; he had aged greatly in seven years;
his face was now white as alabaster, and his full beard and long hair
quite grey. He was suffering from some internal malady, and spent most
of the day in the large kitchen and living-room, resting in an easy-
chair. The fire burnt all day in the hearth in the middle of the clay
floor, and the women served mate and did their work in a quiet way,
talking the while; and all day long the young men and big boys came
and went, coming in, one or two at a time, to sip mate, smoke, and
tell the news - the state of the well, the time the water would last,
the condition of the cattle, of horses strayed, and so on.
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