As Mrs. Jesus Sent Her Boy To My School, So Mrs. Flower Sent Her
Girl.
The latter was perhaps the most deluded woman I have met.
Her
every act was bad in itself or characterized by superstitious
devotion. She was one of the Church's favorite worshippers, and while
I was in the neighborhood she sold her cows and horses and presented
the priest at the nearest town with a large and expensive silver
cross - the emblem of suffering purity. Near her lived a person for
whom she had an especial aversion, but that enemy she got rid of in
surely the strangest of ways, which she described to me. Catching a
snake, and holding it so that its poison might not reach her, she
passed a threaded needle through both its eyes. When this was done
she let it go again, alive, and, carefully guarding the needle,
approached the person from behind and made a cross with the thread.
The undesired one disappeared, having probably heard of the
enchantment, and being equally superstitious, or - the charm worked!
Mrs. Flower was a most repulsive-looking creature. Her skin was
exactly the color of an old copper coin. She did not resemble any
flower I have seen in either hemisphere. Far was she from being a
rose, but she certainly possessed the thorn. Her love for the saints
was most marked, and I have known her promise St. Roque that she
would walk six miles carrying his image if he would only grant her a
certain prayer. This petition he granted, and off she trudged with
her divine (?) load. Those acquainted with dwellers on the prairie
know that this was indeed a great task, horses being so cheap and
riding so universal. Mrs. Flower was unaccustomed to walk even the
shortest distance. I myself can bear witness to the fact that even
strong men find it hard to walk a mile after spending years in
equestrian travel. The native tells you that God formed your legs so
that you might be able to sit on a horse rather than to walk with
them. A favorite expression with them is, "I was born on horseback."
Stone not being found on the pampas, these people generally build
their houses of square sods, with a roof of plaited grasses -
sometimes I have observed these beautifully woven together. Two or
more holes, according to the size of the house, are left to serve for
door and window. Wood cannot be obtained, glass has not been
introduced, so the holes are left as open spaces, across which, when
the pampa wind blows, a hide is stretched. No hole is left in the
roof for the smoke of the fire to escape, for this to the native is
no inconvenience whatever. When I have been compelled to fly with
racking cough and splitting head, he has calmly asked the reason.
Never could I bear the blinding smoke that issues from his fire of
sheep or cow dung burning on the earthen floor, though he heeds it
not as, sitting on a bullock's skull, he ravenously eats his evening
meal.
If entertaining a stranger, he will press uncut joint after joint of
his asado upon him. This asado is meat roasted over the fire on a
spit; if beef, with the skin and hair still attached. Meat cooked in
this way is a real delicacy. A favorite dish with them (I held a
different opinion) is a half-formed calf, taken before its proper
time of birth. The meat is often dipped in the ashes in lieu of salt.
I have said the Gaucho has no chair. I might add that neither has he
a table, for with his fingers and knife he eats the meat off the
fire. Forks he is without, and a horn or shell spoon conveys the soup
to his mouth direct from the copper pan. So universal is the use of
the shell for this service that the native does not speak of it as
caracol, the real word for shell, but calls it cuchara del agua,
or water spoon. Of knives he possesses more than enough, and heavy,
long, sharp-pointed ones they are. When his hunger is appeased the
knife goes, not to the kitchen, but to his belt, where, when not in
his hand, you may always see it. With that weapon he kills a sheep,
cuts off the head of a serpent - seemingly, however, not doing it much
harm, for it still wriggles - sticks his horse when in anger, and,
alas, as I have said, sometimes stabs his fellow-man. Being so far
isolated from the coast, he is necessarily entirely uneducated. The
forward march of the outer world concerns him not; indeed he imagines
that his native prairie stretches away to the end of the world. He
will gaze with wonder on your watch, for his only mode of
ascertaining the time is by the shadow the sun casts. As that
luminary rises and sets, so he sleeps and wakes. His only bed is the
sheepskin, which when riding he fastens over his saddle, and the
latter article forms his pillow. His coverlet is the firmament of
heaven, the Southern Cross and other constellations, unseen by
dwellers in the Northern Hemisphere, seeming to keep watch over him;
or in the colder season his poncho, which I have already described.
Around his couch flit the fireflies, resembling so many stars of
earth with their strangely radiant lights. The brightness of one,
when held near the face of my watch, made light enough to enable me
to ascertain the hour, even on the darkest night.
The Gaucho with his horse is at home anywhere. When on a journey he
will stop for the evening meal beside the dry bones of some dead
animal. With these and grass he will make a fire and cook the meat he
carries hanging behind him on the saddle. I have known an animal
killed and the meat cooked with its own bones, but this is not usual.
Dry bones burn better, and thistle-stalks better still.
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