THE FARMER AND HIS HOME.
Puerto Rico is a country of farmers. Nearly five-sixths of the people live in the country. Their homes are scattered along the valleys, on the hills, and even on the mountain tops; for the land is fertile everywhere.
[Illustration: THE PUERTO RICAN FARMER IN TOWN.]
We have seen the homes and home life of the people in the city. Now let us take a jaunt out into the country to see how the farmers and the plantation laborers live.
Here is a farmer now, coming down the street. He is on his way to the market. His horse is a thin, mean-looking little beast. His produce is carried in baskets, and his machete is sticking out of one of these.
This machete he always carries with him. He could not get along without it. It is a large, long, clumsy knife, something like a corn-cutter. Sometimes he uses it to cut a way for himself and pony through the forest, or on the bridle paths overgrown with plants and vines after the rainy season.
When he has sold his load of vegetables and fruit, we will ride out with him to his home and visit some of the plantations.
We saw many peasant farmers and laborers in the market place, and found them polite, shrewd, bright in conversation, but very ignorant and somewhat indolent.
They are quite content with their way of living, and take no thought for the future. A Puerto Rican farmer thinks himself rich and fortunate if he owns a horse, a cow, some game-cocks, a gun and an acre of land.
He is simple in his tastes and buys little in the market. His rice flour, corn meal and coffee he has prepared at home, by pounding in wooden mortars or grinding between stones.
His patch of land he plants with corn, sweet potatoes and other vegetables. Bananas, plantains and other fruits grow wild and may be had for the picking.
His vegetables, fruit and poultry he takes to the market and sells, but only when compelled to do so by necessity.
This money is spent for clothing or other articles, or perhaps lost in gambling.
Only the lightest kind of clothing is necessary; for the coldest days are not so cold as our mild autumn days.
The dress of the farmer consists of a cotton jacket, white shirt and check pantaloons. His head is protected from the hot rays of the sun by a large broad-brimmed hat. This is made from the grass which grows around his doorway. No shoes are needed.
The dress of his wife is a simple white cotton gown, and his children wear no clothes at all.
[Illustration: HOME OF A PEASANT FARMER OF THE BETTER CLASS.]
The houses or homes of the peasant farmers are nearly all alike. They are built in a few days, from poles and royal palm bark. They are thatched with leaves of the palm or with grass. These huts are usually divided into two rooms.
There are no chimneys, often no windows, and but one door. A very poor house, you think; but then it is only intended for a shelter. It shields them from the damp and cool winds of night and the daily rains of the rainy season. At other times they live outside.
There is no stove, and of cooking utensils there are few. The cooking is done for the most part outside the house, when the weather is dry, on a sheet of iron or in an iron kettle. The food is served in gourd dishes and eaten with gourd spoons.
During the rainy season the people live in great discomfort. The cooking must be done inside the hut at this time. As there is no chimney, the room is soon filled with smoke, which can only escape through the openings under the eaves.
Would you like to see the furniture of one of these poor cabins? It consists of a few calabash shells used for eating vessels; some rude earthen pots; a tin cup, perhaps; two or three hammocks made of the bark of the palm tree, and a machete.
Bunches of dried herbs and gourds dangle on the walls, but there are no pictures, curtains, or ornaments of any kind.
At night the people sleep on the floor, or in hammocks. They spend much of the day also in swinging to and fro in their hammocks, smoking, and playing on their guitars and other native musical instruments.
By the door the family dog and the naked babies tumble in the dirt. Perhaps there is a pig and some poultry; but there is sure to be a game-cock or two.
Near the house is the garden. In this are raised sweet potatoes, beans, squashes, muskmelons, peppers, gourds, calabashes, bananas and plantains.
The farmers we see at work have their oxen harnessed to rude plows by the horns. The ground is so rich it is not necessary to plow it very deep.
An acre of good land here will produce more vegetables and fruit than in most other countries.
Riding through the country we see plantations of coffee, sugar cane or tobacco, and also stock farms. Puerto Rico is fertile from the mountain tops to the sea. It is rich in pasture lands, shaded with groves of palm trees, and watered by hundreds of streams.
Here and there herds of horses and cattle and flocks of sheep graze on the plains. When we approach the flocks of sheep, we discover a very curious thing. The wool on these sheep is not at all like the wool on the sheep raised in our own country. It is more like the hair of the goat.
Cattle are highly valued by the people, not only for dairy and food purposes, but as beasts of burden and draft.
Outside of the large plantations, crops are raised on a small scale; and modern implements and machinery are almost unknown.
[Illustration: A MOUNTAIN VILLAGE IN PUERTO RICO.]
Most of the land is divided up into very small farms or garden patches, or is taken up by groves.
In the interior of the country are many little villages, shut out from the rest of the world. We reach them by the narrow horse-trails that wind in and out among the mountains.
THE LABORER'S HILLSIDE HOME.
Perched on the hilltops and sides, shaded by banana trees, are the picturesque little huts of the laborers. Most of them pay no rent. Land owners give them small patches of ground on the hillsides, which they themselves do not care to till, in order to have the laborers near or on the plantations to assist in cultivating or harvesting the sugar cane, tobacco and coffee crops.
Here the peasant laborers build their cabins; and, when there is no work for them on the plantations, they tend their gardens in a haphazard way. By working a little each day they manage to make a scant living.
Five months of the year they labor for their landlords, receiving about fifty cents a day.
The laborer is often paid in plantains. Fifty plantains are a day's pay. On this he feeds his family, for the plantain is the Puerto Rican peasant's bread.
The plantains left are taken to market and sold. One day a week is lost in this way, for the market is often twenty miles away.
Near a stream on the mountain side we see a group of women. Some of them are sitting on stones by the bank; others are standing in the hot sun in midstream, and all are washing.
It is wash day, and they have brought their clothes here to wash them.
They have no tubs, wash-boards, clothes-pins, or clothes-lines.
Sometimes they have no soap. In place of this, they use the seed or
roots of the soapberry tree.
The soap-seed tree bears several months in the year. The seed is inclosed in a yellow skin, and is black, and about the size of a marble. The leaf of a vine, called the soap vine is also used for the purpose of washing clothes.
The clothes are first soaked in the stream or pond, and then spread upon a broad, smooth stone; after which they are pounded with clubs or stones. When they are clean, they are spread out upon the bushes to dry and bleach.
[Illustration: COOKING THE EVENING MEAL.]
Then the tired women rest under the trees, and chat, and perhaps smoke until evening. When the hot sun has gone down in the west, they make their damp and dry clothes up into huge bundles, lift them to their heads, and plod homeward.
Let us follow them to their homes up on the mountain side. Some of the huts are built closely together. Others are scattered about on lonely ledges. Shall we go inside one of these huts? The woman who has just returned has thrown her burden into a corner.
The fire has been carefully smoldered, and this she now blows into a flame and then proceeds to prepare the evening meal.
About the other cottages are women squatting on their heels, gossiping with one another. In the ditch near by little children paddle about. Their voices are soft and pleasant, and their play merry and good-natured. We hear no quarreling.
Now their mother calls them to bring in some sticks for the fire. When these are added to the flame, the firelight shines out in the darkness and guides the father on his homeward way.
He has been working on the coffee plantation near, and is now climbing the narrow, winding path up the hill with his load of plantains. Perhaps the wife will cook some for supper.
The children satisfy their hunger, and then creep into their corner or hammock and are soon fast asleep.
Out in the darkness we hear the tinkle of a homemade guitar. Now another, and then another, takes up the Spanish or Indian air. Perhaps the beater of a drum is added to the little band of musicians which has gathered in an open space near the small village.
The natives compose much of their own music, and wild, strange melody it is. It seems to inspire one with a wish to dance. The Puerto Ricans are very fond of this amusement, and when they hear the music of the band, they gather around for a frolic.
Once a week, at least, they gather for a dance; and this, with their cock-fighting and gambling, is almost their only form of amusement.
Few of these people can write or read. They have no books and can not afford to buy even a newspaper.
The life of the peasant in Puerto Rico, you see, is not an easy or pleasant one; but he does not suffer from cold or hunger, as do the poor in northern countries.
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