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.
