That hotel is something to write home about. The evenings and nights were cold. We wanted a room with twin beds and bath. By golly, they had it—such as it was. We wanted heat, but that they didn't have. The bed was too short for me, even sleeping crosswise.
Next morning I turned on the hot water faucet for shaving. No hot water. My interpreter, Sugar Foot, was asleep, so I thought I'd try to make myself understood. I asked the first girl I saw about hot water. She spoke and gesticulated rapidly, which opened the flood gates, and five or six more came running. Thus reinforced, we all ventured back to our room.
They must have forgotten all about any daughter being along. She was asleep and covered up, head and all. I called her. When she got unraveled and that head emerged, framed in all those aluminum and tinware bobby pins, the nearest girl gave a wild-eyed half shriek. When the baby of the family unwound some more, the girls, seeing no blood, finally consented to listen. With a something in Spanish or French that evidently meant, "Oh, that was what he wanted," the girls filed out. Aura May, in a tone they don't teach in finishing school, said, "They will bring some hot water as soon as they can make it."
She gave me a crab-apple look, turned over and wound up again.
In far longer than due time, a long-eared boy brought a pint container of water. It was just enough to take the chill off the bottom of the lavatory. And the rubber plug leaked, to boot.
The trip on to Pucon was uneventful, concerning tire trouble. We were never to have any more. The hotel looked all it was represented to be. There were few guests. The beach was as bare as our dry lots after a year of feeding. One motor "put-putted" out on the lake—30 miles long—but the occupants looked like they'd prefer being somewhere where steam heat was on. It is true that the season was just begun—hardly that.
We all four had had enough. We started back to Temuco over that same road. The day was cold with very poor visibility. Some of the volcanoes were no doubt smoking like they had for hundreds of years. We couldn't see them.
Something keeps telling me the weather south of Chile will have to change to make that hotel a good go. I want none of its stock. I'd rather have mine in Russellville Bank, and the Lord knows some of the stock holders think that is bad enough.
TREE FENCES AND OX CARTS
But we did see sights I never knew existed. I'll tell you how they built fences 50 to 75 years ago. The country was full of big timber. They wanted less timber and more fences. They cut the trees into 9 to 10 foot lengths, split the timber into 9 inches to a foot for thickness, squared the sides, dug long trenches three to four feet deep, and set these timbers side by side, close and tight, and then filled in and there was your fence, horse high, bull strong and pig, yes, chicken-tight, unless they flew. There are thousands of miles of that kind of fence still down there, old and moss-covered but still pretty sound and serviceable. Think of the work and loss of timber that involved.