“Yes, Mars Jim, I just step out a minute, and lef it on a nail in de kitchen, all kivered up wid de dish-rag, and now, when I look again, it’s gorn.”
“Didn’t I tell you so? What’s to prevent anybody from walking into that kitchen and taking anything they find hanging on a nail?”
“Don’t say anoder word, Mars Jim, I know who’s tuk it; dat big nigger at Miss Bollag’s is got it. Kase I never lay eyes on dat ar fool but he ses to me, ‘Hay! Zell, que hora son?’ Dat means, ‘What’s time o’ day?’”
“Now listen to me; don’t say another word on the subject; you deserve to lose it, and it’s gone.”
For several days Zell was downcast and miserable, ceasing to show interest in his classes; but one morning the watch was found on the nail; and Zell, with eyes gleaming like torches, said, “I know’d Mars Jim had dat watch all de time, kase he ain’t de kind er man to let no nigger steal outen his yard and never persecute it.”
Henry’s school was an endless source of interest. Señora Bollag (the children all called her Beatriz) kept the school in her own bedroom, although she occupied an entire house. In the very early morning the pupils began to assemble. Before the sun was fairly up, volantes arrived at Beatriz’s door, and sable maids deposited their little white-frocked charges, and the volantes drove off. Boys in panama hats, and full suits of spotless white linen from tip to toe, their piercing eyes and coal-black hair giving the only touch of what the artist calls character to the picture, rode up on ponies with white-robed attendants; and so, long before our American hours for breakfast, Beatriz’s school was under full headway. I could distinctly hear the murmur of voices, varied by Beatriz’s sharp reproof, and the patter of little feet on the uncovered floor. About ten o’clock volantes and servants on foot with breakfast-trays began to appear. In the order of their arrival the children retired to a rustic bower in the back yard where there was a rude table surrounded by a bench; there, with a snowy spread of napkins, they ate breakfast, with servants to replenish the claret-glasses, and break the eggs over the rice, spread the fried bananas over the tasajo or other meat arrangement; in short, perform such menial service as was required by all well-bred children in that voluptuous land. One by one they went to almuerza, and returned to lessons smacking their lips and picking their little teeth. Waiters and volantes severally vanished with empty dishes and trays. At two o’clock servants were seen crossing the street from up, down, and directly opposite, with napkin-covered glasses of refresco, made of orange, pineapple, tamarind, or the expressed juice of blanched almonds, for the thirsty little ones, who lived near enough to share refreshments with their mammas. Funny stories reached us of Beatriz’s discipline. If a child presented itself with an unclean face, Beatriz’s own maid was summoned, with a huge sponge (such as was used for mopping floors) dripping with water, to wash it; and a frouzy head was made smooth with an enormous comb kept for the purpose.
Beatriz Bollag had a flourishing school somewhat on a crude Kindergarten pattern, for there were little ones learning to spell with blocks, who spent most of their time playing with dolls. All who offered were received, however; even Ellie, a grown niece of ours, who joined us in Cuba, and desired to study Spanish, was not refused. The school had no opening nor closing hour. The children came when they were ready, and left when Beatriz had a headache or was tired. She was at her post every day in the week; there was no regular day for holiday. The dias santos—holy days—of the ecclesiastical calendar, only were observed; their occurrence, although frequent, was irregular. She had no license, therefore presented no bills. Each month Henry was told, “To-morrow is the seventh.” And that meant he must bring his tres doublones ($12.75) when he came again. And when Ellie was dismissed, with “To-morrow, my dear,” she understood that to imply her onza ($17) was due.
The laws were so peculiarly rigid, that it was almost impossible to obtain a license to teach in Cuba. That parental government is so zealous on the score of education, so dreadfully afraid that the pupils would not learn the right thing, or be taught the wrong, that a teacher’s certificate is hedged about with obstacles almost insurmountable. Possibly the lives of the saints and church dogmas bristle around conspicuously in the barrier. No mind can grasp the lives of all the saints and holy men, and know every double-cross day and its wherefore in the Spanish calendar, and know much of anything else. An American woman of my acquaintance secured a teacher’s situation in a regularly licensed school on the cerro. Upon her refusal to obey the orders of the inspectors to discard her text-books and substitute others so antiquated and replete with errors as to be almost useless to the present generation, she was debarred from teaching.
The wealthy class, in order to have their children taught some of the solid branches besides music and the languages, frequently secure governesses in the United States. We were often amused at some of the specimens that came under our observation. A wealthy marquis, who owned an estate near Havana, had as teacher for his children a coarse, showy-looking woman, with a broad Irish brogue. She fairly murdered Lindley Murray. “Me and him,” “They be afther going,” etc., fell from her lips every time she opened them. So I was not surprised to learn that she had been a hotel-chambermaid. The marquis was ambitious, and spared no expense on his daughters, and, when he pompously congratulated himself on having secured a governess who did not speak Spanish, I longed to tell him that she was equally ignorant of English.
The priests in the interior villages gather the children together and teach them that “Nuestra Señora de Cobre” is a patron saint of Cuba, because she miraculously appeared to two negroes who were paddling about in a skiff, and pointed out to them valuable copper-mines on the coast. They are also taught their Paternosters and Ave Marias; occasionally a pupil is graduated who can read and write; but, as a rule, the class that inhabit the country towns are very ignorant. An intelligent officer of the Spanish army, who had been stationed in the extreme eastern part of the island, told us he was astounded to see, during some raids upon insurgent camps, how primitive, indeed, how near to Adam and Eve, the country people remote from settlements were. He saw women, with even less adornment than Eve was constrained to wear, picking wild rice and digging roots in the wilderness. When they do not live in rocky caves, their abodes are rude huts that scarcely deserve the name. Literally existing from hand to mouth, “they toil not, neither do they spin.”