Pioneering in Cuba

by James Meade Adams

Adventures and Misadventures.

Among the dozen women in the camp, the most striking figure was Mrs. Moller, a Danish widow, who came from one of the states, Pennsylvania, I believe. I cannot say exactly when she reached La Gloria, but she was one of the earliest of her sex to arrive, and achieved the distinction of building the first house in the "city." Speaking of sex, it was not easy to determine that of Mrs. Moller upon a casual acquaintance. Slight of figure, with bronzed face and close-cut hair, she wore a boy's cap, blouse, trousers, a very short skirt, and rubber boots, while her belt fairly bristled with revolvers and knives. She was a quiet, imperturbable person, however, and it was difficult to get her to relate her adventures, which had been somewhat extraordinary.

She first came into La Gloria from Palota, where she landed from a boat with no other company than her trunk. There was not a living person at or near Palota, so, deserting her baggage, she started out afoot and alone, and attempted to make her way along the muddy and difficult trail nine miles to La Gloria. It was a hard road to travel, with scarcely a habitation along the way. Late in the afternoon she reached an inhabited shack, and the Cubans invited her to spend the night. Although weary, she declined the invitation, and pressed on. Darkness soon overtook her, but still she kept on through the dense woods. The trail was exceedingly rough, and she stumbled along among stumps, roots, and muddy gullies. Every few steps she fell down, and finally becoming exhausted, she was compelled to spend the night in the heart of the forest. She had no shelter whatever, and no means of making a fire. She sat in the woods all night, not being able to go to sleep, her only company being the mosquitoes. In the morning she found she had lost her way, but at last struck a Cuban trail, and was overtaken by a native horseman. He kindly gave her a place in front of him on his pony, and thus she entered the youthful city of La Gloria.

Nor was this Mrs. Moller's last adventure. She had an extraordinary faculty for getting into trouble. Her trunk, which she had abandoned at Palota, was rifled by some one, probably a wandering Cuban, and she spent much time in traveling about the country seeking to get the authorities to hunt up the offender and recover the stolen goods. On one occasion she started in the early evening to walk into La Gloria from the port. When she had got about half way darkness came on and she lost the indistinct trail across the savanna. Not daring to go further, she roosted in a tree all night. Her idea in taking to the tree was that the mosquitoes would be less numerous at such an elevation, but she did not escape them altogether. Nothing serious happened and she turned up in camp all right the next morning. Mrs. Moller had no better luck when she rode than when she walked. At one time, while driving from Las Minas to Nuevitas in a wagon with another colonist, the team went over an embankment in the darkness and was so badly damaged that she and her companion were obliged to walk into Nuevitas, twelve or fifteen miles distant, along the railroad track. The journey was neither easy nor pleasant.

But Mrs. Moller had both pluck and enterprise. She it was who built the first house in La Gloria, a log cabin far up in the woods on Central avenue. It was put up in the latter part of January. She employed an American and a Cuban to construct it, and had it covered with a canvas roof. She personally supervised the erection of the house, and when it was done planted sunflowers, banana trees, pineapples, etc., around it. She lived here alone for some time before she had any near neighbors. Mrs. Moller also enjoyed the distinction of owning the first cow, the first calf, and the first goat in La Gloria. As these animals roamed at large much of the time and were noisy, disorderly beasts, they were anything but popular in the colony. They were so destructive to planted things, that the threats to plant the cow and her unhappy offspring were numerous and oft-repeated, and the subject was discussed in more than one meeting of the Pioneer Association. It was said that Mrs. Moller had come to La Gloria with the idea of starting a dairy business, and it was further reported that she had taken the first prize for dairy butter at the World's Fair in Chicago. But the dairy did not materialize, and La Gloria long went butterless.

It was a standing wonder with us that the Rural Guards did not disarm Mrs. Moller. They frequently met her as she traveled about the country, and must have seen that she carried deadly weapons. They did not relieve her of them, however, but the American authorities at La Gloria finally forbade her to wear her revolvers about the camp. It must not be thought that Mrs. Moller always dressed as I have described her. On state occasions, such as Sunday services and the regular Saturday night meetings of the Pioneer Association, she doffed her blue blouse and rubber boots, and came out with a jacket and the most immaculate starched and stiff bloomers, gorgeous in light and bright colors. At such times she was a wonder to behold. Mrs. Moller spoke broken English, and was not greatly given to talking except when she had business on hand.

But if Mrs. Moller was the most striking figure in camp, the most ubiquitous and irrepressible person was Mrs. Horn of South Bend, Indiana. She was one of the earliest arrivals in La Gloria, coming in with two sons and a daughter, but without her husband. Mrs. Horn was a loud-voiced, good-natured woman, who would have tipped the scales at about two hundred and fifty pounds, provided there had been any scales in La Gloria to be tipped. She reached La Gloria before the Yarmouth colonists, but how is something of a mystery. It is known, however, that she waded in through miles of mud and water, and was nothing daunted by the experience. Never for a moment did she think of turning back, and when she had pitched her tent, she announced in a high, shrill voice that penetrated the entire camp, that she was in the colony to stay. She had lived in South Bend, Ind., and thought she could stand anything that might come to her in La Gloria.

Mrs. Horn claimed to be able to do anything and go anywhere that a man could, and no one was inclined to dispute the assertion. She had the temperament which never gets "rattled," and when she woke up one night and found a brook four inches deep and a foot wide running through her tent she was not in the least disconcerted. In the morning she used it to wash her dishes in. She continued to make use of it until it dried up a day or two later. One of Mrs. Horn's distinctions was that she was the first woman to take a sea bath at Port La Gloria, walking the round trip of eight miles to do so. She was both a good walker and a good swimmer. She was delighted with La Gloria and Cuba. Her sons were nearly man-grown, and her daughter was about twelve years of age. It was one of the diversions of the camp to hear Mrs. Horn call Edna at a distance of a quarter of a mile or more. Mrs. Horn may unhesitatingly be set down as a good colonist. Though at times too voluble, perhaps, she was energetic, patient, kind-hearted, and generous.

When the colonists who came on the Yarmouth first arrived in La Gloria many of them were eager for hunting and fishing, but the sport of hunting wild hogs very soon received a setback. An Englishman by the name of Curtis and two or three others went out to hunt for big game. After a rough and weary tramp of many miles, they suddenly came in sight of a whole drove of hogs. They had traveled so far without seeing any game, that they could scarcely believe their eyes, but they recovered themselves and blazed away. The result was that they trudged into camp some hours later triumphantly shouldering the carcasses of three young pigs. The triumph of the hunters was short-lived, however. The next morning an indignant Cuban rode into camp with fire in his eye and a keen edge on his machete. He was in search of the "Americanos" who shot his pigs. He soon found them and could not be mollified until he was paid eight dollars in good American money. The next day the same Cuban rode into camp with a dead pig on his horse in front of him. This was larger than the others, and the man wanted seventeen dollars for it. Curtis, et al., did not know whether they shot the animal or not, but they paid the "hombre" twelve dollars. The following day the Cuban again appeared bringing another deceased porker. This was a full grown hog, and its owner fixed its value at twenty dollars. Again he got his money, and the carcass as well. How much longer the Cuban would have continued to bring in dead pigs, had he not been made to understand that he would get no more money, cannot be stated. To this day, Curtis and his friends do not know whether they actually killed all those pigs. What they are sure of is that there is small difference in the appearance of wild hogs and those which the Cubans domesticate. And this is why the hunting of wild hogs became an unpopular sport in La Gloria.