A Christmas Feast.
When Señor Pedro gave his Christmas feast, he went about it in the orthodox way. That is, he began at midnight Christmas eve. The Christmas pig we were to have had, however, disappointed us—and thereby hangs a tale.
Came Señor Pedro early in the morning of the twenty-fourth, and “In the mountains,” Señor Pedro said, “runs a fat pig.” Usa ca babui uga dacu! A regular feast of a pig running at large near the macao woods on the slope beyond Mercario’s hemp-fields!
Nothing would do but that I buckle on my Colt’s—a weapon that I had done much destruction with among the lesser anthropoids in the vicinity. Then we set out radiantly for the hills, with Señor Pedro leading and a municipal policeman with us to take home the pig. We soon arrived at the pig’s stamping grounds. We had not long to wait. There was a snapping of the underbrush, and “Mr. Babui” appeared upon the scene. His great plank side and sagging belly was as fair a mark as any sportsman could have wished. His greedy little eyes were fixed upon the ground where he was rooting for his Christmas dinner.
Bang! The bullet from the army Colt’s sped true. Our pig, flat on his back, was squealing desperately, and his feet were pawing the air as last as though he had been run by clockwork and had been suddenly released from contact with the ground. Then the municipal policeman went to pick him up. But lo, a miracle! Our Christmas pig, inspired by supersusine terror on the approach of the dire representative of law, regained his legs, and before we could recover from our astonishment, had scudded away with an expiring squeak like that emitted from a musical balloon on its collapse. We never found the pig. He was just mean enough to die in privacy.
But there was to be some compensation. What, though our Christmas dinner had escaped? I managed to bring down a monkey that for some time had been chattering and scolding at us from a tree, and with this substitute—a delicacy rare to native palates—marched triumphantly back to the town.
Exactly at midnight the señores took their seats around the board. The orchestra was stationed in an elevated alcove in the next room. On the benches sat the women, from the dainty Juliana in her pink cotton hosiery and white kid slippers to the old witch Paola, the town scold. We knives or forks. Heaping platefuls of rice were served with the stewed meat—cut in small pieces that “just fit the hand,” and cooked with vegetables. At my request the monkey had been roasted whole. “All la same bata” (baby) cried my host, and sure, I never felt more like a cannibal in all my life. I shuddered later when, the ladies at the table, Juliana gnawed the thigh-bone of the little beast with relish.
Señor Pedro kept the orchestra supplied with gin, with the result that what they lacked in accuracy they made up for in enthusiasm. In the dim room, lighted only by the smoky “kinkes,” we could see the hungry eyes of those awaiting the third table—the retainers and the poor relations. On the boards below was spread a banquet of rice and tuba for the multitude.
The party broke up with a dance, and as the pointers of the Southern Cross faded from the pale sky, the happy merrymakers filed off to their beds. They had so little in this far-off corner of the world, and yet they were content. Had not the stars looked down upon them through the tropic night? Had not the blue sea broken in phosphorescent ridges at their feet? And didn’t they have the Holy Virgin on the walls to smile a blessing on their little scene of revelry? O, it was Christmas over all the world! And on this day at least the white man and the “little brown brother” could shake hands over mutual interests.