The chief work was loading cattle and sheep for the big freezing factories. The trucks were rotten. One night we finished at 11 p.m., after a hard day's work, three of us unloaded 300 quebracho posts in under three hours. I had a French gardener in my room who did nothing else but spit and talk politics.
The Boss took me to learn shearing. I had to shear, gather the wool, sort it and pack it up. Each man got five cents a sheep, but it was hard work, all done by hand.
Then I cut alfalfa for a fortnight—a nice easy job.
A Catholic priest came to stay for eight days—Mass every day at 7 a.m. and 8 p.m., sometimes three a day. No work at all. Everyone had to go—the book-keeper did not, so he got the sack. I, as a Protestant, went to the sermons, which were very good. It was wonderful; these rough campmen went away quite tamed for a time. The last night the Boss got married at half-past twelve at night to a native lady. Another time, while we were at Mass, someone came to say the gardener was dying—we raced down, the priest in front ready to hear his confession, but when we got there the gardener was calmly smoking his pipe, greatly surprised.
An inspector of locusts stopped all the summer. He did nothing but eat, sleep, and drink whisky. We had locust-killing machines of every description, but we did not kill ten kilos.
The days I enjoyed were when we started out early to part some animals in a herd of over a thousand. At eleven we would have an asado and maté, and give our horses a drink, then finish parting, and get home at half-past seven. The horses look wrecks, and no good, but they work all day—mostly galloping—and are splendid stayers.
The Boss's brother, a very nice man of fifty, married a servant of the Boss, a girl of eighteen.
Great excitement is caused by races. The Boss was keen, and the men talked of nothing else for days. Every Sunday there are races. Once I rode my horse bareback in three races of 200 metres, and won a bottle of beer, a packet of tobacco, and a knife.
Then I was put in charge of fine stock. I had ten Durham bulls, two thoroughbred stallions, one Pecheron, eight rams and twelve pigs. I had a boy under me. I also had to saddle up the Boss's and the Second's horses, and harness the traps. Sometimes I had to wait till eleven at night, very tired, to unsaddle the Second's horse, as he had been making love to the Stationmaster's sister.
The work was very interesting and hard, even on Sundays or feast days, watering, cleaning the animals, and curing any foals that were ill.