Part 6 (1/2)
The _guinimo_ is probably the smallest creature with a vertebra known to the world of science--a small fish--and it strikes one as amusing when the people count them out so jealously. But all their marketing is done on retail lines. Potatoes, eggs, and fruit sell for so much apiece. A single fish will be chopped up so as to go around among the customers, while the measures used in selling rice and salt are so small that you can not take them seriously. The transaction reminds you of your childhood days when you were playing ”keep store” with a nickel's worth of candy on the ironing-board.
At Easter-time, or during the celebration of the ”Santa Cruz,”
an enterprising family will get up a singing bee. Perhaps a wheezy organ will be brought to light, and the musician then officiates behind the instrument. His bare feet work the pedals vigorously, and his body sways in rhythm with the strains. As the performance is continuous, arriving or departing guests do not disturb the ceremony. There seems to be a special song for this occasion, the words of which must be repeated over and over as the music falls and rises in a dismal wail. Refreshments of Holland gin and _tuba_ keep the party going until long after midnight.
As you walk down the long dusty street at evening, you will be half suffocated by the smoke and the rank odor of the burning cocoanut-husks over which the supper is being cooked. Then you remember how the broiling beefsteak used to smell ”back home,” and even dream about grandmother's kitchen on a baking day. And as you pa.s.s by the poor _nipa_ shacks, you hear the murmur of the evening prayer p.r.o.nounced by those within. It is a prayer from those who have but little and desire no more.
Chapter XII.
Leaves from a Note-book.
I.
Skim Organizes the Constabulary.
The soldiers had gone, bag and baggage, dog, parrot, and monkey, blanket-roll and cook. I stood by the deserted convent under the lime-tree, watching the little transport disappear beyond the promontory. The house that formerly had been headquarters seemed abandoned. There was the list of calls still pasted on the door. Reveille, guard-mount, mess-call, taps,--the village would seem strange without these bugle-notes. The st.u.r.dy sentry who had paced his beat was gone. When would I ever see again my old friend the ex-circus clown, and hear him tinkle the ”potato-bug” and sing ”Ma Filipino Babe?” Walking along the lonely sh.o.r.e, now lashed by breakers, I looked out on the blue wilderness beyond. It was with feelings such as Robinson Crusoe must have had that I went back then to the empty house.
Ramon, convinced that something would break loose, now that the troops were gone, had left for Cagayan. His wife, Maria, slept at night with a big bolo underneath her pillow. There was a ”bad” town only a few miles away--a village settled by Tagalog convicts, who had been conspicuous in the revolt a few years previous. The people feared these neighbors, the a.s.sa.s.sins, and they double-barred their doors at night. I was awakened as the clock struck twelve by unfamiliar noises,--nothing but the lizard croaking in the bonga-tree. Again, at one, I started up. It was the rats, and from the rattling sound above I judged that the house-snake was pursuing them. At early morning came the chorus of the chanticleers. Through the transparent j.a.panese blinds I could see the huge green mountains shouldering the overhanging clouds. Ah! the mysterious, silent mountains, with their wonderful, deep shadows! The work of man seemed insignificant beside them, and Balingasag the lonesomest place in all the world.
One morning the sharp whistle of the launch aroused the town. Proceeding to the sh.o.r.e, I saw a boat put out from the _Victoria_, sculled by a native deck-hand. As the sun had not yet risen, all the sea was gray, and sea and sky blended into one vast planetary sphere. Two natives carrying the ample form of the constabulary captain staggered through the surf. Behind them came the captain's life-long partner and lieutenant, a slight man, with cold, steely eyes, dressed in gray crash uniform, with riding leggings. They had been through one campaign together as rough riders; for the captain had once been ”sheriff of Gallup County,” in the great Southwest.
The house no longer seemed deserted with this company, and as they had brought supplies for two months--which included bread!--we made an early attack upon these commissaries. Since the troops had left I had been existing on canned salmon and sardines. Now there were cheese, guava, artichokes, mushrooms, ham, bacon, blackberry-jam, and fruits. The captain, natural detective that he was, caught one of the _muchachos_ stealing a bottle of cherries, which he had thrown out the window during the unpacking, with the purpose of securing it next day. On being accused, he made a vigorous protest of his innocence, but after a few minutes he returned triumphantly with the intelligence that he had ”found” that which was lost.
A heavy rain and the tail-end of a monsoon kept my two guests prisoners for a week. The _presidente_ of the town had issued a _bandilla_ that all able-bodied men were wanted to enlist in the constabulary. Accordingly came awkward natives to the house, where the interpreter examined them; for all the Spanish that the genial captain knew--and he had lived already two years in the Philippines--was ”bueno,” ”malo,” ”saca este,” and ”sabe that?” The candidates were measured, and, if not found wanting, were turned over to the native tailor to be fitted with new uniforms. Some of the applicants confessed that they had once been Insurrectos; but so much the better,--they knew how to fight. They said that they were not afraid of Moros--though I think that they would rather have encountered tigers--and when finally dressed, a few days later, they appeared upon the streets self-conscious, objects of adoration in the eyes of all the local belles.
The time came when the mists dissolved upon the mountains, and the little clouds scudded along overhead as though to get in from the rain. The sun had struggled out for a few minutes, and the wind abated. But the sea had not forgotten recent injuries, and all night we could hear the booming of the surf. The launch, drowned in a nebula of spray, dashed by, and sought an anchorage in safer waters. So it was decided that we go to Cagayan in a big _banca_. But it was a most unwieldly craft to launch. We got the arms and ammunition safe aboard, and then, a.s.sisted by the st.u.r.dy corporals and miscellaneous natives, we pushed out. A rus.h.i.+ng comber swept the boat and nearly swamped it. But we bore up till about a hundred yards from sh.o.r.e, when a gigantic breaker bearing down upon the _banca_--which had been deflected so as to present a broadside--filled her completely, and she went down in the swirling spume. Up to our necks in surf, we labored for an hour, together with the population of the fis.h.i.+ng village, finally to save the wretched boat and most of the constabulary ordnance.
But, alas for the lieutenant! He had lost one of his riding-leggings, and for half a day he paced the sh.o.r.e in search of it. He offered rewards to any native who should rescue it. Lacking a saving sense of humor, he bemoaned his fate, and when he did give up the search, he discontinued it reluctantly. And two years afterwards, when I next met him, he inquired if I had seen his legging washed up on the beach. ”Some native must be sporting around in it,” he said. ”It set me back five dollars, Mex.”
It was a sleepy day at Cagayan. The tropical river flowed in silence through the jungle like a serpent. In _Capitan_ A-Bey's house opposite, a _senorita_ droned the _Stepanie Gavotte_ on the piano. _Capitan_ A-Bey's pigs rooted industriously in the compound. The teacher who had hiked in from El Salvador, unconscious that his canvas leggings were transposed, was engaged in a deep game of solitaire.
Upon the settee in the new constabulary residence, his long legs doubled up ridiculously, still in khaki breeches and blue flannel army s.h.i.+rt, lay ”Skim,” with a week's growth of beard upon his face, sleeping after a night-ride over country roads. After an hour or two of rest he would again be in the saddle for two days.
Late in the afternoon we started on constabulary ponies for Balingasag--a ride of thirty miles through quagmires, over swollen streams and mountain trails. Our ponies were the unaccepted present from a quack who thus had tried to buy his way out of the calaboose, where he was ”doing time” for trying to pa.s.s himself off as a prophet.
The first few miles of the journey led through the cloistered archways of bamboo. We crossed the Kauffman River, swimming the horses down stream. Then the muddy roads began. The constant rains had long ago reduced them to a state of paste, and although some attempt had been made to stiffen them with a filling of dried cocoanut-husks, the sucking sound made by the ponies' hoofs was but a prelude to our final floundering in the mud. There was a narrow ridge on one side near a th.o.r.n.y hedge, and, balancing ourselves on this, we made slow progress, meanwhile tearing our clothes to shreds. Skim had considerable difficulty with his long legs, for he could have touched the ground on either side, but he could use them to advantage, when it came to wading through the slosh ourselves, and dragging the tired ponies after us. At night we ”came to anchor” in a village, where we purchased a canned dinner in a Spanish store. The natives gathered around us as we sat, all splashed with mud, on wicker chairs in front of the provincial _almacen_. Skim talked with the Spaniard, alternating every word with ”_estie_,” while the Don kept swallowing his eyes and gesturing appropriately. Skim was convinced that his Castilian was fine art.
We slept in a deserted schoolhouse, lizards and mosquitoes being our bed-fellows. Skim, the rough cowboy that he was, pillowed his head upon the horse's flank, and kept his boots on. At the break of day, restless as ever, he was off again. Crossing the Jimenez River in a native ferry while the horses swam, we pa.s.sed through tiny villages that had not seen a white man for a year. Our journey now lay through the woods, and Skim, dismounting, stalked along the narrow trail as though he had been shod in seven-league boots. I heard a pistol shot ring out, and, coming up, found Skim in mortal combat with an ape. Then one more plunge into a river, and another stream spanned by a bamboo pole, which we negotiated like funambulists, dragging the steeds below us by their halters,--then Balingasag.
In town the big _vaquero_ was a schoolboy on a holiday. He was a perfect panther for prowling around the streets at night, and in the market-place, where we now missed the scattering of khaki, he became acquainted with the natives, and drank _tuba_ with them. He came back with reports about the resources of the town. There was an Indian merchant stranded at Ramon's, who had a lot of watches for sale cheap. He purchased some lace curtains at the _Chino_ store, and yellow _pina_ cloth for a mosquito bar, and with this stuff he had transformed his bed into a perfect bower. It was almost a contradiction that this wild fellow, who was more accustomed to his boots and spurs at night than to pajamas, should have taken so much pains to make his sleeping-quarters dainty. Streamers of baby-ribbon fell in graceful lines about the curtains, while the gauze mosquito-bar was decorated with the medals he had won for bravery.
A photograph of his divorced wife occupied the place of honor near the looking-gla.s.s. In reminiscent moods Skim used to tell how Chita, of old Mexico, had left him after stabbing him three times with the jeweled knife that he had given her. ”I didn't interfere with her,”
he said, ”but told her, when she p.r.i.c.ked me with the little knife, it was my heart that she was jabbing at.” Skim also told me of his expedition into ”Dead Man's Gulch,” ”Death Valley,” and the suddenly-abandoned mining-camps among the hills of California. And he had met the daughter of a millionaire in Frisco, and had seen her home. ”And when I saw the big shack looming up there in the woods,”
he said, ”I thought sure that I'd struck the wrong farmhouse.”