Read Ebook: Francisco Our Little Argentine Cousin by Brooks Eva Cannon Goss John Illustrator

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Ebook has 133 lines and 14628 words, and 3 pages

for to-day," said the swarthy Spaniard, as he busied himself lighting the machine.

"Ants are early risers, and it's only by getting up before they have made their morning toilets that we can manage to make war on them."

Francisco laughed at the idea of an ant bathing and dressing, and bent over on his knees beside Manuel who was scratching a match to light the dry rubbish in the cylindrical can, in one end of which was a small amount of sulphur. He screwed a lid on the other end, inserted the snout into an ant hole and with a pair of bellows he sent the volumes of sulphurous smoke into the labyrinthine passages of the ant houses.

"Look, look," excitedly cried Francisco, as quantities of smoke were seen issuing from many holes, here and there, within a radius of several hundred yards; showing how intricate and many winding are the underground passages of these industrious pests.

"Yes, there won't be many ants getting out to work this morning. But in a short while they will be just as bad as ever."

They went from one part of the orchard to another until the sun was too high, and they were obliged to stop until another morning. Francisco learned, as they walked toward the house, that these ants are the worst pest, excepting the locust, that the farmer has to combat. They particularly delight in carrying away whole beds of strawberries and they often come in armies that swarm over every obstacle in their path.

"May I go with you, Uncle Juan?" cried Francisco.

"What was that, Uncle?" exclaimed Francisco, startled, as a large bird with yellow breast and gray wings screeched across their path, emitting a harsh cry of several syllables.

"Why do they call it ugly bug? It is a bird."

"Because its cry is not unlike those words. Listen again and you will hear how plainly he says it. It is a bird of prey and lives on smaller birds. That bird just fluttering up out of the grass at your left is a scissors bird."

"Oh, I know why. See how its two long tail feathers clip the air like scissors as it flies."

They passed numbers of small gray owls; and once Francisco spied a flock of flamingoes across the water of a small lake. Occasionally they passed a shepherd's hut; but now they were getting on beyond the sheep grazing pastures and great herds of cattle came in sight.

Francisco leaped in his saddle with joy. "Oh! Uncle, are we coming to the cowboys?"

"Do they often use those murderous looking knives on each other, Uncle?" asked Francisco; the sight of their weapons having subdued his zeal somewhat. They were rougher looking men in their working clothes than when they came to the city dressed for a lark.

"Seldom, Ni?o; unless they are intoxicated. They are not very civilized and they have no education whatever. They fairly live on their horses' backs and cannot be persuaded to do any work that must be done outside their saddles."

FOOTNOTES:

CATTLE BRANDING

"See, Ni?o, these are all young animals; they have never had the iron on them."

"What do you raise these wild horses for, Uncle Juan?" inquired Francisco, who had not missed one single detail of the performance. "They are not fine horses like Barboza here," and he patted his steed's neck affectionately.

"No, they are not, by any means. These wild horses are raised for their hides mainly, although very little of them goes to waste when they are skinned. Look over yonder, near that cluster of mud huts, where the hides are drying in the air and sun."

Francisco's eyes followed the end of the silver riding whip that his uncle used to point with, and saw tier after tier of poles, from which were stretched horsehides to stakes in the ground below.

"Not less than ten or twelve dollars each," answered the superintendent. "These are very good ones. Does the Se?or care to have his breakfast now?"

"Here, Don Carlos, have the men go to their breakfast now, the lad wants to see their table manners."

Don Carlos rode into the corral, spoke a few words and the branding ceased. Each man mounted his own pony, for an Argentine cowboy never walks, be his journey ever so short. With cheers and shouts they galloped toward the mud huts near-by.

Francisco and the Colonel followed at a more dignified pace. They found the men gathered about in groups, squatting on the ground or sitting on ox skulls.

The beef had been quartered and roasted on a spit over a charcoal fire, outside one of the huts. Each man, without ceremony, had "fallen to" and helped himself, by cutting great chunks of the meat from the large piece on the fire.

Holding one end with his teeth and the other with his hand, each man would sever the bite about two inches from his mouth with one of his silver-handled belt knives.

"You see how superfluous are knives, forks and plates," said the Colonel in an undertone to Francisco as they watched this primitive process.

"And now for our own breakfast. I am as hollow as is the wild pumpkin at the end of summer," and he gave a sharp blow to his horse, another to Barboza, and they were off towards their own waiting meal in the shadow of the willows.

Manuel had killed a small kid soon after reaching the corral, and had roasted it on a spit in its skin over a fire of dry thistles and charcoal. He was basting it with salt water, which he had brought in a bottle. In the coals below were sweet potatoes roasting in their jackets. So tempting were the combined odours of lamb and sweet potatoes that Francisco ran to the little stream to wash himself, in order that he might begin to appease his appetite at once.

"Que esperanza! lad, this lamb is good! It takes me back to other days. Many times on our expeditions into the provinces have I eaten thus."

"Tell me, do tell me of one while we eat and rest," coaxed Francisco.

"There were many, lad," said the Colonel, as he passed his plate back to Manuel for another piece of the smoking, savoury lamb. "I've never told you of the expedition of General Roca into Patagonia. I was commanding a regiment at that time, one of the regiments that became famous because of that remarkable undertaking.

"Patagonia is all of the southern-most part of this continent lying between the Rio Negro and the Straits of Magellan, excepting the narrow strip between the Andes and the Pacific Ocean, which belongs to Chile. This country is not the barren, unproductive country now that it was before our expedition carried civilization to its wild wastes and reclaimed those vast prairies from the Indians."

"But, Uncle Juan, what right had Argentina to take the land from the Indians of Patagonia? They had lived there for centuries and it was theirs."

"Gradually the outposts of our civilization were creeping closer to Buenos Aires, instead of extending and growing as they should. Do you now see why we were justified in fighting them?"

"Yes, but I didn't know they had made any trouble. I supposed they were peaceful."

"Far from it. At last when Don Nicolas Avellaneda became President, he sent General Roca, who was my general, and the Minister of War, into Patagonia to exterminate these Chennas.

"It was not an easy task, for these Indians are a fierce race, giants in size and strength. Do you know how they came by their name, Patagonians?"

"I have never heard, it must have something to do with their feet as 'patagon' means 'large foot.'"

"That's it exactly. Magellan, the discoverer, saw their footprints in the sand and because of their magnitude, he believed them to be giants, and called them that before he had ever seen them.

"Well, General Roca never knew discouragement, and he set about their defeat by digging great trenches, twenty feet deep and twenty feet wide, while the Indians were up in the mountains with their herds of cattle.

"These trenches he covered with boughs, over which earth was scattered, and when all was ready he sent us back to drive the Chennas toward the ditches.

"It was a terrible price to pay for their cruelty, and I shudder now as I recall that awful day; but nearly all civilization is bought with blood, and it certainly ran in torrents then. The Indians, unsuspecting, fell headlong, thousands of them, into the trenches, and the few that were unhurt by the fall or by being crushed in the trenches were made prisoners and distributed among the victorious regiments as servants or soldiers. The women and children were captured and sent to the cities to work.

"Ah! But those ditches! The birds, foxes, and armadillos must have grown fat on the thousands of bodies we left on that plain."

Francisco begged for more, his eyes were ablaze and his cheeks flushed, but the Colonel said:

"No more of fighting, anyhow; but come here by the stream, now that we have finished our meal, and I will tell you of some of the animals I saw in Patagonia."

"Did you ever chase ostriches?" eagerly inquired the boy.

"Yes, yes, several times and it is great sport; and once, for three days, I had only ostrich eggs to eat. You see, we were digging those same trenches and could not spare many of the men for hunting. I was ill and could not eat the army rations, so Jos? brought me ostrich eggs and cooked them as the Indians do--in the red-hot coals."

"And was Jos? with you on that expedition?" exclaimed Francisco.

"Yes, through all my campaigns he has been my body servant. It was Jos? who told us how the Indians catch ostriches; he had heard it when a boy among his tribe of Araucanians."

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