San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1891-05-18
or the grape gathering on InaAuuru.


and bread and bitter orange at breakfast,
| and the luncheon, and the lasagne in the
evening. there was needed money by
handfuls, and the lasange were dished in
bread troughs as large as tubs. So now,
when he rode behind the line of his NOW
ers with whip in hand, he did not lose one
of them from sight, and kept repeating,
bend to it, boys!"
He had his hands in his pockets the
whole year long, spending, and for the
mere territory the king took so much that
it threw MazzarO into fever every time.
However, each year all those storehouses
large as churches were filled with grain, so
that it was necessary to raise the roofs to
contain it all; and every time that Mazzaro
sold the wine it took more than day to
count the money, all in silver pieces of
twelve lari, for he would not have dirty
paper money for his goods, and went to
buy the dirty paper only when he had to
pay the king or other persons; and at the
fairs the herds of MaZzaro covered the
whole field and crowded the roads, so that
it took half day to let them pass, and the
image of the saint, with the band of music,
had TO change their road and yield the way
to him.
All this property he had earned for him
self with his own hands and head, with
losing sleep at night, with taking fevers
from the malaria, with labor from dawn
to darkness. Whensone is like that it
means that he is made for property.
And also property was made for him, so
tls.t he seemed to draw it like loadstone;
because property will stay with him who
knows how to keep it, and does not waste
it like that baron who had been formerly
the master of Mazzaro, and had picked him
up, homeless and naked, in the field of
charity, and had been master of all those
meadows, and all those woods, and all
those vines, and all those flocks; who, when
he came riding on horseback into his lands
with men behind him, seemed like the
king, and they prepared for him lodging
and dinner-for that simpleton, so that
every one knew the hour and the moment
in which he was TO arrive, and they did not
let themselves be caught with their hands
in the bag.
THAT man is bound to be robbedw said
Mazzaro, and burst out laughing when the
baron gave him kicks behind, and rubbed
his back with his hands, murmuring, Let
simpletons keep at home" and Property
does not belong to him who has it, but to
him who knows how to get it."
He, on the contrary, after he had gotten
riches, certainly did not send word whether
he were coming to look after the reaping
or the vintage, and when and how: but he
appeared suddenly, on foot or riding his
mule, without his men, with a piece of
bread in his pocket; and he slept beside his
sheaves, with his eyes open and his gun be-
tween his legs.
In this way, little by little Mazzaro be-
came master of all the baron's property,
and the latter parted first with the olive
grove, then with the vines then with the
pasture, and then with the farm and final
ally with his palace itself, so that day did
not pass in which he did not sign legal
paper, and MazZaro put below his worthy
X mark The baron had nothing left but
the stone shield that formerly was over his
door, and it was the only thing that he had
not been willing to sell, saying to Mazzaro,
This only of all my property, will not do
for thee" And it was true; MaZZaro did
not know what to do with it, and would
not have paid Uwopence for it.
This is a fine thing, TO have the fortune
that Mazzaro hasw people said; and they
did not know what it had taken to grasp
that fortune; how many thoughts, how
many fatigues, how many falsehoods, how
many perils of going to the galleys, and
how that head that was jewel had worked
day and night steadier than a milestone,
to get riches; aud if the owner of a neigh
boring field persisted in not giving it up
to him, and wanted 10 take Mazzaro by
the neck, he had to find stratagem to
constrain the owner to sell and make him
fall into the trap, despite of the distrust of
the peasant nature. He would go and
boast, for example, of the fertility of a
land rent which did not even produce lu-
zines, and succeeded in making the poor
fellow believe it to be promised land, so
that he let himself be induced to hire it,
as speculation, and afterward lost his
rent, his house and his field, which MAJ
FARO took-for piece of bread. And how
many annOyances Mazzaro had to bear!
The mezzadri who came to complain of the
bad years, the debtors who sent their
wives in a procession to tear their hair and
beat their breasts, conjuring him not to
put them into the road, by taking away
their mule or their donkey, for they had
nothing to eat.
do you see what | eat?" he would re-
ply. Bread and an onionl And ! have
storehOuses brimful, and am master of all
this property"
And if they asked for penny he an
swered that he had none.
And indeed he had not, for he never kept
twelve tart in his pocket. 1t took so many
to make all that property profitable and
the money entered and passed out of his
house like river. Moreover, he did not
care for money. He said it was not prop
erty, and as soon as he put together Ger
tain sum he at once bought a piecs of land,
| because he wished to succeed in having as
much land as the king has, and TO be bet
ter of than the king, for the king cannot
| sell it or call it his own.