The star. (Reynoldsville, Pa.) 1892-1946, 1894-11-21
FELIPE'S CHANCACA.
by CHARLES T. LUMMGs.

The great water wheel was trundl-
ing as fast as ever the white impulse
from the old stone aqueduct could
kick it along. The wheel, indeed,
grumbled at so much hard work. but
the water only laughed and danced as
the big iron jaws of the wheel chewed
up the yellow culms of sugar. cane and
spat to one side the useless pith, while
the sweet, dark sap crept sluggishly
down the iron conduit toward the su-
gar-house. In front was a very noun
tain of cane brought from the fields
by bullock carts, and half dozen
sinewy negroes were feeding it, an
armful at time, between the rolls of
the mill. Behind it others with wood
EN- forks were spreading the crushed
cane to dry for day, after which it
would be used as fuel TO boil its own
plundered juice. or beyond the SUI
gar building cleaned the white Moor
ish walls of the rooted chapel and
manor house, built three hundred
years ago, when Peru was the richest
crown jewel of Spain. Everywhere
else stretched the great fields of cane
to the very foot of the sandhills of
the encroaching desert, to the very
rim of the blue Pacific. What an inn
monsity of sugar it all meant!
The same thought struck the grizzl-
ed administrator this morning as he
stood on pier of the aqueduct-just
where its stream pounced upon the
lazy wheel-and swept the scene with
those watchful old eyes. "Of TRUTH"
he was saying to himself, "the world
must be very large, as they say, and
many must eat nothing else, for here
we make every Gay 4O,0 pounds of
sugar 300 days of the year, and there
are many other sugar haciendas in
Peru, though maybe none SO big as
Villa. Truly, Iknow not where it all
goes. Hola! Always that fellow!"
and, springing to the ground as light
ly as boy, in two bounds he was at
the mill.
There four of the negro laborers
were in sudden struggle with a new
conner from the quarter-a huge,
black fellow, whose face was now dis
torted by drunken rage. He was naked
to the waist and his dark hide bulged
with tremendous muscles as he sway
ed his four grapplers to and fro, try
ing to free his right hand which clasp
ed heavy machote. This murder
ous combination Of sword and cleaver.
which Topped the stubborn cane at
blow, had found worse employment
now, for a red stain ran down its
broad blade, and on the ground lay a
man clenching stump of arm. Old
Melito paused for no questions, but,
plucking up heavy bar of algarboo,
smote SO strongly upon the desper-
ado's woolly pate that the ironwood
broke. The black giant reeled and
fell and one of the men wrenched
away the machete and flung it into the
pool below the wheel.
"He came very drunk and only be-
cause Rogue brushed against him with
an armful of cane he wanted to kill
him, said the men as they knotted
their grimy handkerchiefs upon the
wrists and ankles of the stunned
black.
''You did well to hold him." replied
the administrator. "Bring now the
irons and we will put him in the Gala
boz till tomorrow. Then he shall go
to Lima to the prison, for we can have
no fighting here, nor men of trouble. "
A slender, big-eyed Spanish boy
coming out a few moments later from
, the great castle arch of the manor
house saw four poems Juggling away
between them the long hulk of the
prisoner and stopped to ask the
trouble.