The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-10-07
z FELIPE'S CHANCACA.
By CHARLES F. L1rMrs.

Copyright, 1894, by the Author0
Inc great water wheel was trundling
a. List as ever the white impulse from
Inc old stone acqueduct could kick it
along. The wheel, indeed, grumbled at
SO mucn .lard work, but the water only
laughed and danced as the big iron
jaws OF the wheel chewed up the vel
low culms Of sugar cane and spat to
one side the useless pitch, while the
sweet, dark sap crept sluggishly down
the iron conduit toward the sugar
house. In front was a very mountain
OF cane brought from the fields by bull
lock carts, and half dozen sinewy ne
groes We're feeding it, an armful at a
time, between the rolls of the mill
Behind 1t others with wooden forks
were spreading the crushed cane to dry
Tor day, after which it would be used
as fuel to boil its own plundered Juice.
OF beyond the sugar building cleaned
the white Moorish walls of the tile
rooted chapel and manor house, built
300 years ago, when Peru was the rich
est 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 immensely
of sugar it all meant
The same thought struck the grizzled
administrator this morning as he stood
on a pier of the aqueduct-just where
its stream bounced upon the lazy
wheel-and swept the scene with those
watchful old eyes. "Of a 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 day 10000 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, 1 know not where 1t all
and, springing to the ground az lightly
as a boy, ih two bounds he was at the
mill.
There four Of the negro laborers
were in sudden struggle with new
conner from the quarters-a hugs.
black fellow, whose british face was
now distorted with drunken rage. He
was naked to the waist and ais dark
hide bulged with tremendous muscles
as he swayed his four grapplers to and
fro trying to free his right hand.
which clasped a heavy matchete. This
murderous combination of sword and
cleaver. which Topped the stubborn cane
at blow, had found worse employ
ment now, for red stain ran down its
broad blade, and on the ground lay
man clenchirg a stump Of arm. Old
Melito paused for no questions, but,
plucking UP a heavy bar of algarobo,
smote so strongly upon the desperado's
woolly pate that the ironwood broke.
The black giant reeled and fell and one
of the men wrenched away the mach
etc and flung it into the pool below the
wheel
"FIe came very drunk, and only be-
cause Rogue brushed against him with
an armful of cane he wanted to kill
him." said the man as they knotted
their gIimy handkerchief upon the
wrist1 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 COM
ing 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.
'Ah. That bad Coco That he may
never come back from Lima said the