Saint Mary's beacon. [volume] (Leonard Town, Md.) 1867-1983, 1896-03-26

oiils neatly sxecuted and ct City Prices.
. rag. and by striking them togeth-
er 40 used 10 be done in the days Of
the dead past'' soon there was
light. | lighted my pipe, offered
him o good price for his ever-pres-
ent light manufacturing establish
ment, which he refused, and rode
on. Ny way lay along the VALLEY
OF the Rio Grande and here saw
a batch Of these progressive citizens
harvesting their fourth crop of al
taifa. wonder why don't our st.
Aary's farmers try this crop, az
we'll % Q certain variety of wheat
that . RAISED in some of the fertile
ssIlsss sa1 zIlsYlg the rivers out this
good stands ssc6 seasol6Ic. s l6cqSh ina a this
wheat has three and four heads on
each stalk, and ninety or hu undred
bushels for one, have been told,
10 but moderate yield.
But to return to harvesters: they
were down on all fours, and with a
little reap-hook, just as fancy our
grand and great grandfathers used
to use, they were reaping away,
packing their armfuls on burros.
aud carrying it off to be stored away
for the Winter on stakes. which
method, presume, they adopt to
save the trouble of building fence
around it.
After arranging about the school
children, ] forded the Rio Grande
and crossed over to spend the night
at Pena Blanca white rocky typ
ical Mexican town, and where had
+" chance to zee typical Mexican life.
On my entry to the Town found
three-fourths Of the population, old
men, young men and middle aged
men. engaged in that game of which
| suppose every one has heard
Shinny-while the women, Young
and old, were sitting in the door
steps, looking on, and very nearly
every one of them smoking a ciga-
rette done mp brown-in brown pa
per. Surely, thought l. this can't
be our "new woman" grown old
what ours are coming to when they
i've so long rs these early settlers of
New Mexico. onr blooming new
be. Well, the other one.fourth
seemed hard at work securing their
beans and wheat for the Winter, of
which suppose each man had about
five bushels of the former and pos
sibly fifteen or twenty of the latter.
The beans they had laid on a piece
Of cloth, or rather several grain
sacks sewed together, and with two
sticks tied in the middle with q
home tanned cowhide strap, were
failing them out for dear life. But
for the wheat they had improvised
quite an animated threshing ma
chine. 1t would be right hard to
get ut the horsepower of it, but |
can tell you the goat power to q
notch-69. For in pit, filed with
the wheat, they were driving round
and round q herd of sixty.nine
goats. How long they had been at
it or how long they were likely to con-
tinue am equally ignorant. but at.
any rate they tell me that after a
fortnight or two they succeed in
threshing out from twenty-five to
fifty bushels. Opening the gate of
the corral or front yard, they are
always the same, rode up to one
of the houses and asked il | could
get nights lodging. Isl, Senor,"
was the appreciated reply. So /
tethered my horse and entered the
curious structure.
These houses are, indeed, very
antique and old. Built Of adobe,
or cakes Of mud, with enough straw
in them to hold them together, they
are of color between a plug of to-
bacco and strong cigar, almost
universally one-story, except in a
very few exceptional cases, and then
the stairway goes up from the out
side, with generally one room, few
and often no windows, one door and
a little narrow Fireplace, in which
the sticks OF weod different from us
are set straight up and down the
chimney. A homemade wooden
snow shovel, used after each snow,
is infallibly found in one corner Of
the roof, which 10 fat, and which /
suppose is the anticipated garden
when real estate goes up ont this
A