The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1899-02-12

sides. She has bought as much nrewood
as you could hold in your arms and she is
carrying it home.
Behind her comes young mother with
similar bundle and a baby in her arms.
See, she has stopped 10 make a purchase Of
the orange pedder over the way. Notice
how carefully she stOoOs down without
bending her back. There she has picked up
a half dozen oranges and stuck them in
among the firewood and is walking off with
out trouble. But, wait, the woman CT whom
she has bought is excited. She Is calling
her back. The young mother returns. ana.
putting her hand way down inside her
chemise, takes out coin and gives it to the
peddler, who in turn drops it in the neck of
her dress. The bosoms of the women are
their pockets, an1 before they make change
they often have ID fish fol soma time for
the coins
And so we go in and out through the
crowd. iostling and being jostled by women
with bags of potatoes baskets of corn, fire.
wood and bottles on the top of their heads.
We beg pardon at every step, for we fear
that push may throw basket of eggs to
the ground or a chunk of raw, red meat on
some womans head may be thrown off on
our clothes. There is no danger however,
for every woman can handle her burden on
her head quite as well as though she were
carrying it in her arms.
COSTS LITTLE TO LIVE.
The market is a good place to see how
little it costs for poor Paraguayan family
to live. Everything is sold in small guam
tity and it cannot cost much for the aver
age woman to keep house. The clothes of
the poor are exceedingly scanty. All the
women go barefooted and all go bareheaded.
1t does not cost much to dress them, and
full suit can be bought for 81 in gold Near
ly all wear shawls about their chocolate or
crean-oolored faces. Some have the shawls
thrown back so that you can see that the
low-cut chemise, which reaches to their
feet, forms the rest of their clothing. The
shawls look like bed sheets, and 1 am
told that they are used as such in many
cases at night, so that woman takes part
Of her bed for her clothes when she goes out
to walk.
The common people here have indeed but
few wants. They do not seem to care much
for money, and think one who works like
a foreigner is very foolish indeed
1 venture that the average family of Par
aguay does not spend much in a year as
the family of our average laboring class
SpenuS month. Inc houses outside the
cities, of which [ shall write more here
after, are huts of poles chinked with mud
and rooted with brown thatch. They have
dirt floors and there are, as a rule, neither
fences nor gardens. The usual hut is not
more than fifteen feet square, but it often
has an open shed of the same size joined to
it. AS it is warm the shed is frequently the
most comfortable part of the house.
There is little furniture. hammock or
so, one or two cot beds made of canvas
and stretchers a table and couple of
chairs form a good housekeeping outfit.
The cooking is often done over an open fire
in the shed and cook stoves are not COM
mon.
The chief meals are breakfast at IL and
dinner at 6, with cup of mate or Para
guayan tea in the morning. The food is
chiefly puchero, a soup of boiled beef and
vegetables, and mandioca, a kind of a po-
tato-like root, which is dried and ground
into a flour. The soup is often eaten first
and the boiled beef and vegetables brought
in as a second course. But little coffee or
tea is drunk at meals and the only liquor
used by the common people is a villainous
rum made of sugar, called canya.
FRANK G. CARPENTER.