Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1917-05-15
CONDITIONS AZ Az BORDER
As-sEEN-AND- HEARD-DURlNG- SEvEN-MONTHS-
MILITARY-VISIT
By FALSTAFF o. SATTER


surd, but are nevertheless true.
About So per cent of the Mexican
population of the Brownsville dis
trict are illiterate, and some Of them
live in novels that Iowans would not
think of housing a dog in. Right
now I have in mind hut that was
located on the street leading to
Brownsville, from camp, and passed
the building nearly every day. This
structure was feet wide, II feet
long and 81 feet high at the caves,
A family of five people eat, sleep,
live and are apparently happy in
that home. The man of the house is
hack driver and works every day
in the week, Sundays included. The
lady of the house sat at the door
eating one day, and I walked over
and made a mighty attempt to en-
gage her in conversation. She SEEM
ed perfectly willing to talk, but I
had to CLEAN most Of my information
from the signs she made, as her Eng
lish was not much better than my
Spanish-and l only knew three or
four words. However, she managed
to explain to me in broken English
and wildly waving arms that her
husband worked for 20 cents day;
that they owned the hut in which
they lived and had worked and saved
for seven long years to pay the $23
purchase price. The greater part OF
the expense of building the hut was
the chimney. She was very proud OF
the fact that their house had a
chimney, as only about one house in
fifty has such unnecessary luXuries
as that. They had no stove, but
had sort of fireplace where she
cooked all the meals. When she
washed clothes she heated the water
with bonfire near the west end of
the house. A bed, covered with the
whitest of fancy spreads and pillow
cases, stood against the wall. l in
quired of her how they managed to
sleep with any degree of comfort and
she reached under the bed, pulled out
pallet of straw, and Informed m, me
that the three children slept upon
that. The bed clothes were practic-
ally upon the absent treatment plan,
and even in that Texas climate | am
certain that would have chilled to
the bone on many an occasion I'M
less should have been compelled to
share the bed with someone else
and you can bet your liver wouldn't
want it to be any of that family.
Not chair in the house, but outside,
propped up against the wall, was a
home made affair in which the head
of the house sat and smoked cigar
cites after hard days work. But
they seemed happy.
One day one of the boys and | were
walking down town, and when we
had arrived in a thickly populated
portion of the city we saw little
boy playing out on the porch. The
little fellow was perhaps years OF
age and was as naked as the day he
was born. This was not surprising
to any Of us who had watched the
customs of the poorer class of Mex
leans, but we knew it would be in
teresting to take a picture like that
home with us. My companion had a
camera and heard him say that he
was going to get a picture and take
it home. When we had sneaked un
to within about fifty feet Of the lit
tie Dan Cupid and my friend was in
the act of getting his machine ready
for action, | was waiting for it to
click-but it never clicked, at least
not then, as a young woman rushed
out upon the porch, clasped her
yOungster in her arms and stood be-
tween the camera and the boy. La
ter we made inquiries and found the
woman had natural horror of pic
ture machines, as has the average
Mexican woman or child.
There are hundreds of houses in
Brownsville that do not keep out the
rain or the cool-sometimes cold
wind that happens along OCCASION
ally. In fact, there are dozens and
dozens of houses or novels in the
city that did not cost the owner one
cent to erect-unless he figured his
time worth something, and l feel
safe in saying that very few of them
figured that their time was worth
even having. / was moseying out
around in the vicinity of the ceme-
terry one day and overheard an ar
gument between a collector and a
Mexican. The Mexican handled the
English language in fairly good
shape, and | decided that | could
dr,w , littla inflammation from him