SUGAR-MAKING--DINNER AT “JOSEFITA’S”--DOMESTIC SERVICE--POOR DON PEDRO.
During the sugar-making time in winter all was excitement and confusion
on the plantations, suddenly, as if by magic, awakened from the
summer’s sleepy quiet. Owners, who had city homes, came from Havana,
Matanzas, Guïnes, and Guanabacoa, to _el campo_; and then we, who had
no city home, and had long vegetated in seclusion, enjoyed a little
society.
On those lovely winter days, when the roads were dry and smooth,
and the skies cloudless, and the sun warm, the air redolent with
the nameless odors of tropical fruits and flowers blended with the
all-pervading aroma of boiling cane-juice, there was much visiting and
entertaining, much galloping about in gay cavalcades from house to
house, calling and extending invitations to breakfasts and dinners, and
offering one’s home with all that therein is to each other.
Ladies in flowing robes of every bright color, gracefully seated on
elaborately decorated _left-sided_ saddles of similar pattern to those
used by Catharine of Aragon and her maids of honor in their triumphant
entry into London four centuries ago; their gallant cavaliers in
spotless linen from top to toe, Panama hats, and clanking silver
spurs--the party, all mounted on blooded stallions, came galloping up
the long avenue of palms. Caridad and Pancho, Manuel and Reglita, Leon
and Félicia, and so on to the number of fifteen or twenty, alighted for
a moment, accepted a cup of coffee, and off again like a bright vision
of brave knights and fair ladies.
A dinner at the _Josefita’s_ was the social event of the year to us
eagerly accepted. When we arrived, resplendent in our best clothes, the
house was already filled with guests. The Josefita family and their
city visitors numbered a score, with a score more of the neighbors, and
perhaps a half-score of the plantation dependents. It reminded one of
the feudal feasts Scott so loved to describe, where the honored guests
sat above, and the followers of the chief below, the salt. The long
table was spread on the front veranda; so, in order to avoid a sight
of the preparations, guests were invited to enter at the rear of the
house--a table was pieced out by various devices below the salt, as it
were, some lower, some wider than the table proper; but the food was
the same, and the boundless hospitality of the host reached all. The
entire dinner was placed upon the board before the company was seated.
The odor was not quite appetizing to us, where every dish had a dash
of garlic or the unsavory scent of crude olive-oil.
Great heaping piles of blood-colored rice, dressed with a vegetable
that imparts that vivid tinge, glistened with lard; chickens, garnished
with olives, raisins, prunes, and blanched almonds; sausages, no larger
than one’s little finger, in dear little links, served with a fringe
of garlic; beautiful dishes of omelet, streaked with the blood of
all the fowls sacrificed for the banquet, with just enough garlic to
impart to them the prevailing flavor; slices of meat, fearfully and
wonderfully prepared with red wine and sugar; various salads, served
in oils; ripe bananas, stewed in wine and sirup; green bananas, fried
dry and crisp like Saratoga potatoes; a whole roast pig, decorated with
ribbons and brilliantly colored, impossible paper-flowers; vegetables,
whose unpronounceable names I have forgotten; varieties of tropical
fruits, all juicy, all delicate, all more or less insipid, all tasting
somewhat alike; sweets of cocoanut, guava, sweet-potato, pineapple,
marmocilla--no end of sweets; no end of delicate Spanish wines; no
end of cigars; no end of cigarettes; no end of gay, little, feathered
tooth-picks, made from the plumage of the most brilliant birds; no end
of talk. A confusion as of Babel--so fast, emphatic, loud, and so full
of gestures, of _Ave Marias!_ “Ohs!” and “Ahs!” bursts and ripples of
laughter that we, not to the manor born, had not half an idea what was
being said, and not the remotest idea what we were eating.
The custom of helping another at table, and then smelling of the plate;
the custom of raising a dish to one’s nose, and, with an audible sniff
and a shrug, replacing it untouched, or, if favorably impressed,
helping one’s self, arose, I presume, from the desire to know by the
surest channel if the right quantity of oil and garlic were present.
Don Pancho sat by Ellie, and it seemed his duty to assume charge of her
and smell of her plate, and, when he found a particularly appetizing
_morceau_ in his own, to transfer it to her mouth; she playfully
resisted, telling me afterward that she hoped they did not think her
rude, but she could not eat from Don Pancho’s fork. Caridad, the
hostess, placed me at her right hand, and hospitably heaped my plate
with the choicest of the viands.
And so we dined. At the improvised end of the table sat the _mayoral_
and his assistant, the _boyero_ (herdsman), the little, old, dried-up
doctor, who administered herb-teas and foot-baths at the plantation
hospital, the two sugar-makers and two engineers, of various dusky,
olive shades, all clean and orderly, quiet and voracious. They took
their seats with a dignified salutation, and retired when cigars and
tooth-picks were passed around, accompanied with coffee.
A score of darkies, in various stages of inexperience, waited upon
us, under the vigilant, outspoken directions of the host and hostess.
There was no attempt at style or ceremony, no whispering of orders or
sly hints as to duties, no gestures or winks; everything was free and
open, every order given in an unmistakable key; so that there was an
_abandon_ at one of these country festivals absolutely bewitching.
Scarcely a country that boasts of the luxuries and elegancies of life
had so poorly performed domestic service as Cuba. Servants, moving
leisurely about, were seen everywhere, but there was no running
to do one’s bidding. A lady’s-maid did not serve more than one in
her capacity. A nurse cared only for one child. One cook could not
prepare the meals unaided, be they ever so simple. One scullion was
not sufficient for kitchen-cleaning. A seamstress could only do the
sewing and repairing for one señora. A family, a type of the best,
though not the wealthiest, of the island, that I visited, at their
_quinta_ at Madruga, had twenty-five servants about the house! a much
smaller retinue than in their city residence, and therefore considered
themselves rather unattended and uncomfortable. The family consisted
of a mother and six children, ranging from eight to eighteen, and
an intelligent American governess, gifted with an infinite tact and
the convenient attribute of ubiquity, on whom the burden of the
entire establishment seemed to rest, and her cheerful presence and
systematic rule were everywhere visible. The father for political
reasons was banished to Spain, and for social reasons the mother,
still a young woman, could not go into society in his absence. Their
domestic arrangements were a never-ceasing wonder to me. The mother
and two daughters each had a maid in constant attendance, to pick up a
handkerchief or arrange a stray ribbon when not employed in dressing
and undressing their ladies, whose principal occupation was the toilet.
The ebony butler had three white-coated assistants. One cook prepared
the meats, another made the sweets and _refrescos_; neither of them had
time to wash a pan or wipe a cup; so several scullions were sitting
around _waiting_ to help. There was a laundress for household linens,
another for skirts and dresses, a third for servants’ washing, and a
Chinaman who only laundried pantaloons, vests, and coats. None of them
had time to make fires or bring the water they used, servants of lower
degree doing this for them. Washing and ironing were in progress from
one end of the week to the other. Servants, servants everywhere and
very little done. All seemed acting their parts in a comedy of “how not
to do it.”
One of our neighbors, Don Pedro, with so limited an estate that an
ox-mill was used to grind his cane, had to hire a large percentage of
his force in order to make a few hogsheads of sugar, and frequently
wound up the season by selling the remainder of his crop standing,
because he had not sufficient labor to cut and grind it. Don Pedro had
a wife and several grown-up daughters, and fourteen servants about
the premises to wait upon the ladies, oftentimes the house servants
outnumbered the field-hands. A visit to their hospitable home revealed
an untidy parlor with a dog curled asleep on each chair--vicious
game-cocks secured by long strings, roosting on the window-shutters,
or strutting in their red and naked splendor about the veranda, a
half-dozen frouzy, half-clad negroes standing at open doors whispering
their admiration of the visitors. Nobody seemed to be working, every
living thing had a lazy, idle air, and poor Don Pedro who belonged to
a race that could not economize time, labor, or anything else, was
harassed because he could not get his cane cut, for lack of help. When
plans involving economy of time and curtailment of domestic service
were suggested, to help him out of his financial difficulties, his
doleful answer was ever “_No se puede!_” (“Impossible!”).