Chapter XV: Saw Mill; Mud Sleighs; Wooden Plows

"At what are you going to earn your living when you grow up, Fil?" asked the Padre, who was his teacher, when we all met again under the whispering bamboos next morning.

Fil thought a minute, pursed his chest out like a pouter pigeon, and replied to the great admiration of Filippa, who was a very loyal sister:

"I shall be a Senator, or President."

"Come down from the clouds, Master Fil," replied his father; "stop dreaming and say something practical. There can be only one President and only a few score Senators. So if every one had your aims, millions would starve. Yet millions are working happily, and earning wages which buy them what they need, if their ideas are not too selfish. They do not need to bow to wretched, cringing politics."

"At what do they work?" eagerly inquired Fil.

"Come and see," said Fil's father and the Padre together. We all followed.

"Here's a lumber yard; let us go in," said Fil's father.

"That man on top of that huge, uplifted log will topple off, and that man underneath will get his eyes filled with sawdust," I exclaimed.

"That's our way of sawing lumber," explained Fil's father. "We lift up one end of the log. One man gets on top and the other man below; and between them they pull up and down the heavy saw, until half of the log all feathers out into many boards. Then they raise the other end, and the men saw down to meet those first cuts, while board after board falls down."

"Don't you have round saws of steel, driven by machinery?" I asked.

"Not always," said Fil's father. "The wages here are so low that we can afford to hire men to do handwork. This gives many men work, and keeps them from being idle and discontented."

"But here is one very round log which they are sawing across grain, into round wheels; and they are boring one hole into the center," I exclaimed.

"They really are wheels for buffalo carts. Don't you remember your ride the other day?" asked Fil.

I did remember the heavy, creaking wheel, made of one solid piece of wood.

"They never need an iron rim," added Fil's father; "and so are not as heavy as they look."

"Why, here's a low sleigh, being made out of bamboo poles, runners and boards. Do you have winter here after all?" I asked.

"No, nothing but hottest summer always. But we have much rain, and our roads are not all paved with rock," explained Fil's father. "If we used those high wheels on the muddy roads, they would sink so far down that the buffalo or bullock could not pull out the cart that was loaded with rice or sugar."

"So you see, the sleigh slips more easily through the slippery mud," added Fil.

"But what if you fell off, a mile from a crossing?" I asked laughingly.

"Oh, he jokes too, and you don't check him," remarked Fil, who looked at his father. Fil's father smiled.

"What is this tough, crooked elbow stick, fixed to a long pole?" I inquired.

"A plow," answered Fil wisely:

"Don't joke. How can you have a plow wholly made of wood?" I asked.

"I'll tell you," said Fil. "You see our rice fields are flooded and soft. We do not need a solid heavy steel plow, such as you need in hard, dry land. The water buffalo, who loves to wade through the flooded rice fields, easily pulls this bent stick, which plows up the mud. Then we drain the field and plant the rice seedlings, and flood the field again, because rice must grow in water."

"It is a peculiar but lovely Philippines that you live in ; so different from our country, but perhaps even more charming," I added.