N Colombia, it seems, there were always monkeys, or if not always, at least as far as the memory of man goes. An old historian named Oviedo noted that and wrote: “When the Christians make an expedition to the interior and have to pass by woods, they ought to cover themselves well with their bucklers . . . for the monkeys throw down nuts and branches at them. . . . I knew one, a servant. This man threw a stone at a monkey, who caught it and returned it with such force that it knocked out four or five of Francisco’s teeth, and I know this to be true for I often saw the said Francisco, always without his teeth.”
Now one day a man told me the tale of the monkeys, and he talked and talked as he smoked, until the stars came out and shone clear and steady and the air was heavy with perfume, and owls and bats floated strangely, as they will do, and when he had finished he still talked, taking up forgotten ends of his tale and winding in and about, making a long affair of a short matter. But then he had nothing else to do but to talk and was mighty pleased, it seemed, to have someone to listen to him. Then, when we should have been sleeping, he went on talking, picking out a piece of the tale here and another piece there, and explaining until I was well nigh like to get the story tangled myself. But here is the meat of it:
Long, long ago there were no monkeys, and the trees were so full of fruit, and the vines of grapes, that the people became lazy, and at last did little but eat and sleep, being too idle to carry away the rinds and skins of the fruit that they lived on, and certainly too lazy to clean their thatched houses.
It was very pleasant at first, but soon not so pleasant, for winged things that bit and stung came in thousands to feed on the things thrown aside, and they, too, grew lazy, finding so much to eat ready at hand, and when people tried to brush them away there was a loud and angry buzz and much irritated stinging, so that soon every one was wonder-struck, not knowing exactly what to do. For a time it seemed easier to move the little village to a new spot and to build new houses, for the dwellings were light affairs and in a day or less a good house could be built. But then they lived by a lake from which the water for drinking was taken, and as it was but a little body of water, it was not long before the people had built right round the still pool and so were back again at the starting place. As for the stinging flies, they were soon worse than the mosquitoes, while a great wasp with pink head and legs and bands of black and gold on its body, though very pretty to see, was worst of all. So it was no easy matter to know what to do, and there was much talk and much argument, and all that the people agreed on was that something had to be done, and that, very soon.
One day there came to the village a queer and rather faded kind of man, ragged and tattered and torn as though he had scrambled for miles through the thorn-bush forest. He had rough yellow hair, and queer wrinkles at the corners of his eyes which made him look as if he were smiling. It was late in the afternoon when he came and the people were taking their rest after the noon meal, so no one took much notice of him although he went here and there, looking at things, and so walked round the lake. But the curiosity of everyone was excited when he was seen to make a basket, which he did quickly, and then commence to gather up the fruit skins and rinds in one place. Now and then some one or other raised himself in his hammock, with a mind to talk to him, but it seemed almost too much trouble, and when some great blue-winged butterfly fluttered past or some golden-throated humming-bird flashed in the sunlight, their eyes wandered away from the old man and they forgot him again. So the sunlight died and the forest was a velvet blackness and everyone slept, though the old man still worked on, and the next morning when the people awoke he was still working diligently, though he had but a small place cleared after all.
The very thought that any one would work all night made the head man shiver with a kind of excitement, yet he was very curious to know why the stranger went to so much trouble, seeing that he neither lived there nor was of the lake men. At the same time it made his spirit droop to think that if the place was to be cleared up, he and everyone else had a mountain of work in sight. So Tera, the head man, called to Cuco, who was his servant, telling him to bring the stranger to him, and Cuco, who was very respectful, said that he would attend to it. Then Cuco did his part by calling Yana and delivering the message to him. And Yana in turn told his servant, Mata, who told his servant, Pera, who told his servant, Racas, who told a boy, so that at last the message reached the old man. Then back went the old man, handed by the boy to Racas, by Racas to Pera, by Pera to Mata, by Mata to Yana, and by Yana to Cuco, so that at last he stood before Tera, the head man, and the others, being curious to know what was afoot, gathered about.
“What is your name, from where do you come, and what do you want?” asked Tera, putting his three questions at once, to save trouble. Then the head man looked at those about him with a little frown, as much as to say, “Note how wisely I act,” and each man who had heard, seeing that the head man looked his way, nodded at his neighbour, as though calling attention to the wisdom of the head man, so all went very well. But the little old man stood there very simply, making no fuss at all and quite unimpressed with the greatness of the great man.
“I want to work,” he answered. “I want to be told what you want done and to see that it is done.”
To be sure, the language that he spoke was one new to those who listened, but somehow they seemed to understand. But the thing that he said they found truly astonishing and could hardly believe their ears. But the head man, though as astonished as any one there, quickly regained his composure and asked this question:
“What is your trade?”
“I have no trade,” said the old man. “But I get things done.”
“What kind of things?”
“All kinds of things.”
“Do you mean big things, like house-building and all that?” asked the head man.
“Yes. And little things too, which are really big things when you come to consider,” said the old man, but that seemed an odd if not a silly thing to say, the head man thought.
“Little things left undone soon become big things,” explained the old man, and waved his hand in the direction of a heap of fruit skins and husks near by.
“Yes. Yes. But you must not preach to us, you know,” said Tera a little testily. “Tell me the names of the trades you have.”
So the little old man began to tell, naming big things and very little things, things important and things not important at all, and having finished, asked very politely whether any one there had anything to be done. As for pay he said that he wanted none at all and would take none, and he said that because some of those gathered about him began offering him things.
For instance, Pera said: “If you work for me, I will let you have one fish out of every ten that you catch, for I am a fisherman.” And Racas pushed him aside, saying: “But I will do better, for I am supposed to be fruit gatherer and will give you two things for every ten you gather.” And so it went, each bidding higher than his neighbour, until it came to the turn of the man whose duty it was to gather the rinds and fruit skins. He said, “I will let you have, not one out of ten, nor two out of ten, nor five out of ten that you gather, but ten out of ten, if you will work for me.” At that the old man said quite positively that he would take no pay at all.
No more was said then and the little old man turned away without as much as bowing to the head man, seeing which the head man waved his hand and said: “You may go, and so that you will lose no time, you need not bow to me.” And all the rest gathered there said very hastily: “Nor need you bow to me, either.”
The old man took small notice of any one, but went away singing, for he had a gay, light-hearted disposition, and having reached the place he had cleared, he took flat pieces of wood and began cutting out figures like little men, and each figure had a kind of handle that looked like a long tail. Nor did he cease whittling until he had made at least twenty wooden figures for each man in the village. Being finished he stood up to stretch his legs and straighten his back, and when the people asked him what the little figures were for, he shrugged his shoulders but spoke never a word. Then he lifted the figures that he had made, one by one, and set them upright in the sand until there was a long row of them, and took his place in front of them, like a general before his army. It was beautiful to look at, for one figure was as like another as one pin is like another, and for a moment even the old man stood admiring the line. After a moment he waved his hand in a peculiar way, spoke some magic word, and waved his hand again, at which each of the figures came to life and nodded its head, seeing which all the people laughed and clapped their hands. The ragged man bade them make no noise, but watch.
“Since you do not like to work,” he said, “I have made twenty figures for each of you, and they will work for you without pay, doing what you require them to do; only observe this, you must not give any figure more than one particular job. And now let each man or woman clap his hands three times, then call out the name of the thing to be done.”
When he had said this, the figures started running, twenty gathering in a circle about each man there, bowing from the hips and straightening themselves again, so that their tails of wood went up and down like pump-handles.
“Now see,” said the ragged man, “you have things to work for you, and as I call out, the figures will stand forth, each ready to do his task.” And he began calling, thus:
“Armadillo hunters, stand forth!” and a hundred and more active figures ran together like soldiers.
So he named others in order as:
Bread makers.
Cassava gatherers.
Despolvadores, who would gather up dust.
Esquiladors, who would shear the goats.
Farsante men, whose work was to amuse tired men.
Guardas, to keep order about the place.
Horneros, or bakers.
Industriosos, who were to do odd jobs everywhere.
Jumentos, whose work it was to carry burdens.
Labradores, to do heavy work and clear away garbage.
Moledores, to grind the corn.
Narradores, who told stories, related gossip and so on.
Olleros, or pot makers.
Pocilga figures, to attend to the pigs.
Queseros, to make cheese from goat’s milk.
Rumbosos, or proud-looking things to walk in parades.
Servidores, or food carriers.
Trotadores, to run errands.
Vaqueros, to attend to the cows.
So everyone was well pleased and each one had his twenty figures to do all that needed to be done, and all that day there was a great scraping and cleaning and carrying and currying and hurrying and scurrying. Silently the little figures worked, never stopping, never tiring, never getting in one another’s way, and all that the living people had to do was to rest and watch the men of wood, and keep their brains free for higher things. For it must be remembered that before the old man came there with his wonderful gift, the people had complained that there was so much to be done that they had no time to write poems or to make songs or to create music, and that with the daily tasks abolished their brains would be more active.
Not two days had passed before the children of the place complained that they did not have a chance and that they had so much to do, what with hunting for things lost, looking after their small brothers and sisters, keeping things in order, trying to remember things they were told, cleaning things, and a dozen other tasks, that they really had no time to play, much less to study. So they went in a body to the old man and asked him to give each child twenty figures to do odd things. There was a great deal of fire and expression in his eyes when he made answer that if the children really needed help he would lose no time in providing it. But the young people were quite positive that they were overworked, and the long and short of it was that the old man whittled out many, many more figures, and in another twenty-four hours each and every boy and girl had his own:
Abaniquero, or fan maker, so that none had to pluck a palm leaf.
Baliquero figure, to carry letters and messages.
Cabrero, to look after the goats.
Desalumbrado, to hunt for things in the dark.
Enseñador, or private teacher, who was never to scold.
Florista, to save them the trouble of gathering flowers.
Guasón figure, to amuse them.
Hojaldarista, whose work it was to make cakes.
Juego figure, to arrange games.
Keeper of things.
Lector, to read and tell stories.
Mimo, to act as clown.
Niñera, to look after younger children.
Obediencia figure, to make others obey.
Postor, to buy things for them.
Quitar figures, to take things away when children tired.
Recordación figures, or rememberers.
Solfeadors, to sing to them.
Tortada men, to make pies.
Volantes, as servants.
So things seemed to be going very well, and before a month had passed in all that place there was not a thing out of order, soiled, broken, bent, lost, misplaced, undone, unclean, or disorderly. Neither man nor woman nor child had to worry; dinners were always prepared, fruits gathered, beds made, houses in perfect order, and all was spick and span. All that the grown-up people had to do was to look on, and no one was proud of the order in his house because every other house in the place was as orderly. As for the children, they had nothing at all to do but to eat, drink, rest, and sleep. Then, presently, more figures were called for as this one or that wanted a larger house, a finer garden, or grander clothes.
But as the wooden figures became more numerous and as no figure could do more than one task, the ragged man had to make figures for the figures and servants for the servants, for as things went on, there had to be more fruit gatherers, more water carriers, more scavengers, more cooks, because the figures had to eat and drink. Thus it came to pass that before long, instead of their being twenty figures for each man, there were sixty or seventy, with new ones coming from the old man’s knife every day. Soon the lively manikins were everywhere, inside houses as well as outside, thick as flies in summer and certainly a great deal more persistent, for there could be no closing of doors against the manikins. Indeed, had anything like that been attempted there would have been a great cry for special door-openers. So, many houses were quite cluttered with wooden men, those who were on duty rushing about until it made the head swim to look at them, and those who were resting or sleeping, for soon they learned to rest and to sleep, lying about the floors, piled up in corners, or hanging to rafters by their tails. All that increase in help had made for the production of a thousand or more guardas, whose task it was to keep order, and they were everywhere, alert and watchful and officious, and the real people had to step about very gingerly sometimes, to avoid treading on them and annoying them.
At last there came a day when the people began to grow a little tired of doing nothing, and they told one another that a little help was a very good thing, but help in excess, too much of a good thing altogether. So there was a meeting and much talk and the manikin narradors, whose duty it was to carry gossip and the news, were very busy, rushing from here to there with their scraps of information.
“It is very clear that something must be done,” said Tera, the head man.
“But everything is being done,” answered the little old man. “If everything is done, something must be done.”
“I did not mean that,” said Tera, who seemed a little testy. “I meant to say that these wooden men must be kept in their places.”
“But they are in their places,” replied the old man. “Their place is everywhere because they do everything, so they are in their places.”
“You see, the days are so very long, so very dull,” said the man who wished to have time that he might become a poet. “At the shut of day we are not weary.”
“We do not want to be petted,” said another.
“The trouble is,” sighed a fat man, “you can’t be happy when everything is done for you.”
“And we don’t want to be nobodies,” shouted another.
Another said very mournfully: “It seems to me that when these wooden things do things with our things, then the things that they do and make and care for are not our things.”
“Too many ‘things’ in that speech,” said the fat man.
“Well, there are too many things,” answered the other. “Look at me. I used to be gardener and now I’m nothing. When my garden is dug and planted and tended and watered and the very flowers plucked by these wooden things, and when other wooden things pick up the leaves and pull the weeds and do everything, then my garden does not seem to be mine.” He added after awhile: “I hope you know what I mean, because it is not very clear to me, yet it is so. I remember——”
At that the little old man put up his hand and said: “But that is against the contract. You must not try to remember, really you must not, because there are manikins to do all the remembering, if you please.”
“Well, but I think——” began the man, when he was again interrupted.
“Please do not think,” said the little old man. “We have things to do the thinking, if you please.” He thought for a moment, his bent forefinger on his lips, then he said: “I’ll see what can be done. It is clear that you are not satisfied, although you have everything that you asked for and certainly all the time that you want.”
“Let us do something,” murmured Tera.
“I’m afraid there is nothing that you can do,” said the little old man, “because, as you see, everything is done, and when everything is done it is quite clear that something cannot be left to be done. The only thing that is clear is that there is nothing to be done.”
At that the meeting broke up and each went to his own hammock to think things over, and soon the general cry was: “We must have elbow room.” And hearing that, the little old man went to work and whittled more figures of wood, a whole army of them, ten for each living man, woman, and child, and in voices that creaked like wooden machinery they marched hither and thither, crying: “Elbow room. Elbow room!”
Soon there was confusion. It was manikin against manikin for a time, the Elbow-room-ers thrusting and pushing the other working manikins, some going about their work with frantic haste, others interfering with them, clutching at them and at the things they carried, a tangled knot of them sometimes staggering, to go down with a crash. Soon in every house was a jangling tumult, manikins and men running about in houses and dashing out into the open spaces outside; the noise of slamming doors and breaking pots; the clamour of animals. Above all could be heard everywhere cries of “We want elbow room! We want elbow room!” Soon men were running away from the houses with those strange swift manikins hanging to them sometimes beating them, while other manikins threw things out of the doors and through windows, food and household things. And excited children fled too, while their manikins ran at their sides, some chattering, some acting the clown as was their duty, some telling stories as they ran, while other strange little figures of wood ran bearing heavy burdens. It was all a dreadful mix-up with no one knowing what to do, no one knowing where to go, and everywhere the manikins who were guardas, or order keepers, ran about, tripping people and manikins alike in the effort to stop the rush. But when the day was near its end there were no people in the houses and the hammocks swung idly, for all the men and women and children, even the white-haired grandfathers and grandmothers, had fled to the further side of the lake, where they could have elbow room, leaving the houses and all that was in them to the manikins.
The next day, the people plucked their fruit for themselves and it seemed as though fruit was never sweeter. The water that they carried from the lake tasted better and cooler than water had for many a long day, and when night came they were happily tired and slept well, without any manikin to swing their hammocks and sing to them. And in the morning they woke early to discover the pink and gold of the sunrise most wonderful to see, and there was music in the sound of the wind among the grasses. So as the day passed they were both amazed and astonished at the wonderful and beautiful things that they had almost forgotten, the sight of butterflies fluttering from flower to flower, the shadows chasing across the hills, the richness of the green earth and the blueness of the sky, the gold of sunlight on the leaves, the rippling water and the bending trees; indeed the memory of the manikin days was like a fearful nightmare. Very light-hearted then they grew and the world was full of the music of their laughter and song, and briskly they worked, enjoying it all, building new houses and making things to put in them.
Meanwhile in the village things had gone queerly. For one thing the Elbow-room-ers kept up their crowding and pushing, so that the manikins trying to work at their old tasks (and there were many who went on just as before) were sadly hindered. There were other figures of wood with nothing to do, since the people they served were gone, and these fell to quarrelling among themselves and grew mischievous. For instance, the pot makers and the pot cleaners fell out, and the pot cleaners started to break the pots so that the pot makers would have more work to do. That meant that the clay gatherers and the clay diggers had to work harder, then because they worked harder, though to be sure all their work meant nothing and was little more than idle bustle, they grew hungrier and wanted more to eat. Because of all that the fruit gatherers had more to do and the water carriers had to work harder and the cassava bread makers had to bake as they had never baked before. That brought the fire builders into it, and of course the wood gatherers also, for they too had to work harder and to eat more, so still more work came on the food bringers. And all the time the Elbow-room-ers rushed about, always in groups of ten, driving and commanding, rushing on workers and sweeping them aside. So everywhere were little figures hurrying one after the other, going to and fro, busy about nothing, quarrelling about nothing, fighting about nothing.
The trouble came when the Elbow-room-ers interfered with the dogs and the cats, the goats and the hens, pushing and hustling them. For the animals, disliking all the disorder and clatter, fell upon the manikins, workers and idlers alike. Seeing that, the household utensils took a hand and the very pots and kettles ran or rolled or fell, spilling hot water over the wooden things with pump-handle tails. The very embers from the fires leaped into the fray. All the while from the metates in which the corn had been ground came a low growling, and the growling formed itself into words:
Day by day you tortured us—
Grind, grind, grind.
Holi! Holi!
Huqui! Huqui!
Grind, grind, grind.
Bring to us the torturers—
Grind, grind, grind.
Let them feel our power now—
Grind. Grind. GRIND!
So the metates turned and turned, going round and round without hands, and presently an Elbow-room-er that was struggling with a corn-grinder stumbled, and both fell between the grinding stones and in a moment were crushed to powder. In a flash house utensils and animals learned the new trick, and in every house manikins were pushed into the grinding stones. Then sparks began to fly and roofs to catch on fire and manikins bolted here and there in confusion, sometimes jamming in doorways, there were so many and all in such disorder. Then came dazzling, flickering lightning and a great rain, so that for very safety the manikins fled to the forest and climbed the trees. And there they have lived ever since, for they grew hair and became monkeys. But the remembrance of all that passed stayed with them, and in their hearts to this very day is no love for man, and for that very reason when a Christian passes through a forest he must look well to himself, lest the manikins in revenge try to hurt him by casting nuts and branches at his head.
