250 I N A G U A 



solve my problem and I set out to visit her as no one seemed 

 to know when she would take one of her very infrequent 

 trips to the settlement. I found her near her hut trudging up a 

 donkey trail with a fifty-pound load of palmettos on her 

 head. With typical northern impatience I asked her to halt 

 her task and take me to the flamingo. She puffed on her pipe 

 for a minute, considered, and said it could not be done until 

 next Monday. 



I did not want to wait until next Monday so I offered her an 

 extra dollar, which is as much money as she would have made 

 in a couple of weeks' steady labor. Mary shook her head. I 

 made it two dollars but no other day but Monday would do. 

 I knew it would be a long time before Mary could make two 

 dollars so quickly. But money meant little to Mary, so for 

 nearly a week I cooled my civilized heels waiting. If I had 

 offered her a hundred the result would have been much the 

 same. Quite probably at the moment I approached Mary she 

 did not need a dollar, so there was no use working for one. As 

 I discovered later she spent the interval making a few grass 

 baskets and catching up on her sleep! 



But bright and early Monday morning she turned up with 

 two donkeys, which she called Helen and Samson. Before I 

 was finished I knew Helen and Samson as well as I knew my 

 closest relatives. I slept with them and drank out of the same 

 bucket, greatly preferring that to the alternative which was 

 to die of thirst. Helen and Samson were almost as tempera- 

 mental as Timonias had been but Mary had much better con- 

 trol over their peregrinations. Her running comment to these 

 donkeys was a source of wonder; she coaxed, she wheedled, she 

 pleaded, spoke terms of endearment, cursed and blasphemed, 

 shrieked and howled, whispered and sang to attain her end. 



"Now yo Samson, please be genleman fo de white mon. 

 Samson, yo gives me a pain; if yo don behave I break yo dom 



