A RUDE THRESHING MACHINE. 



235 



independent electors of the State of Yucatan ; but 

 one of them took in his hand Don Simon's foot, 

 picked off the burrs, pulled off the shoe, cleaned the 

 stocking, and, restoring the shoe, laid the foot back 

 carefully in the hammock, and then took up the 

 other. It was all done as a matter of course, and 

 no one bestowed a thought upon it except our- 

 selves. 



On one side of the clearing was a great pile or 

 small mountain of corn in the ear, ready to be 

 threshed, and near by was the threshing machine, 

 which certainly could not be considered an in- 

 fringement of any Yankee patent right. It was a 

 rude scaffold about eighteen or twenty feet square, 

 made of four untrimmed upright posts for cor- 

 ners, with poles lashed to them horizontally three 

 or four feet from the ground, and across these was a 

 layer of sticks, about an inch thick, side by side ; 

 the whole might have served as a rude model of the 

 first bedstead ever made. 



The parallel sticks served as a threshing floor, on 

 which was spread a thick layer of corn. On each 

 side a rude ladder of two or three rounds rested 

 against the floor, and on each of these ladders stood 

 a nearly naked Indian, with a long pole in his hand, 

 beating the corn. The grains fell through, and at 

 each corner under the floor was a man with a brush 

 made of bushes, sweeping off the cobs. The shelled 

 corn was afterward taken up in baskets and car- 

 ried to the hacienda. The whole process would 



