Promoted to Foreman—Overwork and Eyestrain—Mexican Traits—Amateur Doctor—A rival Asphalt Company—Its Failure.

I had plenty to attend to when I was promoted to be foreman, but was so pleased that I tried to do the whole job by myself; I succeeded for some three or four months, nearly breaking myself down in the attempt, and later found out that I got no thanks from the company either. I used to be at the office at 6.30 each morning to lay out the day’s work and to issue time checks to the men who were to go to work. During the day I was over the plant and in the pit on practically continuous rounds, and between times I was in the office attending to my correspondence, making out reports for the head office, and posting my books, as I had no office help at all. At 6 P.M., when the day-shift came off duty, I opened up the commissary, and with the help of a Mexican assistant I issued to the men the food, &c., they wished to buy. This generally took till 7.30 P.M., then to supper, and back to the office with a round or two 158over the works to see what the night-shift were doing; and then to bed at 10.30, sometimes midnight. Finally my eyes gave out from doing so much office work under an electric light, and I practically broke down from overwork. A man can stand long hours for a short time; I myself have often stood thirty-six and forty-eight hour shifts in the extractor house, two such shifts in one week but with a rest between; it is the long, steady grind that wears one out. I had to get leave and go into San Antonio to see an oculist, who gave me glasses and fixed me up so that I could return to work, but under orders to do no reading or writing at night for some months. The name of the eye trouble I was suffering from I have forgotten, but it was not the same as that of the man I heard of who, when the oculist had fitted on a number of different glasses said, in reply to the question as to how he could see with the last pair, “Well, the green giraffe I can shee firsh rate, but the red elephant and the purple trantula still look kinder—kinder blurred.” I wrote to the company that I either must have assistance, or an immediate rise of salary to warrant doing the work and taking chances. They replied that the salary I was receiving was all that the position I held was worth, but they sent me a man to take charge of the commissary, and let me 159get a book-keeper to do the office work, so that I had little night work to do.

I was practically the law and the prophets among the Mexicans at the mines, and they soon learned that I would carry out anything I said. Of course they had to prove this by a course of experiments, for the Mexicans hate to take anything for granted. I remember, once, two of them having an argument in the pit as to whether an electric fulminate cap could be exploded by a blow or only by the electric spark, one of them must needs experiment by striking the cap with a stone; it took him the rest of the day to get the pieces of stone out of his hand. I had issued an order that any man coming drunk on to the work would be discharged, and my best “hand driller” tried the experiment and went herding goats for a change. So things went on till they were convinced. This confidence that I could and would do what I said got me out of a hole once. There was a young Mexican at the mines who had been ill-treating his wife, and finally one evening he decided to kill her. She managed to escape from him, and ran over to the house of the head fireman, whose wife gave her shelter, the fireman himself turning out and running the husband off with a rifle. I heard about it the next morning, and that the husband was still full of threats. 160So I sent for him, his wife, and the fireman, and held court. The wife refused to return to the husband, as she said he would certainly kill her, and the fireman and his wife also refused to give her up. The husband of course denied all the charges, and said he could not return to Mexico without his wife, as suspicion would be aroused. I was in a quandary, for I knew that unless I could get the young fellow away either he or the fireman would get killed, and I could not afford to lose the fireman. Finally I gave the young fellow the alternative of either leaving the place at once, and leaving his wife in the care of the fireman and his wife, or I would take him into town and turn him over to the sheriff. It did not take him long to make up his mind that he did not want to make the acquaintance of the sheriff, and so he skipped out. The story somehow leaked out, and the next time I met Henry Burns the sheriff he joked me unmercifully about my divorce court. On another occasion an old woman, who ran a sort of restaurant for the bachelor Mexicans at the mines, came rushing to the office to tell me that two drunken Mexicans had run............