to do. He's good at this work, they say, because he's got such sensitive fingers."
"Yes,"
chimed in a newcomer whom I had not seen before, "if ever the
Gobernador orders the abacca rope for me, I would have none but that
chap to arrange the hemp cravat for me." He said this so earnestly,
running his hand over his scraggy neck and his close-cropped head that
I laughed aloud.
Thus
was I introduced to Charlie Schuck, the shortest and slickest of the
four brothers of that name. These brothers require a page to
themselves. They were a part and parcel of the island. Father Schuck,
who had been dead some years, originally came from Hamburg. Although
not of sea-faring stock, he had given his old father no peace until he
had fitted him out with a well-found schooner. From the mouth of the
Elbe to the Mindoro Sea was a long jump in those early windjammer
days. He set out with an ailing wife and four romping boys; but he
arrived without the wife.
The
Sultan of Sulu of those days found his trade goods quite to his liking
and therefore bade him make his home in the island. He also picked him
a buxom Moro girl to mother the orphaned boys. Within a short time
Schuck the elder had acquired, in one way or another, a great holding
of land; and what with the status of a substantial landlord, the
prestige conferred by his white skin and his natural shrewdness, he
soon became a power in the island.
His
four sons grew into manhood, took native wives and dissipated much of
the substance the old man had won so hardly. Then came the change over
from the Spanish to the American regime. The Americanos thought they
could make use of these whiteskins, who knew the land as intimately as
any native. But the eldest son caught blackwater fever on a visit to
North Borneo before the United States Government could give him a job;
the second was a decent chap, well-intentioned towards the new
masters, but he made a good interpreter, no more. Charlie was the
third son. Of him I saw a good deal later. We had considerable business
dealings together, but he was a regular twister. He wasn't much to look
