" A dirt-train rumbled by now and then. He strove to amuse
himself by watching the innocent games of two little Spanish
switch-boys not far away. They were enjoying themselves, as
guileless childhood will, between their duties of letting a train
in and out of the switch. Well on in the second half of the
morning another diminutive Iberian, a water-boy, brought his
compatriots a pail of water and carried off the empty bucket. The
boys hung over the edge of the pail a sort of wire hook, the
handle of their home-made drinking-can, no doubt, and went on
playing.
By and by a burly black Jamaican in shirt-sleeves loomed up in the
distance. Now and then as he advanced he sang a snatch of West
Indian ballad. As he espied the "switcheros" a smile broke out on
his features and he hastened forward his eyes fixed on the water-
pail. In a working species of Spanish he made some request of the
boys, the while wiping his ebony brow with his sleeve. The boys
protested. Evidently they had lived on the Zone so long they had
developed a color line. The negro pleaded. The boys, sitting in
the shade of their wigwam, still shook their heads. One of them
was idly tapping the ground with a broom-handle that had lain
beside him. The negro glanced up and down the track, snatched up
the boys' drinking vessel, of which the wire hooked over the pail
was not after all the handle, and stooped to dip up a can of
water.
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