THE LABORER'S HILLSIDE HOME.

Perched on the hilltops and sides, shaded by banana trees, are the
picturesque little huts of the laborers. Most of them pay no rent. Land
owners give them small patches of ground on the hillsides, which they
themselves do not care to till, in order to have the laborers near or on
the plantations to assist in cultivating or harvesting the sugar cane,
tobacco and coffee crops.

Here the peasant laborers build their cabins; and, when there is no work
for them on the plantations, they tend their gardens in a haphazard way.
By working a little each day they manage to make a scant living.

Five months of the year they labor for their landlords, receiving about
fifty cents a day.

The laborer is often paid in plantains. Fifty plantains are a day's pay.
On this he feeds his family, for the plantain is the Puerto Rican
peasant's bread.

The plantains left are taken to market and sold. One day a week is lost
in this way, for the market is often twenty miles away.

Near a stream on the mountain side we see a group of women. Some of them
are sitting on stones by the bank; others are standing in the hot sun in
midstream, and all are washing.

It is wash day, and they have brought their clothes here to wash them.
They have no tubs, wash-boards, clothes-pins, or clothes-lines.