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. Sometimes they have no soap. In place of this, they use the seed or roots of the soapberry tree. The soap-seed tree bears several months in the year. The seed is inclosed in a yellow skin, and is black, and about the size of a marble. The leaf of a vine, called the soap vine is also used for the purpose of washing clothes. The clothes are first soaked in the stream or pond, and then spread upon a broad, smooth stone; after which they are pounded with clubs or stones. When they are clean, they are spread out upon the bushes to dry and bleach. [Illustration: COOKING THE EVENING MEAL.] Then the tired women rest under the trees, and chat, and perhaps smoke until evening. When the hot sun has gone down in the west, they make their damp and dry clothes up into huge bundles, lift them to their heads, and plod homeward. Let us follow them to their homes up on the mountain side. Some of the huts are built closely together. Others are scattered about on lonely ledges. Shall we go inside one of these huts? The woman who has just returned has thrown her burden into a corner. The fire has been carefully smoldered, and this she now blows into a flame and then proceeds to prepare the evening meal. About the other cottages are women squatting on their heels, gossiping with one another. In the ditch near by little children paddle about. Their voices are soft and pleasant, and their play merry and good-natured. We hear no quarreling. Now their mother calls them to bring in some sticks for the fire. When these are added to the flame, the firelight shines out in the darkness and guides the father on his homeward way. He has been working on the coffee plantation near, and is now climbing the narrow, winding path up the hill with his load of plantains. Perhaps the wife will cook some for supper. The children satisfy their hunger, and then creep into their corner or hammock and are soon fast asleep.