Page:The Valley of Adventure (1926).pdf/76

 "Do you know a better way?" Padre Mateo inquired, with just a little slighting of contempt, perhaps, in his own tone. It was as if the old rose up in bridling hauteur to defend the unnumbered cruelties which ignorance had established and usage had fastened, blighting curses on man and beast, through the slow centuries in the land that was his own.

"A better way!" Juan derided. "Why, you couldn't think of a worse way. Who ever would imagine oxen yoked by the horns, the yoke tied to the horns with ropes? They could pull about as much with their tails!"

"And there is another way, then, Juan Molinero?" Padre Mateo's resentment at this criticism of time-established usage was falling; he was a shrewd man, a servant of an institution that had grown great on its ability to see, its readiness to employ, the cunning and the wisdom of shrewd men.

"The yoke ought to set back on the shoulders, with a bow under the necks," Juan replied. "Haven't you ever seen a yoke like that? Why, they're used in every Christian country under the sun, have been since Adam made the first one, I guess."

"That is another thing you shall show us, then, if there is any advantage in it, Juan."

"Advantage? Why, I tell you, Padre Mateo, one span of oxen can draw as much as three span hitched this way. No wonder your fields look so