The Miraculous Whistle

This happened in Hormigueros in 1933 during the Depression.

Miguel Sánchez Villalba was there. He was a rail-thin man with barbed wire for muscles and coal-black eyes that crinkled at the corners when he smiled and burned with fire when he didn’t. Miguel was my grandpa, mi abuelo. This is his tale, and this is how he used to tell it.

The old mill really cried, wailed like a woman when she’s shunned or believed useless.

The jíbaros had the worst of it, the cane cutters in the country regions: seeing as hard times struck Borinquen like a curse. The situation fared no better than mud in well water. We country folk were poor, ragged, and hungry. We wanted work. There just weren’t enough jobs to go around. That was the main problem.

And the only honest work the jíbaros could find was on the island’s sugar plantations, toiling from sunup to sundown. This we did for six months during the zafra or milling season. All the jibaros wanted was something to eat and a place to live, which meant poor folks either cut cane, planted seed, or worked in the mills and for the hacendados, the landowners. The choices were that simple.

The cane cutters and seed planters got the worst of it, fighting the tropic sun and heat all day, not to mention blisters, fatigue, cuts, thirst, insects, and the itching sickness called pica-pica. Men folk railed against high heaven when they got that.

The illness is caused by a  wild-growing vine that releases prickly hairs. There’s no way you could avoid it if you worked in the fields, as most of the jíbaros did. Yet no matter the pica-pica, no matter the sun and heat, field hands would grind their teeth, wipe off the sweat, swing their machetes, and bear it. Either that or some folks just plain went hungry.

I was one of the lucky ones because I worked in the sugar mill, never in the fields. Central Eureka. The name of our mill. It was a huge structure erected in the middle of mill grounds. A factory, a destroyer of men but also a giver of life. Its main building stood like a giant of armored cement, steel girders and a gabled roof made of zinc. Her twin smokestacks, reaching to the sky, could be seen belching smoke for miles. And a whistle tooted at the end of each zafra.

For a cane cutter or mill worker, no happier sight existed than watching the wagonloads of harvested cane being drawn by oxen on their way to the mill grounds. And no sadder sound could be heard than the tooting of the mill’s whistle at zafra’s end.

I was a twenty-one-year-old firebrand when I went to work in Central Eureka, with a wife and baby boy to feed. I needed work (we all did) because times were lean and pickings everywhere were meager/slim?I got lucky, being in the right place at the right time. Or so I figured it.

The man in charge at the mill hired me as “watchman” for the calderos. These are the enormous iron vessels where guarapo, or sugar cane juice, is heated to produce syrup. It was my duty to maintain the pressure in the calderos at a certain level--not too high or too low. I did this by regulating a series of valves and controlling the amount of fuel that was dumped into the furnaces. Mine was an important duty, since without syrup from the calderos no sugar would be produced.

And nobody wanted that.

The first year I worked there the milling went fine as rain. Central Eureka milled a whopping 300,000 tons of cane in under six months. Dios mío, such production had never been recorded before in one year. But it happened. I saw it, I was there. And at the start of the Depression.

“He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand, but the hand of the diligent maketh rich.” Being fond of quoting Scripture, I often said this, and believed it.

The second and third years I worked there, the milling went just as fair. Though these were not record years, the jíbaros were grateful because there was work to be had, a roof over our heads, food on our tables and clothes upon our backs. We figured that as long as smoke kept pouring from Eureka’s smokestacks and her whistle kept tooting at zafra’s end, nothing could go salao, which is unlucky, for the cane cutters.

Fate, however, would not allow us more than a smidgen--un poquito--of happiness. Our luck (and work) ran out the year the government bought the mill. Production slackened and unemployment rose. Things went salao. The feeling was that an evil hand had put a curse    on the town and its sugar mill.

Eureka’s whistle no longer tooted. Layoffs occurred and production stopped. Because I also worked as secretary for the local credit union, I was one of the last to go, since the jíbaros needed me to tend to books and safeguard their earnings. Finally, even I got laid off. When the credit union lost all its money, I lost my job. The Depression had hit home.

“Maldito gobierno!” I railed, for I was mistrustful of the government and its ways.

Time dragged after that--one miserable day after another--slouching like a whipped dog. With nothing to do and starving for work, my temper flared and I would spend hours staring at the horizon, observing the green valley where the mill stood, her smokestacks idle, her whistle silent, and I would rail against the government and our bad luck.

Daily I prayed for God to favor the ailing mill. I even made a promesa, a vow to climb bare-kneed the seventy-eight steps leading to the entrance of our town church, Nuestra Señora de Monserrate, if the mill would open again. But it didn’t.

Everyone became depressed. Women and children cried. The men folk drank ron cañaall day and fights occurred. When I could stand idleness no longer, I prayed the hardest I had ever prayed in my life, and God answered me. He gave me an idea.

“As sure as there is a heaven and its saints, I’ll go see the mayor,” I proclaimed.

And I did, gathering as many of the laid off workers I could find, and together we marched to the mayor’s office. Though not a learned man, I knew reading and arithmetic, besides being familiar with the Bible and having the gift of gab. I stood in front of the mayor’s desk, and on behalf of the unemployed mill workers, said: “Señor alcalde, we the workers of Central Eureka wish to make a formal complaint. We are without jobs. Our wives go ragged for want of clothing; our children are hungry for want of bread. Our babies cry themselves to sleep for want of milk. Our families are forced to live in hovels, since we lack the money for materials to build decent homes. We are a poor people, señor alcalde, for want of decent work.

“We demand your intervention in this matter because you were chosen to serve the people. We demand you intercede in our plight. We demand swift and immediate action. We demand jobs.”

The mayor, an elderly man named Jonah Mario Nett, sat in his leather chair, an expression of unbelief in his tired eyes. Frail with age and wearing spectacles, he had nickel-gray hair, a hooked nose, a trimmed moustache and was hard of hearing.

But he heard me clear as day, for I had a deep voice that could rouse the saints from their niches in heaven.

The mayor removed his spectacles and looked at me.

Though I was thin and wiry, youthful and tanned, wearing the jíbaro’s plain work shirt and trousers, he seemed impressed by my words, and my presence. He motioned in my direction and asked, “Are you their representative?”

“That I am,” I said.

“What is your name?”

“Townsfolk call me Miguel.”

“Well, then, Miguel. Are you and the workers you represent all agreed concerning these demands?”

“Indeed, we are, señor alcalde.”

The mayor stood, a forlorn and faraway look in his squinty eyes. He said, “Then listen carefully, all of you. The closing of the mill is not of my doing. You know the government now manages the mill and has found it wanting. This is the reason for its closing and why you lost your jobs. The matter is strictly out of my control. My hands are tied. There is nothing I can do.”

Loud protests and catcalls followed upon the heels of the mayor’s words. I hushed the crowd and said, “The alcalde is within his rights. He doesn’t own the mill. He cannot grant us what he doesn’t own.”

“I am truly sorry,” the mayor said. “Be assured that I will always do the best for the people of this town, and its mill workers. Go home now, I urge you. And wait.”

Now my grandpa would say that the Lord was with him on that day. For when he next spoke, his voice resounded like a waterfall--loud, thunderous and rolling.

“Wait, you say? Wait for our young ones to go hungry, our babies to starve, our women to dress in rags, our houses to fall upon our heads? No, señor alcalde, God will not stand by and see hard working men and women wait. I pray that for every day we remain without work from now on, Eureka’s whistle cries tenfold. As God is my witness, I pray this.”

Open-mouthed, staring in unbelief, the mill workers watched in wonder and made way as Grandpa left, or so he said.

Later the mill workers speculated--and some even went as far as to say it out loud--that the mayor was in collusion with the government, believing they would never get their jobs back, and that the mill would continue to remain as it was--closed. Many even considered marching in protest. But Grandpa knew it would be to no avail.

All they could do, all anyone could do, was wait.

And it came to pass that every night after that fateful day, when the Carib moon rose quietly and full over the zinc rooftops and the town slept its melancholy sleep, bejeweled by star light, the mill--suddenly and inexplicably--cried.

Grandpa described it this way: Like a woman she cried, not like we were accustomed to hearing her, with quick, sharp toots of the whistle. Eureka cried tenfold--such drawn out, baleful wails of melodic purity, the sound cut the stillness and echoed throughout the countryside. Such a strange, never-before-heard sound, it unsettled the listener, got under his skin.

The mill cried every night after that, as long as the men remained without work, or so Grandpa said.

In its twenty-six years Central Eureka had never made such an eerie sound. No one could explain it. And no one wanted to take the credit for such a mystery. No one came forward.

“It’s tooting all by itself!” townsfolk said.

Many believed it. But not Grandpa. He knew it was the Lord tooting the mill’s whistle, or He had sent an angel in His stead.

“‘I cried unto the Lord with my voice, even unto God with my voice, and He gave ear unto me.’”

Though Grandpa’s words were reverent, even pious, most people paid him no mind. How could God, or even an angel, toot the mill’s whistle? Why would He even bother?

Yet the strange tooting continued, the crying.

Later, news of the uncommon events in Hormigueros was commented everywhere and by everyone. Folks knew that this was not the first time such a “miracle” (as the jibaros called it) had happened in Hormigueros. Twice before in the distant past the town had been the site of prodigious occurrences, and on each occasion the appearance of the Blessed Virgin was involved.

The mayor heard the gossip. And even reporters came, some from as far away as San Juan, the capital. Even government people came, inspectors and functionaries, to discover the reason for the mill’s tooting, dismiss it as a hoax and calm the populace. But they searched and found nothing.

No matter what the government men concluded, every night just before daybreak the so-called “miracle” occurred, the wailing. Until one day . . .

Exactly twelve months to the day after the mill’s closing, twelve months of meager existence, the alcalde called the town people to a meeting in the central plaza. The meeting turned into a great affair, as people gathered from miles around: from neighboring towns like San Germán, Cabo Rojo, Mayagüez, Aguada, Moca, Añasco, San Sebastián. Strangers and neighbors alike, they all came.

Ordinary citizens were curious, of course. Newspapers had reported accounts of the events in Hormigueros, and everyone in nearby hamlets and towns--including a representative of the bishop--wanted to witness this spectacle, this miracle. Soon everyone did.

By the hundreds they came, on foot and in carriages. The day was September eighth, the feast day of La Monserrate, our patron saint.

The air stirred, Grandpa said, humming with excitement and expectation. Many colored banners waved, tables graced the plaza, the town band played, and the multitude gathered-- talkative and anxious--to hear the alcalde and what he had to say. We stood in front of the platform that had been erected and watched as the old man prepared to speak. The mayor wore his best black suit, a starched white shirt with cuffs and a silk bow tie. We hushed. His voice rang loud and clear that day.

“Friends, neighbors, townsfolk, I bring great tidings . . .”

And the mayor spoke for what may have been an hour, more or less. And the crowd watched and listened, for on that day Jonah Mario Nett spoke not like an ordinary civil servant but like a great statesman. He spoke like Betances, the liberator of slaves, or like Segundo Ruiz Belvis, the lawyer and town patriarch. He spoke of great and small things, of the soul of the town, the strong of heart and the relentless of spirit.

He spoke of the value of faith and the God-given will that does not buckle under adversity.

He spoke with such eloquence and conviction, many of the people in the audience--not just the women folk--literally cried.

The mayor concluded with these words: “Listen, all of you. I hereby declare this week a week of festival. For starting next zafra and by the grace of God, the mill shall . . . grind!”

According to Grandpa, the mayor’s words provoked boisterous applause, shouting and hooraying. The scene became a carnival as townsfolk embraced each other and their neighbors. Disagreements and discrepancies were forgotten. Enemies became friends. Farmers, laborers, masons, carpenters, cane cutters--housewives and school children alike--all pranced in the square, laughing and singing joyously. Each felt happiness in his or her own personal way, because the mill’s reopening meant that the men could go back to work and everyone, rich and poor alike, would benefit.

This great and singular event occurred decades before I was born. I wasn’t around then, but Grandpa was.

He said, “I clasped my hands toward heaven that day, and gave thanks.”

Miguel Sánchez Villaba, mi abuelo, labored forty of his eighty-six years in the old mill.

And never again, at least in his lifetime, did Hormigueros suffer such a bleak and bitter time.

Simply stated: we had been blessed.

At the end of each zafra I would walk home from the country school in Jagüitas, look in the direction of the cane fields, and hear Eureka’s whistle clear as day. Then I would rush to visit Grandpa and say, “Did she cry? Did she really and truly cry?”

Rocking on the porch of his wooden house, his gnarled fingers whittling a piece of oak, Grandpa would return my stare and say, his eyes shiny and burning as if they were possessed by some terrible, great secret:

“That she did. Let no man tell you different. I heard it clearly, and I hear it now. Like a woman, the old mill cried--sorrowful and beleaguered. And I pray that Eureka will never have reason to cry that way again.”

He would smile his toothless smile then. And I would peer at the mill in the distance, framed by a blue sky and green hills--a trail of smoke from the giant smokestacks billowing like incense --and wonder.

_________

Editorial note: Central Eureka closed its doors in 1977, seventy years after its whistle was first heard in Hormigueros.