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Updated: August 12, 2024
Yet, aside from these externals, they gave no sign of being anything but well-paid, well-fed, self-respecting citizens, who would read the papers, discuss politics, raise families, and drink more than is good on pay-nights, to repent at church in the morning.
I should remember pay-nights when the men stood before the counter in a dense mob, all hungry, each holding in his hand a five-franc note, when we had no change, not a franc, not a sou; when, in desperation, I used to volunteer to collect change from any one who had it, giving chits in exchange for small coins. Such crises do not arise now, I suppose.
"We have an old-time hoe-down for the boys pretty nearly every week, when we're not too rushed on the ranch. It keeps 'em better contented and away from the towns on pay-days." "Are the cowpunchers just the same as they used to be?" asked Pratt. "Do they go to town and blow it wide open on pay-nights?" "Not much. We have a good sheriff.
Yet, ignorant and violent though they might be, they were usually good-hearted fellows in the main—frank and openhanded with their comrades, and ready to share their last penny with those in distress. Their pay-nights were often a saturnalia of riot and disorder, dreaded by the inhabitants of the villages along the line of works.
On "pay-nights," once a fortnight, when other boys of his age were getting a sixpence, or perhaps even a shilling, as pocket-money, so that they could spend a few coppers on the things that delight a boy's heart, Robert resolutely refused to take a penny. For years he continued thus, always solacing himself with the thought that it was a "shilling's worth less of worry" his mother would have.
On pay-nights they all got drunk and fell upon each other broken noses and black eyes were quite popular. Father Driscoll used to come around nearly every month and have them all sign the pledge. That story about the Irishman who ate the rind of the watermelon "and threw the inside away," is true. That is just what the Irish do.
Some fifty years since they were a much rougher and worse educated class than they are now; hard workers, but very wild and uncouth; much given to “steeks,” or strikes; and distinguished, in their hours of leisure and on pay-nights, for their love of cock-fighting, dog-fighting, hard drinking, and cuddy races.
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