At the end of about three months, through my skill as a “stripper” and the influence of my landlord, I was advanced to a table and began to learn my trade; in fact, more than my trade; for I learned not only to make cigars, but also to smoke, to swear, and to speak Spanish.  I discovered that I had a talent for languages as well as for music.  The rapidity and ease with which I acquired Spanish astonished my associates.  In a short time I was able not only to understand most of what was said at the table during meals, but to join in the conversation.  I bought a method for learning the Spanish language, and with the aid of my landlord as a teacher, by constant practice with my fellow workmen, and by regularly reading the Cuban newspapers and finally some books of standard Spanish literature which were at the house, I was able in less than a year to speak like a native.  In fact, it was my pride that I spoke better Spanish than many of the Cuban workmen at the factory.

After I had been in the factory a little over a year, I was repaid for all the effort I had put forth to learn Spanish by being selected as “reader.”  The “reader” is quite an institution in all cigar factories which employ Spanish-speaking workmen.  He sits in the center of the large room in which the cigar makers work and reads to them for a certain number of hours each day all the important news from the papers and whatever else he may consider would be interesting.  He often selects an exciting novel and reads it in daily installments.  He must, of course, have a good voice, but he must also have a reputation among the men for intelligence, for being well-posted and having in his head a stock of varied information.  He is generally the final authority on all arguments which arise, and in a cigar factory these arguments are many and frequent, ranging from the respective and relative merits of rival baseball clubs to the duration of the sun’s light and energy—­cigar making is a trade in which talk does not interfere with work.  My position as “reader” not only released me from the rather monotonous work of rolling cigars, and gave me something more in accord with my tastes, but also added considerably to my income.  I was now earning about twenty-five dollars a week, and was able to give up my peripatetic method of giving music lessons.  I hired a piano and taught only those who could arrange to take their lessons where I lived.  I finally gave up teaching entirely, as what I made scarcely paid for my time and trouble.  I kept the piano, however, in order to keep up my own studies, and occasionally I played at some church concert or other charitable entertainment.