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Updated: May 19, 2025
Whenever Pascualet went out now, it was on shares with the skipper of his boat; and he had his secrets with tio Mariano, the important individual whom Tona fell back on in all her plights.
Though the Rector's face was as brown as shoe-leather from years in the sun and the salt-air, it turned a bluish ashen pale. His knees seemed to sag as if he were going to fall, and the shock made his words come out faint, husky and stammering. "My boy! My Pascualet! Well, whom does he look like? Spit it out, damn you! Pascualet ... is my boy, my boy. And he looks like me ... like me ... he does!"
Roseta had the brains for you! Let's have dinner on that, ladies and gentlemen! And we'll have a real toast afterward ... to Flor de mayo! The frying-pan was lifted from the stove and carried into the house, and the whole family rose to follow significant happenings that did not escape the watchful eyes of little Pascualet. He deserted his orphéon of tiny choristers.
He had never been on very good terms with his sister-in-law. Queer she should be turning to him! However, there was nothing to be done except hear her through. He stood with folded arms, his eyes turned toward the boat where Pascualet and the other "cat" were dancing back and forth around the soup-kettle. Well, what could he do for her? He was listening!
Did he want to drown everybody in the Cabañal? Siñá Tona, in her underclothing, her thin gray hair undone and blowing in the wind, came running down to the water's edge. They had told her what the Rector had been up to. She had jumped out of bed to stop him. "Pascualet!" she called. "Pascualet! Fill meu, torna, torna! Come back, come back!" But the two boats were already far, far, offshore.
The mother, sometimes, on suddenly waking from a doze behind the counter and finding Pascualet in front of her, would start with violent surprise. Pascualo, for all the world! Just as she had known him as a boy, before their marriage, when he was "cat" on a fishing vessel!
Pascualet came in, the little devil, swallowed up in a suit of yellow baize, barefoot, to be more in character, and with a sash that passed almost under his arm-pits and made his blouse bulge out like a balloon.
On the bed sat little Pascualet gazing in amazement and alarm at that helmet with Indian plumes on the man's head and at that menacing cavalry saber which clanked against the walls and the furniture every time the Rector turned around. Could that be papa? At last the dread toilette was over. Not exactly what you would call comfortable, but they had spent enough time over it.
He was a very serious gentleman, who gave Pascualet courage with his kind words, looking intently at him all the while, and expressing regret that he had waited so long before coming to him. For a week the two men made a daily trip to Valencia, but one morning the boy was unable to move. That crisis which made the poor mother groan with fear had returned with greater intensity than before.
Then, as he came to the surface, an object, driven along by the wave like a cannonball, just grazed him. It was the water-cask. The great roller had torn it from its frame, and was hurling it along the deck, crushing everything before it. It brushed Pascualet in the face, and blood spurted from the boy's nostrils.
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