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Updated: June 13, 2025
But at last the weighing of the fish could begin: "Hey there, me first, you !" "No, my turn, you !" "You were first yesterday!" The usual morning fight for precedence was on, waiting for arbitration by tia Picores, with her cannonading voice and formidable obscenities. But Dolores had not joined the squabble she even missed the place her basket held, by rights, in the line.
In Indian file the women crossed the crowded market, where the last bargainings were in progress, tia Picores opening her way through the throngs with her vigorous elbows, behind her the bevy of wrinkly-faced, yellow-eyed veterans, then Rosario with her load of baskets, for she always went to and fro on foot and finally Dolores, her ear still smarting cruelly, but able, nevertheless, to raise a smile of pleasure when her pretty brown face, no less winsome under the rude bandage around her head, attracted remarks of appreciation from the men around.
To the exceeding alarm of tia Picores, the two women stood there frowning at each other angrily. Their reconciliation some days before in the ice-cream place had been nothing but a truce. They had promised to be good friends, but without much warmth, and one could see from the looks in their eyes at the time that there would be trouble again soon.
Diós! such girls as are growing up nowadays. As much brains as so many geese. I'd like to see a man of mine with enough to him to have anything to spare for other women! Anyhow ... this mess is all over. You're going to make up ... because I say so, if not for a better reason.... Otherwise tia Picores will take a hand...."
The teamsters were collecting their baskets, large and small, and piling them up in the tails of their rickety tartanas. Tia Picores was putting on her checked shawl and chatting, in the middle of the portico, with a group of old women of her time who went shares with her in paying for a wagon.
With smiles of amusement, the customers began to crowd around, while the inspector, foreseeing what was coming, prudently slipped out, though he had scarcely begun his rounds. Tia Picores, in despair at such everlasting quarrelsomeness, contented herself with a resigned invocation to heaven. "Thief is what I said," Rosario resumed. "And everybody knows it.
Rosario, two tables beyond tia Picores, was busy putting the freshest of her wares to the fore. The two girls were thus face to face, though they avoided each other's eyes disdainfully, each turning her back when the other one looked her way, though immediately afterwards they would be staring impudently and angrily at each other again.
Rosario, carrying her empty baskets, was out on the sidewalk with Dolores. The two girls were looking at each other and did not know what to say. "Come along with us, Rosario," tia Picores suggested. "We'll be a bit crowded, but we can get you home." The girl refused, however. "Good-by, Rosario," said Dolores, smiling graciously. "You know, we are friends now." And she climbed in after her aunt.
And the police marched out as wise as they had entered, chased away by the drawling voice of tia Picores who could never understand how people allowed such a government of thugs and grafters to exist among honest people and marking time to the banging of metal scales, which all began to clatter as a parting salutation. The market returned to its usual routine.
She had made up her mind, and when tia Picores made up her mind to a thing, she got what she wanted, even if God himself got in the way, even if she had to lick half of Spain to get it. Tia Picores had a bit of a temper herself when she got really mad. What had just happened would be nothing, nothing, compared to the fuss there'd be when she set out on the warpath.
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