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Updated: June 6, 2025
This, it was supposed, would be effected by the herald shouting out at the top of his voice, "Here comes the lord; the great lion;" the latter phrase being "tau e tona", which, in his imperfect way of pronunciation, became "Sau e tona", and so like "the great sow" that I could not receive the honor with becoming gravity, and had to entreat him, much to the annoyance of my party, to be silent.
Tona could be quite properly satisfied at the relative comfort in which her young ones were growing up. Business was getting better and better, and an old stocking which she kept hidden between the foot board of her bunk and the big mattress there, was gradually filling with the silver douros she had saved.
But you couldn't blame her, could you? The real one to blame was he himself, great fool that he had been, ever to think of marrying a woman who had to be just what Dolores was! Hadn't siñá Tona always said so? Mother saw through her from the start, and had never wanted a girl of tio Paella's in the family. A bad woman, Dolores, granted!
And siñá Tona, with a return of the preference which made her idolize her younger son, felt an occasional flare of jealous anger as she pictured her Tonet, her fine brave little boy, off on that navy vessel under the strict discipline of cross officers, while the other one, the Rector, whom she had always thought a sleepy-head, was getting on in the world like anything, and had come to be quite a person in fishing circles.
Give us a rest, will you!" But siñá Tona knew they were all possessed of the devil! The sea had her eye on the whole family, and would get them all, finally! She hadn't slept a wink for nights and the most frightful dreams! Worry and worry about your son! And then you find they're taking the baby, too. No, she couldn't stand it any more. They were bound to kill her with worry and sorrow!
The hulk of death became a beach café within easy reach of the casa del bòus, the barn where the oxen for beaching and launching the boats were kept, and at the very place where the fish was brought ashore and where some one was always around. The women folks of the Cabañal began to rub their eyes. That Tona was the Devil himself! See what an eye she had for business!
Siñá Tona could stand the strain no longer. She crammed her handkerchief into both eyes to keep the tears from bursting out. When the prayer was over, the curate reached for the hyssop: Asperges ... and he sprinkled a rain of water upon the boat's stern, and the spray dripped down in shining drops over the painted sides.
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.
A handsome chap Martinez was, an Andalusian from Huelva, slender and trim of person, natty as could be in the old service uniform which he sported with a truly martial swagger, twirling the corner of his blond mustache with an air that people called "distinguished." Siñá Tona admired the man. After all, breeding will come out! You can tell it a mile away. How Martinez talked, for instance!
Tonet was hanging around the liquor places or staying up at tio Paella's. Poor Tona was growing old behind the counter of her little shop, carrying the yellow-headed baby around, loving her with a strange vehemence at times, and then again hating her at the thought of that thief of a Martinez whom the Devil take in due time! So it was only off and on that God looked after decent people!
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