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Updated: June 6, 2025
But Tona was a woman of brain and brawn, and she knew how to handle those fellows. She bestowed no favors. When their words were over-bold she would answer with disdain. To nudges she replied with cuffs, and once when a sailor seized her suddenly from behind, she laid him flat with a well placed kick, tough as iron and sturdy as a main-mast though he was.
The life-preserver the gift of siñá Tona to the Mayflower which the Rector had laid away below and thereafter quite forgotten! Tonet did not quaver at the stare of execration his brother gave him. "What are you going to do with that?" the Rector shouted. "Going overboard! Every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost! Think I'm going to drown here like a rat in a trap?
She was on the lookout for early customers, and a bottle of brandy with glasses was out on the board. Siñá Tona was still asleep in her stateroom. Knowing hardly what he was about, Pascualo turned in that direction, and did not stop till his elbow was on the counter. "Give us a glass!"
Siñá Tona tried to warm in her hands the little head whose eyes were closed forever. Dolores was kneeling at his side, digging her nails into her face, pulling frantically at her luxuriant beautiful hair, her eyes, of the glints of gold, rolling vacantly, wildly, in all directions, while piercing screams went out into space. "Fill meu! Fill meu!"
On that solemn occasion, which meant so much to him, which he had looked forward to for so long, he felt a strange return of his affection for the poor old woman. He forgot his beautiful wife and even Pascualet the rogue was as busy as could be with the cinnamon balls, up on deck to give all his attention to siñá Tona. "A full-fledged master, outfitter, owner of a boat my own boat!"
These rapid visits home were all there was to remind siñá Tona that she had an elder son at all. The mistress of the tavern had something else on her mind. She was now spending entire days alone in her hulk there. "The Rector" was offshore, earning his share of cabets, returning only Sundays to hand over, with a show of pride, the three or four pesetas that represented his week's wage.
The children thus deserted by their mothers, called out ma! ma! and too! too! as if begging food of the earth, and were transformed into little creatures like dwarfs, called tona; and thus all the men were left without women. There went other women to Hispaniola, which the natives call Aiti, but the other islanders call them Bouchi.
And he ceased to be at all impressed at the sermons of the patrolman, which he now rebutted by thumbing his nose and going off down the beach cavorting and turning handsprings. Meanwhile Tona was passing through a new honeymoon in the full maturity of life. In comparison, her marriage with Pascualo seemed like monotony itself.
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.
Her gin and brandy went by the barrelful. The men who used to go to the taverns in town now got their drinks right there of her. They were always playing truque y flor on the shaky tables under the shelter while waiting for the boats to put to sea, brightening up the games with glass after glass of caña, which Tona averred was genuine imported Cuban rum.
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