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Updated: June 7, 2025
Tio Batiste and the two sailors knotted the ends of their sashes around the mast. Tonet tied the little boy securely to a ring astern; but seeing that his brother, for a show of bravado, had sat down beside the tiller free, he crouched at the railing, bracing himself against a chock on the deck. A funereal silence settled on the Mayflower.
Tio Quico threw back his head in his usual lively manner. "To the friars?" "Because you surely know," continued Camaroncocido, "that all this crowd was secured for them by the conventos." The fact was that the friars, headed by Padre Salvi, and some lay brethren captained by Don Custodio, had opposed such shows.
"Where is the Tio?" "There!" "That! I thought the Tio was a river." "So it is, and a big one in the rainy season, as you may have an opportunity of seeing. I wish we could hear something of Mejia. But there is nobody of whom we can inquire. The country is deserted; the herdsmen have all gone south, to keep out of the way of guerillas and brigands, all of whom look on cattle as common property."
Some one might carry the joke too far! But Dolores showed herself a true daughter of tio Paella! She laughed and laughed, as though the best compliments of the sailing had been for her. And the Rector was delighted. He had always thought himself the most popular man in town!
When Tío Ventolera failed to awaken him at dawn by singing mass down on the beach or by climbing up the hill to fling stones at the door of the tower, the hermit rested on his mattress until late in the morning, listening to the music of the sea, the great crooning mother; watching the mysterious light, a mixture of golden sun and blue waters filtering through the cracks and trembling on the white walls; hearing the gulls scream outside, as they passed before the windows in joyous flight, flinging swift shadows within the room.
They were the gift of Tío Ventolera, as were two enormous periwinkles on the table, white, with erect points, and the interior of a moist rose-color, like feminine flesh. Near the window his mattress lay rolled up with his pillow and sheets a rustic bed which Margalida or her mother made every afternoon. Jaime slept there more peacefully than in his palace in Palma.
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.
Beans, one of the main staples of food among the Mexicans, were almost gone from the household supplies, and there was no money to buy more. Tia Marta had cooked the last of the beans for supper. The uncle and aunt gave fully half the beans to Arturo, and, being hungry, he ate them. Tia Marta ate little, and urged the rest of the beans on tio Diego.
The first tremendous blast of the hurricane had caught the sail full, and about capsized the boat. But tio Batiste and the Rector scrambled along the almost perpendicular deck to the mast, loosened the peak-halyards and let the yard down. Freed from the pressure of the sail, the Mayflower came back to an even keel with the next wave.
When Arturo came home at noon, he found frightened tio Diego crying feebly and leaning over tia Marta, who had sunk in the door-way. Scantily fed tia Marta's strength had given out in the midst of the washing. She said she was only dizzy, but Arturo was frightened by her looks. Suddenly it came to him that he loved her. Arturo ran out of the house.
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