second visit. Read? Write? Non-
sense, declared the mother.
Look at her own case. She could read and write like a schoolteacher when she was married, yet since that day she had never had time to open a book. Country life, country wife!
I left the lass behind me, still fuss-
ing with her head cloth, and took a
short cut through the briars to her
home.
What a ruin !
One of the wings of the original house had fallen away, and the rest, in addition to a sagging roof, had one of the walls out of plumb.
The old apple orchard, overrun by
ants, had died of neglect; three or four
skeletal orange trees, infested by the
plague, still shot forth some bristly
buds in a desperate eagerness to sur-
vive. In addition, there were thecas-
tor-oil plants, the wild guayava, the
arasas, mingling promiscuously with
the invading weeds that respected only
the tamped earth before the dwelling.
An almost abandoned farm, and, with-
in it, aging away, a group of aban-
doned human souls.
I clapped my palms together.
“Anyone home?”
The wife appeared.
“Is seu Zé[1] in?”
“He left just a minute ago, but he’ll be right back. He went for some honey. Won’t you come in?”
I tied my horse to a fencepost and entered. Sinh’ Anna looked at the end of her rope. Her face was seamed with wrinkles, and such a complexion! I could hardly recognize her.
“Sickness,” she groaned. “I’m near the end. Stomach, liver; and then I have a pain here in my chest that stabs right through to the other side . . . I’m a broken woman, that's what.”
“It's half imagination,” I tried to console her.
“I know what it is, all right,” she answered, sighing.
As we spoke, a well-preserved old lady came in from the kitchen; she was sound to the core, firm, straight, and greeted me with:
“So you’re surprised at the way Anna looks? People of today aren’t worth a hang. Take at look at me —seventy years behind me, yet I wouldn’t trade places with her. I brought up my granddaughter, I still wash, cook, and sew. Yes, sir, I sew!”
“It’s easy enough for you to brag,
because you never were ill, not even a
toothache! But me? It’s only a won-
der that I’m not in my grave.
Here comes Zé.”
Alvorada entered. At sight of me his face was wreathed in smiles.
“God bless those who remember the poor! I can’t shake hands with you for I’m all sticky. It’s only honey. Good stuff, ain’t it? It was hard to get at, though. Way up in the hollow of a tree, but I got there just the same. This isn’t your ordinary honey; it’s wild honey.”
He placed his burden of honey upon a stool and went to the window to wash his hands. Then, looking out at the horse:
“So you rode over on the speckled
colt today? . . . Fine animal. I’ve
always said that the only decent sad-
dle horses hereabout are this one and
the Ize de Lima roan. All the rest are
fit for nothing but mill hauling.”
At this juncture the girl came in with the water jug on her head. Her father pointed the lump of honey out to her.
“There is the honey we wagered, daughter. I lost and I pay my bet. Business is business. A bet? Ha! ha! Folks here in the country, when they haven’t anything else to do, amuse themselves with the first thing that happens along. A flock of magpies flew by. I said that there were more
- ↑ Popular form for Senhor José.
