She smiled, flattered.
“Yes, indeed. And this is no easy affair. It’s a patchwork quilt on which I’ve been working for fourteen years, ever since Pingo d’Agua was born. In this little box I have been saving patches from every dress that she has ever worn, and when I get a chance, I sew them into the quilt. Just see what a fine present it will make.”
And she spread out for my admira-
tion a many-colored cloth, made of
large and small squares, all of cotton
and each of a different design.
“This quilt is going to be my wed-
ding present. The last patch will
come from the wedding dress. Won’t
it, Pingo?”
Pingo d’ Agua made no reply. She was busy in the kitchen, but I caught her peeking at me through the crack of the door.
A few more words, a cup of weak coffee, and then:
“Very well,” I said, rising from the
three-legged stool. “Seeing that
you’re in no business mood, I’ll have
to be patient. Still, I do think, you
ought to consider the matter. Re-
member that this year they’re paying
eighty thousand reis per field. There
is money in it. don’t you think?”
“I know there’s money in it, all right; and I also know for whom, too. A broken old fellow like myself hasn’t any mind for those things any more. When things were going well with me I took many a one for sixty, and I wasn’t sorry, either. But today . . .”
“In that case. . . .”
Two years had gone by before I
visited the place again. During this
interval Donna Anna had died. The
pain that stabbed right through her
chest to the other side had proved
fatal. The image of those humble
rustics was already growing dim in my
memory when there came to my ears a
rumor that was buzzing about—some-
thing scarcely believable: the son of a
nearby farmer, a wild young scamp,
had stolen Pingo d’Agua from her
people.
“How did that ever happen? Such a bashful little thing?”
“There you have it! You’ve got to keep an eye on those silly geese. . . She ran off with him to the city, and it wasn’t either for marriage or burial.”
The incident upset me a little. I lost sleep nights going over in my mind the scenes of my last visit, and this suggested the notion of going to the place once again. What for? I must confess, out of mere curiosity, to hear what the little old grandmother had to say about the matter. What a blow that must have been to her! I could wager that it had bent her pride and bowed her straight back.
I went.
September was swelling every
branch with new sap. A clear, cloud-
less day. The landscape stood out
bright to the very tops of the hills and
the distant blue mountains.
I was riding the same speckled colt that I had ridden before. I went through the same gate. I took the same short cut.
At the streamlet, in my mind’s eye,
I could behold the bashful child, her
jug lowered to the stone, pretending
to roll up her head cloth. A few paces
further and the abandoned farm ap-
peared. The three apple trees of the
dead orchard were now withered
branches. Only the castor-oil plants
flourished, heavily laden with beans.
All the rest had sunk into lugubrious
decay.
“Anybody home?”
Silence. I repeated my call three times. At last a bent, trembling figure issued from the shadows.
“Good day, nha[1] Joaquina. Is seu Zé at home?”
The old woman did not recognize
- ↑ Popular for senhora.
