Translation:The High Mountains/15
The children sat down on the rug that Aphrodo had spread out for them on the chest. This chest was decorated with paintings and seemed to be a very fine one.
Otherwise she would have had them sit on the other one which was farther away, but it was black and old, perhaps the grandmother's.
Aphrodo remained standing and while she was working the distaff and turning her spindle, she talked to the children. She asked Phanis and Dimos is they had a sister, her age, and her name.
Then the children asked her this and that, about the sheep, the barns, the mountains. And Aphrodo told them, while spinning, about the life of the Vlachs in the mountains, on the plains, in summer and in winter.
They learnt thousands of things which they had never heard about before. How the thousands of sheep and goats gave milk, cheese, butter, wool, and their meat to provide food for people. The herds are happy where they find pasture. But it's not the same thing for those who herd them.
The Vlachs lead a difficult life! They struggle against the hard winters, against the rocks, against the rivers.
They go from one place to another, up hill and down dale. Today they build their huts here, tomorrow it will be further away, where there is some grass and greenery. Their houses are not solid and you can't keep anything inside.
They work from morning till night ; pasture, spinning, milking, kneading, taking care of the herd. Little sleep ; vigil and night watch.
This is what Aphrodo told them.
But while she was speaking standing up, looking at her distaff, spinning the wool, she had such a charming smile that she didn't seem to have any worries.
“Why don't you leave the sheep and come down with our young girls?” asked Phanis.
Aphrodo started to laugh and replied that she wouldn't leave for all the riches in the world. It's here her family, father, mother, parents-in-law, grandparents ; like old Athanase. But not only that, there is also another kinship.
“I am related to each bush.....she said. Here we Vlachs have become a branch, after all this time together. Together we grow old, together we face rain and snow, together we take the sun. Those too have a hand and caress, a voice to gurgle ; you've never heard the murmuring of the wind! And the little ones, like my brother Lambros, and the adults who look like Grandpa, all know me like they know all the rocks, all the family.
A pine down there welcomes a hundred of our sheep into its shade at midday. It is also counted as a friend, the trees in the day and in the evening the stars which light up the pastures for us.”
A lot of wool was transformed into thread on Aphrodo's distaff and wound onto the spindle during this discussion. And she kept on spinning so as not to waste time.
From time to time she said a word that the children did not understand immediately, and only afterwards the general meaning. She said shupp for sheep, drisst for clothes, motym for again, and oats for goats. But the children didn't remember a young girl ever having spoken to them with so much beauty.
And when she went out for a minute, having heard her grandfather's footsteps, they recalled her comments about the family link with the trees : he really was like a bush!