III
Tonio walked slowly down the road toward his home. He didn’t cry, but he looked as if he wished he could just come across somebody else who was doing something wrong! He’d like to teach him better.
When José saw him, he called out to him, “Is school out?”
“No,” said Tonio. “I am,” and he never said another word to José.
[p 70]
He had the willow switch in his hand. The Maestro had given it to him, “to remember him by,” he said. Tonio felt pretty sure he could remember him without it, but he switched the weeds beside the road with it as he walked along, and there was some comfort in that.
At last he remembered that he had a luncheon in the crown of his hat. He sat down beside the road and ate all four tortillas and every single bean. Then he went home. His mother was not in the house when he got there.
Jasmin came frisking up to Tonio and jumped about him and licked his hand. It seemed strange to Tonio that even a dog could be cheerful in such a miserable world. He took his lasso down from the wall and went out again with Jasmin.
The cat was lying back of the house in the sunshine asleep. Tonio pointed her out to Jasmin and he sent her up the fig tree in a hurry. Then Jasmin chased the hens. He drove the red rooster right in among the [p 71] beehives, and when the bees came out to see what was the matter they chased Jasmin instead of the rooster, and stung him on the nose. Jasmin ran away yelping to dig his nose in the dirt, and Tonio went on by himself through the woods.
Soon he came to the stepping-stones that led across the river to the goat-pasture, and there he met José’s son and another boy.
“Hello, there! Where are you going?” Tonio called to them.
“We aren’t going; we’ve been,” said José’s son, whose name was Juan.[12] The other boy’s name was Ignacio.[13]
“Well, where have you been then?” said Tonio.
“Down to the lake hunting crabs. We didn’t find any,” they said.
You see there is no law in Mexico that every child must go to school, and the parents of Juan and Ignacio didn’t make them go either, so they often stayed away.
[p 72]
“What’s the reason you’re not in school?” Juan said to Tonio. “I thought your father always made you go.”
“Well,” said Tonio, “I—I—hum—well—I thought I would rather play bull-fight up in the pasture! I’ve got an old goat up there trained so he’ll butt every time he sees me. Come along.”
The three boys crossed on the stepping-stones, and ran up the hill on the other side of the river to the goat-pasture.
There was a growing hedge of cactus plants around the goat-pasture. This kind of cactus grows straight up in tall, round spikes about as large around as a boy’s leg, and higher than a man’s head. The spikes are covered with long, stiff spines that stick straight out and prick like everything if you run into them. The only way to get through such a fence is to go to the gate, so the boys ran along until they came to some bars. They opened the bars (and forgot to put them up again) and went into the pasture.
