III
While the Twins were gone on these errands, Pancho fed the donkey, and Doña Teresa made the fire in her queer little stove; only she didn’t call it a stove—she called it a brasero.[8] It was a sort of box built up of clay and stones. The brasero stood in an [p 14] alcove, and beside it was a large red olla, which Doña Teresa kept filled with water for her cooking. Beyond the brasero was a cupboard for the dishes.
Doña Teresa knelt before the brasero and pulled out the ashes of yesterday’s fire. Then she put in some little sticks, lighted them, and set a flat red dish on top of the brasero over the tiny flames.
In the corner of the room there was a pretty basket covered with a white drawn-work napkin. Doña Teresa turned back the napkin and counted out ten flat cakes, made of corn meal. They were yesterday’s tortillas. These she put in the dish to heat.
When they were warm, she brought some of them to Pancho, with a dish of beans and red chile sauce. Pancho sat down on a flat stone under the fig tree to eat his breakfast. He had no knife or fork or spoon, but he really did not need them, for he tore the tortillas into wedge-shaped pieces and scooped up the beans and chile sauce with them, and ate scoop, beans, chile sauce, and all in one [p 15] mouthful. The chile sauce was so hot with red pepper that you would have thought that Pancho must have had a tin throat in order to swallow it at all; but he was used to it, and never even winked his eyes when it went down. Just as he was taking the last bite of the last tortilla, Tonio came back, leading Pinto by the rope of his lasso.
Tonio was very proud of catching Pinto and bringing him back to his father all by himself. He even put the saddle on. But the moment he felt the saddle-girth around him Pinto swelled up like everything, so that Tonio couldn’t buckle it! Tonio pulled and tugged until he was red in the face, but Pinto just stood still with his ears turned back, and stayed swelled.
Then Pancho came up. He took hold of the strap, braced his knee against Pinto’s side, and pulled.
Pinto knew it was no use holding his breath any longer, so he let go, and in a minute Pancho had the strap securely fastened and had vaulted into the saddle.
He was just starting away, when Doña Teresa came running out of the hut with something in her hand. “Here’s a bite of lunch for you,” she said, “in case you get hungry in the field. There’s beans and chile sauce and four tortillas.”
She had put it all nicely in a little dish with the tortillas fitted in like a cover over the chile sauce and beans, and it was all tied up in a clean white cloth.
[p 17]
Pancho took off his sombrero, put the dish carefully on his head, and clapped his hat down over it. The hat was large, and the dish just fitted the crown, so it seemed quite safe. Then he galloped off, looking very grand and gay, with his red serape flying out behind him.
When he was out of sight, Doña Teresa and the Twins had their breakfasts too, sitting on the stones under the fig tree.
[7] Pronounced Sahn Rah-mon´.
[8] Brah-say´ro.
[p 18a]
II
THE BLESSING
