One night, when all was quiet, a creaking of baskets became audible in the kitchen. It was not perfectly dark there, for the shutters of the little window were never shut, and Celipin Centeno, who was not yet asleep, saw the topmost baskets, which were packed one inside the other, rising slowly like a gaping oyster-shell, and out of the opening peeped the nose and black eyes of Nela.
"Celipin," she said, "Celipinillo, are you asleep?" and she put a hand out.
"No, I am awake; Nela, you look like a mussel in its shell. What do you want?"
"Here, take this, it is a peseta [3] that a gentleman gave me this evening—the brother of Don Cárlos. How much have you got now? This is something like a present; now I have given you something better than coppers!"
"Give it here and thank you very much, Nela," said the boy, sitting up to reach the money. "You have given me nearly thirty-two reales now, a copper at a time. [4] I have it all safe here, inside my shirt, in the little bag you gave me. You are a real good girl."
"I do not want money for anything; but take good care of it, for if Señana were to find it, she would think you would get into some mischief with it and thrash you with the big stick."
"No, no, it is not to get into mischief," said the boy vehemently, and clenching the money to his breast with one hand, while he supported himself on the other. "It is to make myself a rich man, Nela, a clever man like some I know. On Sunday, if they will let me go to Villamojada, I must buy a spelling-book to learn to read, although they will not teach me here. Who cares! I will learn by myself. Do you know, Nela, they say that Don Cárlos is the son of a man who swept the streets in Madrid, and he, all by himself, learnt everything he knows."
"And so you think you can do the same, noodle."
"I believe you! If father will not take me away from these confounded mines, I will find some other way; ah! you shall see what sort of a man I am. I was never meant for that Nela. You just wait till I have collected a good sum, and then you will see—you will see how I will find a place in the town there, or take the train to Madrid, or a steamboat to carry me over to the islands out there, or get a place as a servant to some one who will let me study."