I battled against her invincible obstinacy asserting that my uncle was at a very good age to marry, and that we should appear ridiculous if we were to get angry at such a natural and proper procedure.
“That’s all bosh!” cried my mother, furiously. “A fine old mummy you are defending! I know what I say, and I also know what people tell me. God will square his accounts, though. Don’t imagine that I am crazy. Oh, no; but he’ll take a tumble, you’ll see! And the girl who marries him, I tell you, has no decency. I would not have your uncle if he were covered with gold, and if he were not my brother, I’d——”
My mother gave me for my supper a country dish, which she knew I was very fond of—corn-meal fritters with new milk. She would take out the fritters sizzling hot, and let them get cool, and form a crust; then she would make a hole in the middle, and pour in there the richest of milk out of an earthenware pitcher. While I was dispatching this delicacy of Homeric simplicity, she talked and questioned me incessantly, and would always come back to the starting-point—my uncle. “He is now mixed up here in an affair, and I don’t know how it will end. They are having a terrible row, and it seems to me that they’ll settle him this time. It is another scrape, but much worse than that one about the lots and houses, though that was bad enough. The trouble now is in regard to the contract for the provision market; they say that your uncle goes shares in the profits with the contractor, and that they have allowed him fearful opportunities for extortion; but that, nevertheless, the man has not fulfilled a single part of his contract, absolutely not one, so the municipal authorities are going to sue him. And they are not what they were last year, your uncle has no hold there. He’ll have to go on a pilgrimage to the boss——if Don Vicente does not help him out of this scrape it’ll be all up with him. But he’ll help him; one is as bad as the other. By the power of Don Vicente’s protection, they can do what they please in this province. As your uncle is to go to live in Madrid, they are going to hire his house in Pontevedra for the post-office—another fat thing for him! Nowadays, everybody has to be wide awake. A pretty state of things! I am not a man, but if I were, I’d go on a pilgrimage to the boss’s house, like everybody else. I am saying this to you confidentially; but be careful what you say anywhere in public. Don Vicente has a crowd of dependents and powerful friends, and it would not do for him to take a dislike to you, because he may be useful to you some day.”
On seeing her so demonstrative, I caught her by the waist and kissed her on the neck and cheeks, and took the occasion to say, laughingly, “My dear mother, in order to present myself at Tejo with some show of propriety, I ought to take a wedding gift to the bride. My uncle may be as bad as you choose, and may have served us a thousand scurvy tricks, but anyway, he is now paying a good part of the cost of my education.”
“He doesn’t do it for nothing. Look here, my boy, if we were to claim what rightly belongs to us,—and who knows if he’ll keep on paying your expenses?”
“Why, that makes no difference, dear mother; that makes no difference. Even if he should not, I must have the present.”
“But I haven’t a single cent! Do you think I coin money here? Yes, much we are coining! It would cost me a pretty penny to do what you want.”
“Well,” said I, resolutely, “then there’s no need of talking any more about it. I’ll go to Pontevedra to-morrow, and pawn my watch or my boots, for a present there must be. I have made up my mind to that.”
The next morning my mother came into my room to awaken me. She had a basket of ripe cherries which she left on my bed for me to eat; and in her hand were two little gleaming disks, which she held up to the height of my eyes. They were five dollar gold pieces.
“What do you think of that? I have had trouble enough to scrape this together. Now go and squander it; throw it away, since you are bound to. I don’t want you to say that your mother treats you badly, when she doesn’t need to, in any way whatever.”