It was twilight when Antonio, Jose, the patient oxen and the frisky dog reached home.
Great was the joy over that home-coming. The father, sitting propped with pillows by the hearth, put his left hand in blessing upon the head of his eldest son and exclaimed "Graças à Deus," thanks be to God. The mother, weeping tears of joy, held Antonio's strong body in her arms for a long moment. Joanna, the tall bronzed sister, who had just come in with the pails from milking, greeted him with a glad kiss upon the forehead. Shy, thirteen-year-old Malfada, her jet black hair floating over her shoulders, hugged the big brother, and then ran to a shadowy corner to watch him. Two-year-old baby Tareja held out her chubby hands: Antonio had her on his shoulder now. The green parrot in its gilded cage cried "Accolade, accolade," in a shrill tone.
Joanna quickly began preparing for supper the bôlos de bacalhau—the Portuguese delicacy for feast days—made of minced salt fish, mixed with garlic, shaped into cakes and fried in olive oil.
Jose ran out and put the oxen into their corner of the farm-yard near the house, fed them and the cow, the chickens and the pig; brought in firewood, and, last of all, filled the red earthenware jar with cool water from the well on the terrace below the garden.
Soon the supper was ready. With thankful hearts and glad talk the family gathered around the long, dark, polished chestnut-wood table. The father's chair was drawn to the side nearest the hearth where a bright fire blazed, lighting the room. The mother held little Tareja. Joanna kept the plates filled with bacalhau, with brôa—the maize and rye bread of Portugal—with the vegetable stew of gourds, dried beans and rice, flavored with bacon, which was the usual supper-dish; then, with ripe olives, fresh figs and sweet seed cakes. Malfada helped the father take his food. Jose ate hungrily, and once in a while slipped a piece of brôa, or bacon, into Carlos' mouth.
The front door stood open. Beyond the trees, the shadow of twilight lingered in the valley. The hills were bathed in rosy mist.
The Almaida home was one of the better class of small farmhouses. It stood in the centre of a hillside farm of about four acres. It was a square, plastered stone house, whitewashed inside and out. The overhanging eaves of the red-tiled roof were painted deep red underneath. This was the house where Senhor Miguel Almaida's father, his grandfather and great-grandfather had lived.
The central room, into which one entered from the vine-clad porch, was uncarpeted. The furnishings showed that the Almaidas were a family of more than peasant rank.
At one end of the room stood a large cupboard or cabinet of carved chestnut-wood. Its shelves were full of odds and ends,—some old pieces of English ware, souvenirs of long ago days when trade relations existed with Great Britain, and there was a silver platter of the fine old Portuguese handwork of two hundred years ago. There were also a few books on the shelves, and a violin, a guitar and a flute.
Against the wall, opposite the cabinet, were the beds, separated from one another by partitions which did not reach quite to the top of the room.