Five days each week Jose and Malfada walked barefoot the three miles in the early morning, returning in the dusk of the mild winter day. The walk was very tiring sometimes. It was fortunate that both children were strong, and used to being much on their feet.
At first Carlos wanted to go with them. But soon he seemed to understand that he was not to be allowed to take these morning walks. On each school-day, however, at four o'clock, he would begin watching for the children, and the moment he caught sight of them coming along the wood-lane, he dashed off at top speed to meet them.
The old parrot was very funny these days. So much going and coming confused him. In the mornings when Jose and Malfada went away he called out Accolade—welcome, and in the afternoons, when they returned, à deus—good-by. These were the only words he knew; Jose had tried in vain to teach him other words, just as Antonio had tried when a little boy.
"The parrot is growing very old; he is losing his sense," the mother said one day when the bird greeted the children on their return from school with à deus! à deus! à deus!
"Oh no, mother; I am sure he thinks it is a joke, just as we do," Jose said, very earnestly.
On the Saturday holiday Jose worked from dawn till dark, helping Antonio. The vine-pruning and tying did not end until February. Jose learned to tie the vine branches skilfully to the trees, leaving room for the vines to grow and not be hurt by the cord. In February, March and April came the sowing for the crops of the summer and autumn.
The sixteen weeks' term of school ended in April. Jose had been put into the class of the quickest learners. He had gone rapidly ahead of Malfada, who, although three years older, stayed in the lower class.
Jose had been eager over his books,—far more eager than Malfada. But he ran almost all the way home, and reaching there long before she did, put away his books gladly. The school-room, with its crowd of boys and girls, had seemed hot and dusty those days when the outside world was growing so beautiful.
Antonio was out in the field, planting cabbages, when Jose hurried toward him calling: "No more school, Antonio, no more school now."