"Climb into the cart, Jose. There is no need for two of us to walk. The road is growing rougher now, and the cart jolts badly, but that is easier to bear than going afoot."
Jose crept into the cart, and put his folded jacket under his head for a pillow. He had tight in his hand the paper bag with the three seed-cakes he had saved for his sisters. A few moments later he was fast asleep.
Antonio, without stopping the oxen who were now going at top speed toward home, gently put his cloak over the sleeping little man-brother.
CHAPTER X
BETTER TIMES
"In measureless content."
—William Shakespeare.
Better times had surely come to the Almaida family. By July, the father was able to walk about without a cane; and the doctor, whom Antonio asked to come again, said that Senhor Almaida might begin work in September.
The first crops of the year were the largest that the farm had ever raised. The early harvest of oats, rye, and wheat was piled high in the barn by the last of July, and the new crops were growing abundantly.
"Another year we shall have twice as much of everything," Jose said, as he sat with his father and Antonio at the barn door in the summer twilight.