Poor Folk in Spain

by Jan Gordon; Cora Gordon

We slipped on our clothes, and crawling out by the garden door, the opening of which was only about four feet high, we joined the goatherds in their patch of shadow.

"Buenos dias," said Jan. "I, too, love the guitar."

"Si, Señor," answered one of the herds, "through the windows we have heard you playing."

One of the men was thin but wore an enormous pagoda-like sombrero of straw, one was a boy of eighteen with a huge moustache, the third was an old man with a large nose, the wrinkles on his face drawn more deeply than any we have before seen. Their guitars were poor instruments and the strings were broken and knotted together, in consequence of which little bits of stick were tied across the arm of the instrument in order to clamp the strings down to the fingerboard below the knotted parts. As the strings break and are repaired, this stick is moved up the fingerboard until the strings are too short to play upon. Jan crawled through the small door and brought out the big white guitar. The thin man handled it with reverence.

"I know the instrument," he said. "It is El Señor's. It is a good instrument, but he has a better. A big brown one which is a marvel. He must be very rich. They say he gave more than two hundred pesetas for it."

He played on it for a moment, but soon handed it back to Jan.

"I'd rather play on my old one," he said. "I'm not afraid of it, and I can knock it about as I like."

All three were dressed in cotton shirts and pants, tied at the ankle with tape, over these they wore cotton coats and trousers; when the weather was very hot they dispensed with the trousers. Their feet were bare of stocking, but their shoes were heavy; woven by themselves out of esparto grass, very Oriental in shape with turned-up, pointed toes. On their backs were sacks containing esparto grass and half-fashioned sandals. Each possessed a long, heavy, crook'd stick shod with an iron point.

All too soon they said that they must be moving on. "But come down to the street of the soap house, top side, this evening, and we'll have a dance and singing."