Poor Folk in Spain

by Jan Gordon; Cora Gordon

The water-fountain was one of the gathering places of the village. It was the end of a small iron pipe which writhed down from the hills.

There were generally three or four donkey-boys with cantaros, and a crowd of women with amphoras waiting their turns to wedge their pots beneath the small trickle which ran from the nozzle of the pipe. Old Grumpy spent the best part of his day there, sitting with sour face in the shadow of a small tree—his chief work was either waiting his turn or leaving his pots to fill themselves. A tall bank of prickly pear cactus made a background to the gay scene. Women came from dawn until midnight, and even from the villages of the valley, for water was very scarce and most of the water in the valley wells unfit for drinking. With their heavy cantaros balanced on a projecting hip, these women walked two miles or more beneath the sweltering sun; and they asked me if I liked painting.

Sometimes the ladies of the village stopped and made suitable remarks. One, a summer visitor, told me that she knew a very good painter—"very good indeed," she said with a gentle emphasis which revealed what she thought of my work. "Why, he painted things five times as big as these which you do."

As the sketch progressed my audiences were very eager to point out to me anything which I seemed to have forgotten. At this moment somebody always said that Uncle Pepe's or Aunt Conchas' house wasn't in the sketch. These houses were invariably out of sight or behind my back. The Spaniards had futuristic instincts. But once they knew

me, my friends would not have me criticized. One passer-by made some disparaging remark about the painting.

"We won't have our Doña abused," said the nurse-maids. "She is very clever. She knows lots more than you do; and plays the piano as well."

Sometimes I accompanied Jan out into the country, in the direction of La Luz or down into the huertas.

One day we were near La Luz and my interest was captured by a lemon and vine garden which was cultivated on terraces down the side of a baking ravine. The farmer's house with a red roof topped the hill. I sat down to paint. Presently the farmer with his wife and family clambered down into the ravine and climbed up the side to where I was sitting. Each time I returned the family came back and in awed silence watched the progress of the sketch.