Poor Folk in Spain

by Jan Gordon; Cora Gordon

"Señor and Señora," he exclaimed, "I will warrant that there is not a W.C. to compare with this in the whole province of Alicante."

Mother Vinegar, talking in a high-pitched, querulous voice, was complaining of the rise in prices, of the hardness of the season. The garden of the Torre, she said, was not worth looking after, there were no grapes, and as for the almonds, she went on, pointing to a small heap, that was the whole crop for the year. She added that only a little while ago somebody had broken into the yard and had stolen two hundred and fifty pesetas' worth of poultry and rabbits.

It occurred to us that some of her cordiality to us came from the fact that she looked on us to make up some of that lost money. So I gently led her on to the question of ways and means. She said:

"Oh, El Señor used this place as a working place only. He lived and slept at our house, and for that he paid ten pesetas a day."

Now El Señor (our English friend) had told us that he paid seven pesetas. Our suspicions were correct. I am afraid that in the end Mrs. Vinegar, like the undertaker in Tcheckov's story, counted us amongst her losses. Her manner changed gradually from cordial to chilly: she had promised to help me to shop, but she put obstacles in my way and also, I believe, tried to prevent us from finding a servant. Finally we made an arrangement that Mrs. Vinegar should supply us with meals at two pesetas fifty each. Remembering that Elias had fed us in Murcia for one peseta fifty I struggled to reduce the price to two pesetas for less food, but Mrs. Vinegar said that Jijona was far more expensive than Murcia (as a matter of fact it was, if anything, cheaper), and that the reputation of her house would not stand a lower price. Finally, to her disgust, I announced that we could not afford more than three meals a week at that rate, and we were accordingly scrawled down, heavily underlined, with red ink, amongst the stolen chickens and rabbits.

But the idea of the cow chase through the streets excited us. As in the well-known story, the cow turned out to be a bull; nor was the chase to be in the narrow winding streets, but in the plaza, the entrances of which had been blocked up with extempore barricades of wooden beams. The women and the less courageous of the men were to fill the balconies, and places in a balcony had been found for us by the Vinegar girls, who were quite different in manners from their parents. The bulls were stabled at the back of the town; and, like a wasp in a spider's web, plunging at the ends of long ropes tied to its horns, the bull was dragged to the plaza, when it was insinuated into a rough bull-pen erected near the castle. There were three bulls, and a second was thus dragged up and penned in. The third, however, was tied to a tree, and pads, like boxing-gloves, were fixed solidly to its murderous horns. Then with some precautions the bull was loosened. The game was a sort of ticky-touchwood. Home in this case was anywhere out of reach of the bull's tossing capacity: open doors, the ironwork of windows, water pipes, trees, the barricades of the streets, lamp posts, a fountain—around which one could dodge—and a wall topped by a rickety pailing, and the woodwork of some swing-boats near the castle.

Jan had gone down into the plaza to get some photos. From the balcony the game was exciting, though not furious. Some of the boys showed considerable pluck; and it was amusing to watch the strange concavities shown in the back of one running away who thought that the bull was close behind and who could feel in imagination those horns prodding his spine.

But the fun was not furious enough to bear long watching from the balcony. So I went down into the square and joined Jan. I had several reasons for this action. I was bored, and thought it would be more exciting below. But the chief idea I had was that by this manœuvre I would be able to introduce myself to Jijona en bloc. I should be universally known, and would thus escape the continual shrieks and giggles with which strangers greeted my appearance. So I went down into the plaza.