The women had still other thoughts.
“Aye!” said one of them. “Young people are always the same. If his good mother were living, what would she say? When I think that my son, who is a young hothead, too, might have done the same thing——”
“I’m not with you,” said another woman. “I should have nothing against my two sons if they did as Don Crisóstomo.”
“What are you saying, Capitana Maria?” cried the first woman, clasping her hands.
“I’m a poor stupid,” said a third, the Capitana Tinay, “but I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to tell my son not to study any more. They say men of learning all die on the gallows. Holy Mary, and my son wants to go to Europe!”
“If I were rich as you, my children should travel,” said the Capitana Maria. “Our sons ought to aspire to be more than their fathers. I have not long to live, and we shall meet again in the other world.”
“Your ideas, Capitana Maria, are little Christian,” said Sister Rufa severely. “Make yourself a sister of the Sacred Rosary, or of St. Francis.”
“Sister Rufa, when I’m a worthy sister of men, I will think about being a sister of the saints,” said the capitana, smiling.
Under the booth where the children had their feast the father of the one who was to be a doctor was talking.
“What troubles me most,” said he, “is that the school will not be finished; my son will not be a doctor, but a carter.”