Pancho at once took off his sandals, rolled up his trousers, and began to help carry the bundles, while Doña Teresa and the Twins sat on the sand with Pablo and the baby and their mother.
There was a large sack of sweet potatoes lying on the sand beside Pedro’s wife. You could tell they were sweet potatoes because [p 91] the bundle was so knobby. Besides Tonio felt of them.
“What are you going to do with your sweet potatoes?” asked Doña Teresa.
“I’m going to cook them in molasses and sell them,” said Pedro’s wife. “I shall sit under an awning and watch the fun and turn a penny at the same time. The baby is too heavy to carry round all day, anyway.”
“I’ll help you,” said Doña Teresa. “Very likely I shall be glad enough to sit down somewhere myself before the day is over.”
“Pedro made me a little brasero out of a tin box,” said his wife, “and I have a bundle of wood right here, and the syrup and the dishes, all ready.”
When the reeds had all been put on board, Pancho took Tonio in his arms and Pedro took Pablo, and they tossed them into the boat as if they had been sacks of meal. The boys scrambled under the covered part and out to the bow at once, and [p 92] Pablo got astride the very nose of the boat and let his feet hang over.
Then Pedro lifted Tita in.
It was more of a job to get the mothers aboard, for Pedro’s wife was fat, and he was a small man. Pedro shook his head when he looked at his wife, then he took off his sombrero, and scratched his head. At last he said, “I think I’ll begin with the baby.”
He took the baby and waded out to the boat and handed her to Tita, then he went back to shore and took another look at his wife. “It’ll take two of us,” he said to Pancho.