“Can’t I wait until I’ve caught Pinto?” Tonio begged. “What’s the use of washing? You only get dirty again. Lots of the boys don’t wash at all except on Sunday.”
“Come right back and wash yourself this minute,” commanded Doña Teresa. “You might as well say it’s no use to eat your [p 12] breakfast because you’ll be hungry again right away! As long as I’m your mother you shall begin the day right at least.”
Tonio groaned a little, and came back to the trough. There he did something that he called washing, though I feel quite sure that there were corners behind his ears that were not even wet!
On the wall above the place where the sleeping mats had been spread, there was a picture of the Virgin and Child, and Doña Teresa kept a little taper always burning before the picture.
When they had all washed, Doña Teresa called Pancho and the Twins to her side, and all four knelt in a row before the picture, crossed themselves, and murmured a little prayer.
“If you want the day to go right,” said Doña Teresa as she rose from her knees, “always begin with saying your prayers and washing your face. And now, Tonio, run and catch Pinto for your father while I get his breakfast, for the cows must be rounded up [p 13] for milking even if it is San Ramon’s Day; and Tita, you take the little red olla and go for water!”
III
While the Twins were gone on these errands, Pancho fed the donkey, and Doña Teresa made the fire in her queer little stove; only she didn’t call it a stove—she called it a brasero.[8] It was a sort of box built up of clay and stones. The brasero stood in an [p 14] alcove, and beside it was a large red olla, which Doña Teresa kept filled with water for her cooking. Beyond the brasero was a cupboard for the dishes.
Doña Teresa knelt before the brasero and pulled out the ashes of yesterday’s fire. Then she put in some little sticks, lighted them, and set a flat red dish on top of the brasero over the tiny flames.