CHAPTER IX
"PROOFS! PROOFS! ROSARIO!"
God had poor folks in mind that year! The women of the Cabañal, crowding the beach in the afternoon, were sure of that. The boats had been out two nights and a day, and they were already coming home. The stiff horizon line was dotted with sails, in pairs, the bòu-teams hurrying shoreward before a favoring breeze, like couples of doves yoked by a belt at the water-line. The oldest women along shore could not remember such fishing! Lord, the fish just seemed to be sitting there in solid packs, waiting patiently to be scooped out. The poorest people in town would have plenty to eat for once in their lives.
The boats ran in and anchored a few yards from the surf, lowering their big sails, and swinging round to head the wind, gently, gracefully, pitching. Mobs of dirty calico skirts, red faces and tangled heads rushed to the water's edge in front of each team, the women shrieking, cursing, quarreling, arguing, as to whom the fish should go. Overboard the "cats" jumped into the water that reached their waists, and the other men followed. A straight line of moving baskets formed between vessel and shore, human torsos rising higher and higher above the surface of the sea till bare feet touched dry sand. There the wives of the skippers were on hand to take charge of the catch.
The beach was one sparkling shining display of beauty. The fish were still alive and flopping in the baskets. Rock-salmon, like palpitating carnation petals, lay there wriggling their soft vermilion and gasping frantically for breath. Slimy devil-fish crooked their backs in agony or drew together in masses of squirming, crawling suckers. Flounders, as thin and flat as the sole of a shoe, pounded their tails vigorously about. The wide, kite-like fins of rays, quivered in their sticky glue. But squid, squid, everywhere, the most valuable prey of all! The waters offshore seemed literally alive with squid! And the catch was tremendous. Basket after basket shone with masses of transparent iridescent crystal, the slimy crustaceans waving their tentacles desperately about, setting the black of their receptacles a-glitter with the soft colors of mother-of-pearl.
The stretch of water between the boats and the surf was as crowded as a city street. "Cats" were wading out with flagons of water on their shoulders. The sailors, tired of the lukewarm filthy drink from the hogsheads aboard, longed for a draught from the ice-cold fònt de Gas. Tiny girls from the cabins along shore, their ragged skirts innocently rolled high above their knees, were splashing about in the puddles, looking at everything with eager curiosity, and filling their aprons with the littlest fish. Some of the vessels were to lie up on shore for a day. And the oxen, owned cooperatively by the village fishermen, splendid mastodontic creatures, yellow and white, were solemnly, majestically, deliberately, lumbering in and out of the water, shaking their enormous double chins with the gravity of Roman senators. Their polished hoofs sank deep into the sand; but they could beach the heaviest boat at a single pull. Driving them, geeing and hawing, was Chepa, a sallow round-shouldered sickly fellow, with the expression of a crabbed witch, on his fœtus-like face. He might have been fifty. He might have been fifteen. He was dressed in yellow oilskins, his bare red feet protruding from under the huge baggy trousers, the skin on them showing the outline of every tendon and every bone. As a boat would slowly scrape along up out of the water, a throng of ragged disheveled youngsters would rush down to meet it, running along beside it through the surf like a cortege of nereids and tritons, noisily begging for a handful of cabets!
A market was being improvised right on the beach, and sales were going on in a hub-bub of shouting, cursing, and shaking of fists. The wives of the captains, intrenched behind their overflowing baskets, were going it hammer and tongs with the fish-women who would retail the catch next day at Valencia. When it came to the weighing, the fights would start all over again. The owners would try to keep out the big fish, las piezas gordas; while the buyers would object to including the small fry. Rough scales were being fashioned of baskets hung on ropes, big stones serving as weights. Some gamin from the village, who had been to school, was always on hand to volunteer as book-keeper for the owners, entering the sales in pencil on almost any piece of paper.
The vendors would move the baskets they had bought around with their feet, while the beach-combers looked on covetously. Let a fish slip off and it vanished as though through a hole in the sand. Whenever a new pair of boats came in the crowd would run to a new section of the shore and people from Valencia who had dropped down to see the sight, would find themselves nearly swept off their feet by the rude scrambling mob.
That was a great day for Dolores. For years she had figured on the beach as one in the riot of vendors merely. How she had longed to rise to the class of owners, still to haggle, of course, but to dictate terms, from a vantage point, to that dirty turbulent crowd of lower scum! And now her dream of glory was being realized! She stood sniffing at the air through that disdainful nose of hers, straightening up full height behind her array of baskets; while Tonet—educated in the Royal Navy, if you please—was tending the scales and setting down the figures.
Her keel barely awash in the surf, the Mayflower was waiting for the oxen to drag her up high and dry. The Rector was still aboard, helping his men furl the sail. At times he would stop and look ashore, watching his wife fighting tooth and nail there, and calling out the figures which his brother was to set down. What a woman! Could a queen be prettier! And the poor fellow's chest heaved with pride and joy at the thought that Dolores owed all that glory to him, to him alone.