AN AUTUMN RAMBLE
"With dreamful eyes
My spirit lies
Under the walls of Paradise."
--_Thomas Buchanan Read._
THE father was better. He could move the weak hand and foot, although
he was not yet able to use them. But he could sit all day in the
arm-chair on the porch. From there he was able to direct the late
autumn work. This was fortunate. Antonio had half forgotten what needed
to be done, and Jose did not yet know much about it.
The mother's face had brightened. She did the work of the household and
cared for Tareja with a thankful heart. Joanna and Malfada were again
busy all day out of doors in the field with their brothers.
Now the winter's supply of gourds, left among the stubble of
maize-stalks, had grown very large and yellow. There were two kinds
of gourds,--one, smooth and round, the other, long and striped. These
were gathered and lifted, some to the low roof of the barn, others to
the top of the rocky ledge, where they would not have to stand in the
wet after the autumn rains began. The melons, also, were gathered and
stored in the same way. Upon these places, gourds and melons would keep
sound until February. All through the winter the better ones would be
valuable food for the family, while the coarser ones would be used for
cattle and pig.
There was a good supply of cabbage in the garden for the winter's
house-use and for feeding the live stock. Sown late in the summer, the
cabbage had grown to four or five feet in height. Its lower leaves
would be picked off, week after week, then the stalks cut down in the
spring to make room for other crops.
Twice Jose went with Antonio to the wild lands of the remote hillside,
and loaded upon the ox-cart gorse, heather, bracken and wild grass as
winter stabling for the cattle. This they cut or scraped together with
broad-bladed hoes,--simple tools made of a flat piece of iron shaped
like a spade and fastened upon a handle. Jose's hoe-handle was so long
that he had very hard work to manage it. But he bravely kept on, no
matter how his arms and back ached during those early November days.
It would soon be time to plough the stubble and to sow the winter
barley, rye and wheat, the flax, and the maize for cattle feed.
"We will take a holiday, Jose, before we begin this new work. Where
would you like to go?" Antonio asked, as they walked homeward from the
wild-land by the side of the oxen. Carlos ran ahead on the wood-road,
sniffing the fresh air.
"I would like best to go up to the hill-top, where we can look off and
see Guimarães and the old ruined Roman city, Citania."
"We will go to-morrow. You have earned a holiday, and the up-hill walk
will straighten your shoulders. The hoeing has made you bend over like
a little old man."
The next morning's work of caring for the live-stock was done early.
Each with a lunch-basket, and a cloak hung over one shoulder, the two
brothers set forth, followed by Carlos, and watched out of sight by the
family on the front porch.
They found the mossy old foot-path which led from the main road up the
hill. Pine needles made the rocks here and there as slippery as glass.
But tufts of tall, stout grass along the path served as a help in
climbing.
The sky overhead was deepest blue. Through the trunks of trees on
both sides of the path they could see many a maize-field yellow with
stubble, and many a vineyard with brilliant bronze leaves.
The trees were very beautiful. Here was the straight trunk of a
eucalyptus "tall as the mast of some great admiral;" here was a
cork-tree with a rich, brown velvet-like trunk, and here a gum-tree,
its long drooping leaves of russet, red and orange showing like jewels
against the slender, dark trunk.
There were seats for the weary built against the trees along the way.
Once in a while the brothers stopped to rest. And at the noon hour they
ate their luncheon, Jose sitting at Antonio's feet, and giving a large
part of his own share to the dog.
By early afternoon they came to the rocky crag of the hill. A humble
hermitage stood upon the outer edge of this great rock. Near the
hermitage a gilded cross was built upon a broad pillar of piled
stones,--the work of some long-ago, shoeless Carmelite or Trappist
monk. The hermitage was deserted now, but the palms and ferns around
it were rich in beauty. Antonio, who had read much about his country's
history, told Jose that all these green growing things had been planted
and tended with loving care by the devout monks who had taken on
themselves the vows of poverty and of silence.
[Illustration: "FOR A LONG TIME THE BROTHERS WERE SILENT."]
Antonio and Jose lay down upon the soft, fine grass, under a tall
palm-tree, and looked out over the wide view which the rocky crag
gave. The mole-crickets made a soft churr-churring sound around them.
Blackbirds in the tree-tops gave shrill, crowing calls. From hilly
pastures, shepherds among their sheep sang in rivalry with one another.
For a long time the brothers were silent. The beauty of the scene
almost took away speech. On all sides were purple hills and upon
every hill-top stood a hermitage or shrine with a shining cross
above it. Far away rose the giant peak of the Penha, a mountain covered
with green up the greater part of its height, then bare granite to its
top.
Antonio pointed to the southeast: "There on the plain, is Guimarães,
with its many roofs and chimneys; and, look, there is the smoke of a
railroad train."
"Will you take me there some time, Antonio, so that I can see a real
train of cars?"
"Yes, Jose, we will go there on our next long holiday. Now look over
yonder. Half way up the hill do you see some rows of stone wall?"
"Yes, Antonio."
"There lies the old fortress city, built by the Romans more than a
hundred years before Christ was born. It is called Citania now, and it
is in ruins. Some day you will read about it in a book of history."
Jose sighed as he said: "I fear it will be a long, long time before I
can read a book. I can only spell out a few words now,--not much more
than I wrote on the post-card to you."
"Would you like to go to school this winter, Jose?"
"Oh, how I should like it,--more than anything else in all the world!
But there is no school, and if there was one, I could not leave the
farm-work to go to it."
"There is to be a free primary school opened this winter, with a good
teacher, in our village where we go on market-days. I want you to
attend the school, Jose."
"But who will do the work at home, Antonio? You will soon go back to
America, I think." Jose never forgot, even in the joy of having Antonio
at home, that this big brother might soon go away again.
Antonio was silent a long time. Then he said slowly, looking off to the
far Penha Mountain: "Jose, how would you feel if I told you I will
stay at home?"
"I should be very happy, oh, so happy, brother."
"Well, Jose, I have decided to stay."
Jose raised himself upon his elbow and looked eagerly into Antonio's
face: "Do you really mean it?" he asked.
"Yes, Jose."
"Then I _can_ go to school, and learn as much as you know?"
Antonio laughed a little sadly: "It is not very much that I know, from
books. Most of the small amount I know is what I have learned from men
and things in America, and from the newspapers. But I will study in
the evenings this winter. I would rather have an education than be a
millionaire. There was a school in the village when I was your age. The
new school will be better than that."
"Why will it be better, Antonio?" Jose asked. He knew nothing of
schools except that they were places where children could learn to read
from books.
"We had old, dull books to study, and we had to wait, all in one class,
until every boy and every girl had learned the lesson. But Senhor
Castillo has told me that in the new school there will be new books,
and there will be more than one class, so that the boys and girls who
are quickest to learn can go ahead of the others."
"I am afraid I shall not be quickest to learn, Antonio."
"Try as hard as you can, Jose. Then, in the future, perhaps you will be
one of the rulers of Portugal. The time is coming in this country when
education will mean power."
Jose listened with close attention. And although he could not
understand Antonio's words, he remembered them. A moment later he
asked: "May I be the one to tell the family that you will stay at home
with us, Antonio? I know the father and mother have felt very anxious
about this."
"Yes, Jose, you may tell them this evening. Now take a last look toward
Guimarães. We must start for home. It is nearly the sunset hour, and
darkness will soon follow. The path is so steep that we need light to
tread it."