La Gaviota. Caballero Fernán

Stein, “and she ought to continue to take it.”

      “I oppose it not,” said Maria, “because ass’s milk is like the turnip – if it does no good it does no harm.”

      “Ah! how pleasant it is here!” said Stein, caressing the children. “If one could only live in the enjoyment of the present, without thought of the future!”

      “Yes, yes, Don Frederico,” joyfully cried Manuel, “ ‘Media vida es la candela; pan y vino, la otra media.’ ” (Half of life is the candle; bread and wine are the other half)

      “And what necessity have you to dream of the future?” asked Maria. “Will the morrow make us the more love to-day? Let us occupy ourselves with to-day, so as not to render painful the day to come.”

      “Man is a traveller,” replied Stein, “he must follow his route.”

      “Certainly,” replied Maria, “man is a traveller; but if he arrives in a quarter where he finds himself well off, he would say, ‘We are well here, put up our tents.’ ”

      “If you wish us to lose our evening by talking of travelling,” said Dolores, “we will believe that we have offended you, or that you are not pleased here.”

      “Who speaks of travelling in the middle of December?” demanded Manuel. “Goodness of heaven! Do you not see what disasters there are every day on the sea? hear the singing of the wind! Will you embark in this weather, as you were embarked in the war of Navarre, for, as then, you would come out mortified and ruined.”

      “Besides,” added Maria, “the invalid is not yet entirely cured.”

      “Ah! there,” said Dolores, besieged by the children, “if you will not call off these creatures, the potatoes will not be cooked until the last judgment.”

      The grandmother rolled the spinning-wheel to the corner, and called the little infants to her.

      “We will not go,” they replied with one voice, “if you will not tell us a story.”

      “Come, I will tell you one,” said the good old woman.

      The children approached. Anis took up his position on the empty earthen pot; and the grandma commenced a story to amuse the little children.

      She had hardly finished the relation of this story, when a great noise was heard.

      The dog rose up, pointed his ears, and put himself on the defensive. The cat bristled her hair, and prepared to fly. But the succeeding laugh very soon was frightful: it was Anis, who fell asleep during the recital of his grandmother. It happened that the prophecy of his mother was fulfilled as to his falling into the earthen pan, where all his little person disappeared, except his legs which stuck out like plants of a new species. His mother, rendered impatient, seized with one hand the collar of his vest, raised him out of this depth, and, despite his resistance, held him suspended in the air for some time – in the style represented in those card dancing-jacks, which move arms and legs when you pull the thread which holds them.

      As his mother scolded him, and everybody laughed at him, Anis, who had a brave spirit, a thing natural in an infant, burst out into a groan which had nothing of timidity in it.

      “Don’t weep, Anis,” said Paca, “and I will give you two chestnuts that I have in my pocket.”

      “True?” demanded Anis.

      Paca took out the two chestnuts, and gave them to him. Instead of tears, they saw promptly shine with joy the two rows of white teeth of the young boy.

      “Brother Gabriel,” said Maria, “did you not speak to me of a pain in your eyes? Why do you work this evening?”