Raised from the Ground

as foreman, would stand on a patch of bare ground and shout, Run over there, boy, and see to those animals on the other side, and António Mau-Tempo, like a small broom, would run around the herd of pigs as if he were a sheepdog. The foreman, now that someone else was doing all the work, passed the time picking ripe pine cones, which he would first roast and peel and then extract the kernels, which he would carefully toast and put away in his haversack, all the while enjoying the rustic peace of the lovely trees. The fire would glow red, the resin-scented pine cones would open in the heat of the fire, and if António Mau-Tempo, mouth watering, found a pine cone that had by chance fallen within sight of his yearning eyes, he quickly hid it, so that it didn’t immediately go to increase the other man’s wealth, as happened on a few dramatic occasions. Childhood has its just revenge. One day, near some wheatfields, when the foreman was engaged in roasting pine cones, he said to António Mau-Tempo, as he often did, Keep an eye on those pigs over there and make sure they don’t get into the wheat. A really cutting wind was blowing that day, and, dressed as he always was in the skimpiest of clothes, António Mau-Tempo decided to give the pigs a holiday, while he took shelter behind a machuco, What’s a machuco, A machuco is a young chaparro, everyone knows that, And what’s a chaparro, A chaparro is a young cork oak, of course, So a machuco is a cork oak, Isn’t that obvious, Ah, As I was saying, António Mau-Tempo sat down behind a machuco, wrapped in the sack that served as his coat in all weathers, come rain or ice, a guano sack was all he had, may God suit the cold to the covering, anyway, there was, for once, general contentment, the pigs in the wheatfield, the foreman roasting pine cones and António Mau-Tempo in his shelter, gnawing away at his crust of bread. And to think that some people still have nothing but bad things to say about the latifundio. Now the trouble was that the foreman had a dog, a clever creature who, suspicious of what António Mau-Tempo was up to behind the tree, started barking furiously, It’s true what they say, that a dog is man’s best friend, It was no friend of António Mau-Tempo’s, however. The foreman leapt up in alarm and when he found the boy, he cried, So you’re asleep, are you, and threw a stick at him, which, had it hit its mark, would have been the end of António Mau-Tempo. No boy worth his salt would have given him a second chance, so António Mau-Tempo grabbed hold of the stick himself and hurled it into the middle of the wheatfield, there, go and find it if you can, and then he legged it. The pigs’ fun did not last very long either. Isn’t it always the way.

Such episodes are all part and parcel of the pastoral life and of a happy childhood. You just have to see for yourself how easy it is to live happily on the latifundio. The pure air, for example, I’ll give a prize to anyone who can find better. And the birds, singing away above our heads when we stop to pick a little flower and study the behavior of the ants or this slow, black stag beetle afraid of nothing, impassively crossing the path on his long legs, but who dies beneath our boot, if we so choose, it depends on our mood, at other times, we might be more disposed to consider all life sacred and then even the centipedes escape with their lives. When the foreman comes to complain, António Mau-Tempo’s father is there to defend him, Don’t hit the boy, I know exactly what goes on, you sit there toasting pine kernels, talking to whoever happens by, and he has to play sheepdog, running from one side to the other, the boy isn’t a beetle for you to crush. The foreman went off and found another assistant, and António Mau-Tempo went to keep pigs for a new boss, until he grew stronger.

Man has many jobs to do. We’ve mentioned some already, and now we add others for the purpose of general enlightenment, because townspeople think, in their ignorance, that it’s all a matter of sowing and harvesting, well, they’re much mistaken unless they learn all the other verbs involved and realize just what they mean, harvesting, carrying sheaves, scything, threshing either by machine or by hand, flailing the barley, covering the hayrick, baling up straw or hay, shucking the maize, spreading manure, sowing seeds, digging, clearing land, cutting up the maize stalks and digging them in, shoeing, pruning, ringing, leveling, digging ditches and trenches, hoeing, making terraces, grafting vines, taping up the graft, spraying with copper sulfate, carrying the grapes, working in the cellars, laboring in the vegetable plots, preparing the ground, beating the olive trees, working the oil presses, cutting cork, shearing sheep, cleaning wells, hacking undergrowth, chopping firewood, staking, covering with straw, earthing up, plugging, bagging and whatever else needs doing, all those lovely terms enriching our lexicon, blessed be the workers, and if we were to start explaining how each task is performed and in which season, and the tools and the implements needed, and whether it was men’s work or women’s and why, we would never end.

Anyway, a man is hard at work, in this case he happens to be a man, or rather, he is at home after work, when a hunting hound comes in through the door, his name isn’t Ranter or Ringwood, he has two legs and a man’s name, but he’s a vicious beast all the same, and he says, I’ve got a piece of paper here for you to sign, you’re to go to Évora on Sunday to a rally in support