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  “Julián Ramón Santiago,” said Teresa, certain now that he must have been Ramón’s father.

  Selina looked at the creased card in the box. “Mother would have never guessed when she put this card in the box that it would come to play such a decisive part in the life of that young man’s son!” She replaced the card and gave the box back to Teresa.

  The door opened and a group of little children ran into the room chanting their greetings. “Buenas tardes, Señorita Selina y Señorita Gloria.”

  “Buenas tardes, niños,” said Selina, turning her attention to them.

  “These are our nursery, school children,” explained Gloria. “Mother always had a nursery school for children in the neighborhood, and we have continued with it.”

  Teresa nodded as she tried to wrap the sandalwood box in the handkerchief again, before Selina had a chance to come back. “Cielos!” Teresa said to herself, “how she can talk!” She thanked Gloria and promised she would bring Ramón to the house next time they were in town.

  Teresa opened the door quietly while Selina was busy explaining to the children about the twotone color of the alphabet on the blackboard. Followed by Mercedes, she tiptoed outside.

  As they stood there, the church bell struck twelve.

  “Noon, Teresa,” said Mercedes, starting to run. “Sixta will be leaving without us if we don’t hurry.”

  When the two arrived at Martín’s place, Sixta was sitting on a long bench waiting. Their two horses stood at the door where Martín had left them before going to lunch himself.

  The girls slumped down beside Sixta and tried to catch their breaths.

  “You look as if you have been chased all over town. Where were you?” asked Sixta.

  “At 26 Tamarindo,” said Mercedes.

  “Why, that’s the Ayalas’ house. What were you doing so far uptown?”

  “Finding out about Ramón’s family, and now we know it all,” explained Teresa.

  Sixta looked from one girl to the other, not quite able to get the real meaning of what they were saying. Finally Teresa began from the beginning and gave her a complete account. When she finished, Sixta was as excited as they were.

  “Let’s not stop on the road for lunch,” she said. “I want to ride straight to the finca with you. Ramón must hear this news as soon as possible.

  They way back seemed longer only because they wanted to get there in such a hurry. Sixta led the way and Teresa managed with difficulty to keep up with her. At last they came within view of the house. They climbed up the hill and rode to the rear, coming to a stop near the woodshed. They could hear the family’s voices coming from the open shed.

  “Ramón! Ramón!” called Teresa.

  He ran to help them dismount and lead the horses away.

  “Tie them here,” said Teresa, “and come with us to the shed. We have news for you.” She picked up the lunch basket and ran ahead to meet the family.

  “Oh, Mamá,” she said, laying the lunch basket on the ground.

  “We have heard all about Ramón’s parents.”

  “About Ramon’s parents? Really, Teresa?” said her mother. “Where could you have heard about them when your father has tried all these years without success?”

  “But we did, at 26 Tamarindo.”

  Ramón had come back and stood waiting to hear what Teresa had to say, his face glowing with excitement.

  Teresa opened the lunch basket and took the sandalwood box out. “I never knew there was a card here until Mercedes took out the necklace to try it on. Right at this address we found two women who had known your father, Ramón. This necklace was your mother’s.” She passed the card to him to see.

  “What else did the women say?” asked Ramón.

  “One of them told us how your father had won the necklace at a church bazaar and had given it to your mother as a gift.”

  “And how they had been brought up in El Refugio,” said Mercedes, “until they grew up and got married.”

  The two girls took turns telling the story as they had heard it from Selina.

  As their story continued, all eyes were on Ramón, on whose face was an expression of joy as they had never seen before.

  To any other group not acquainted with Ramón’s story, what the girls had said might have sounded fantastic, but for the Rodrigo family, who for years had struggled to get a clue that might have thrown more light on his past, the reality of the things they now heard was the fulfillment of a long search come suddenly to an end.

  “Ramón Santiago,” said Don Rodrigo, calling him by his full name. His arms were soon around him as he kept repeating his name over and over.

  Doña Anita watched the two with blurred eyes. She knew what the news had meant to her husband, for he was seldom carried away by emotion.

  But it was Ramón who was the happiest of them all.

  “Let us blow the conch shell,” he said, “and let every worker at the finca hear the news.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Teresa, running into the house to get it.

  When she came back, they gathered at the edge of the hill, and Ramón blew a long, sharp note.

  Out in the fields the workers heard it and stopped their work.

  “It’s Don Rodrigo’s call,” said Felipe. “Let us go.”

  One by one, they followed him eagerly, wondering what the summons might mean. At the top of the hill, Ramón waited to share with them the most important news he had ever had.

  CHAPTER 11

  RAMÓN SANTIAGO

  Ramón pulled himself up straight and stretched out his arms to ease his tired back. He had been working all morning tilling a patch of land for planting. The sun beat mercilessly on his head, and the perspiration which matted his hair ran down his face. It might have been Sunday, for the serenity and quietness which surrounded him. Yet far away across the hill, he knew the peasants were busy working too, getting ready the new tobacco sheds Don Rodrigo had ordered built.

  “Ramón Santiago,” he said softly at first, and then louder. He listened to the sound of his voice. He was beginning to get used to the new addition to his name. No more doubts, no more hours of wishful thinking and the secret hope every time a letter arrived at the finca. Nothing now but satisfaction and peace of mind. “Ramón Santiago,” he said again as he dried the perspiration on his face. Soon, he would have time to leave the finca and visit Guayama to pick up the trail of his parents. Then, finally, many more questions would be answered to his satisfaction.

  A week had gone by since Doña Anita suggested that Teresa share the coral necklace with Mercedes. He was glad that now the two girls, to whom he owed his status of mind, shared his mother’s only treasure.

  “Ramón Santiago!” called someone across the field.

  “Ho!” he answered.

  It was Esteban, carrying a sack on his back, followed by Antonio skipping along behind.

  “I went to Vázquez’s finca with Esteban,” said Antonio, stretching out under a tree.

  Esteban threw his sack on the ground and sat next to him.

  “What’s in the sack?” asked Ramón.

  “Potatoes for seeding,” he answered. “Bought them this morning.”

  “I am going to help plant them,” said Antonio.

  “He is a great help to me, Ramón. How is it that you don’t get him to give you a hand.”

  Ramón laughed.

  “The further he can get from the house, the happier he is. When he is not tramping behind Mercedes and Teresa, he is at your house. Do you know why, though?”

  Esteban shook his head.

  “Afraid of the cartilla. You should see the face he puts on for everyone to see when his mother makes him sit all day next to Grandmother with his cartilla in his hands.”

  “I thought you said you liked to read the lessons of the cartilla,” said Esteban.

  “Only when Teresa is away at school and Manolo has gone back to his aunt in Cayey,” said Ramón.

  Antonio kept his thoughts to himself
. He knew Ramón was right. He could always go back to the cartilla after the summer, when there was no one in the house but Grandmother and Doña Anita. But when Teresa came back and Manolo returned, he had little time then for it.

  “The fact is,” said Esteban, as he listened to Ramón, “that Antonio is acting in exactly the same way you did when you were his age. Remember how you used to follow me about the place? And how Don Rodrigo always answered my special call for you by appearing at the door with his cigar in his mouth? Long before he had time to shake the ashes off, I had started running downhill.”

  Antonio began to laugh. The idea of Esteban running away from Don Rodrigo seemed ridiculous to him.

  “I don’t think you cared much for the cartilla,” said Esteban.

  “You had to read the cartilla, too?” asked Antonio.

  “Read it? Wait until Grandmother starts drilling her cuatro ramas.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, four branches which she says lead up to the tree of knowledge.”

  “Will I have to learn them, too?”

  “You ask Teresa,” said Ramón.

  The sound of the conch shell came over the hill.

  “Lunch,” said Antonio, jumping up and starting to run towards the house.

  “That’s the only sound that brings him home from wherever he may be,” said Ramón, watching him go.

  “I guess I better go, too.”

  Esteban picked up his sack of potatoes, and the two walked as far as the foot of the hill. “Adiós, Ramón Santiago,” he said. “I hope Lucía has a good lunch.”

  Ramón waved back as he ran up the hill. When he reached the house, he found Grandmother showing the girls how to transfer the piece of lace they had finished to the beginning of the pattern.

  “Come and see,” called Teresa, “we have a whole pattern done, and it looks as good as Grandmother’s.”

  “Almost,” he corrected her.

  “Almost?” said Mercedes. “What do you think, Grandmother? Isn’t it just as good as yours?”

  “Just as good as the very first I made,” she answered. “But by next summer, no one will be able to tell the difference, not me.”

  When they went in for lunch, the mail was on the table. Mercedes went through it quickly, looking for a letter from her father. “Why doesn’t he write?” she said, putting the letters down again.

  “He does not trust himself with the surprise,” Don Rodrigo said. “A letter might give him away.”

  “I wonder what it will be?” said Mercedes, helping herself to a platter of fried ripe plantains Lucía had set near her.

  “Remember what Sixta said, Mercedes. Wait without too much planning, then the surprise will be a real one.” Teresa imitated Sixta’s voice.

  “You only quote her in fun,” said Mercedes. “Since we found the Ayala family, you have lost interest in the surprise. Not even Ramón talks about it anymore. I alone care now.”

  “We all care,” said Doña Anita. “Do you think Lucio would have written Rodrigo if he had meant the surprise just for you?”

  “I agree with Sixta,” Grandmother ventured to say. “Regardless of your feelings, Mercedes, the surprise will lose its interest to all of us if we do nothing but wonder all day about it.”

  “I do think more about it than I like to talk,” said Teresa. “I am doing what Sixta suggested. There are all kinds of surprises to bring home when one has gone all over the island practically.”

  Lucía came to clear the table.

  “I have brought up the case of glass jars, Grandmother,” she said.

  “Good,” said Grandmother. “The girls can start washing them now. Is that Antonio I heard about the kitchen? Have him help with the drying. Unless this work is finished today, there won’t be guava picking tomorrow.”

  There were other chores around the house the girls would much rather do, but when they remembered the picnic that went with picking guavas, washing dusty glasses did not seem to matter at all. They followed Lucía to the kitchen, where she prepared two basins for them: one with broken pieces of soap and another with clear water.

  Teresa washed, Mercedes rinsed and Antonio dried.

  Ramón stayed away from the fields and gave the girls a hand. He carried the glass jars to the table near the charcoal stove, where they would be within Grandmother’s reach. Then he rinsed the large pieces of cheesecloth used to pass the guava pulp through, and hung them to dry. When he finished, he measured the sugar and set it on Grandmother’s table. He even brought in the large kettles where the guavas were to be boiled, and scrubbed them clean. Everything was ready now. Nothing was missing but the guavas, and those they would bring tomorrow after they had their picnic.

  “Let’s go and ask Sixta to come along with us,” said Teresa.

  “I doubt if she’ll go,” said Grandmother. “I hear she has a new order of handkerchieves from Cidra, larger than she has ever had from any other place. But try, a day away from work will do her good.”

  “Come, let us try anyhow, Mercedes,” said Teresa, racing out of the house.

  “Ramón Santiago!” It was Don Rodrigo calling from the other side of the house.

  Ramón smiled at the sound of his complete name and went to his call.

  CHAPTER 12

  HURRICANE!

  The next day, Doña Anita was up at six o’clock, ready to fix the lunch basket. It was unusually hot for so early in the morning, and she opened the kitchen door and stopped it with a large stone to let more air in.

  Lucía had left pieces of chicken she fried for the children wrapped in wax paper on the table. Next to it were two boxes of crackers and a jar of chopped ham.

  Doña Anita began to make the sandwiches, adding chopped green peppers to the ham, the way Teresa liked them. Cheese, bananas and oranges went into the basket, along with some sweet-potato candy left over from dessert. After the basket was fixed, she folded a towel over it and put the basket on the table. Beads of perspiration covered her brow. She had been working faster than she had realized. She heard footsteps in the dining room. It was Grandmother.

  “Why, Anita, you got here before I did. Why didn’t you let me do the sandwiches?”

  “I wish I had. It is so hot, my head is aching. I wonder if we ought to let the girls go out. There’s bound to be rain sooner or later.”

  They looked out of the door at the faraway hills.

  “Nonsense,” said Grandmother, “this is regular August weather. Let the girls take the large straw hats and come back as soon as they eat their lunch.”

  “There’s Antonio and Lucía coming up the hill. What do you suppose is keeping the girls, Mamá?”

  “Nothing is keeping us. Here we are,” said Teresa as she came into the kitchen followed by Mercedes and Ramón. “I don’t want any breakfast, Mamá. Why can’t we leave right now?”

  “Buenos días,” said Lucía and Antonio.

  “What is that you are carrying, Antonio?” asked Mercedes, looking at the bundle under his arm.

  “It’s a sack,” he said. “I want to fill it with guavas.”

  “And who is going to help you carry it? Mercedes will have to help me with the basket,” said Teresa, “and you are supposed to help Ramón with his.”

  “I can bring the basket alone,” said Ramón, lifting the lunch basket to try it’s weight. We’ll see if Antonio can bring his sack alone, too.”

  While they ate their breakfast, Grandmother stood at the door mopping her forehead. “How about waiting until tomorrow for the guavas?” she said. “There is rain in the air.”

  “No, please, Grandmother,” pleaded Teresa. “If it rains, it will only be a summer shower.”

  “All right, then go and get the straw hats, and come back as soon as possible from the grove,” said Grandmother.

  Ramón picked up the lunch basket and Antonio his sack, and they followed after the girls.

  “Keep away from the wire fences, Antonio,�
�� called his mother. “Last year you left part of your trousers along with some of your skin as well.”

  The guava grove was on the other side of the cow path. Don Rodrigo had circled it with rows and rows of barbed wire to keep the cows away. It was the only guava grove at the finca, but it yielded a large crop.

  The children had not walked very far when they began to feel the heat. The girls took off their hats and fanned their faces.

  “I’m thirsty,” said Antonio.

  “Give him an orange,” said Teresa. “We can sit here while he eats it.”

  “He can have the orange,” said Ramón, “but we won’t sit. If we do, we’ll never get to the grove until late at the rate you’re walking.”

  On the way downhill, they met Benito and Valentín.

  “Better take it easy,” they said. “It’s almost too hot to be picking guavas, and it looks like a storm is coming.”

  When they finally reached the grove, Ramón looked for a shady place and began to empty the lunch basket.

  No amount of heat ever lessened Antonio’s appetite, and he sat down ready to eat his share.

  “Come, Antonio,” said Teresa. “We must first pick the guavas.”

  Reluctantly, he picked up his sack and followed her to where the bushes were lowest.

  Teresa and Mercedes placed their basket between them and began to work. Ramón chose the higher trees where the guavas were larger.

  “How is your sack coming along, Antonio?” he called after a while.

  He turned around expecting to find him working close to the girls, but Antonio was not there.

  “Where did he go, Teresa?”

  “I don’t know, he was here a minute ago. Antonio!” she called.

  “Antonio!” called Ramón, but no one answered.

  They went back to where the lunch was left. Maybe he had decided to eat, after all. Maybe the heat was too much for him, and he had decided to go home. But Antonio was not there either.

  “It’s no use,” said Ramón. “Stay here, and I’ll go around the grove. He must be somewhere near.”