Firefly Summer Read online

  “Did you say something?” asked Juana, turning back.

  “Oh, no,” she answered quickly. Here she was thinking aloud again. Yet, that boy at that farm did look like Ramón. She must not forget to tell him when she reached home.

  Juana and Filimón were engaged in conversation, and now and then parts of sentences came back to her above the noise of the wheels on the road. Filimón was telling Juana how he had come to own a line of coaches in San Juan. He had two horses in a stable in Caguas, which he would exchange for the ones pulling the coach now. “Fresh ones for the remainder of the trip,” she heard him explain.

  All along the road to Caguas the flamboyán trees were ready to bloom. Teresa wished she could have made the trip two weeks later. Then she would have seen them shining bright red as if ablaze. There was one flamboyán tree along the road to Cidra which she and Sixta saw one summer when it burst into flowers. She had never forgotten the sight of it. Later on in the year, they had stood under its branches to listen to the “Housewives tales,” as they called the murmuring sound of the dry long pods that come out after the blooms fell. Grandmother had told her many of the legends connected with the tree. She often thought of the girl who stood under it every year, waiting for the blooms to open and having her wish come true.

  When they entered Caguas, Filimón rode to the outskirts of the town to exchange his team of horses. How fast the coach went now. Soon they were out in the middle of the road again and nearing a small store on the side of a hill. The sound of children’s voices reached their ears.

  “Where are they, Juana? Can you see them from your seat?” Teresa cried excitedly.

  “There, under the trees, petite,” said Filimón, stopping the coach.

  At the sight of the coach, the children scampered from under the trees, shouting, “Compre…compre flores—Buy, buy flowers.” Their hands were full of bunches of wild flowers wrapped in green leaves. Juana bought two bunches and gave them to Teresa, then went into the store. Teresa stayed with the children at the edge of the hill, from where they tried to point to their homes for her. One little girl gave Teresa a bunch of wild strawberries she had picked along the road.

  “Come inside and see what you want, Teresa,” called Juana.

  The store was one large room with a counter stretching the full length. On it were bottles of soft drinks, homemade candy and baskets of freshly made cheese. Bunches of ripe bananas hung from the rafters, and the floor was filled with sacks of brown sugar, rice, coffee and a variety of beans.

  “I want some cheese and crackers,” said Teresa. She picked up two boxes of crackers. “For the children,” she told Juana. “Why don’t you buy them something, too?”

  Juana gave her a handful of coconut candy. Teresa divided the crackers and candy among the children who were sitting on the side of the road. It was nice to sit there with them, eating and looking far down the hill at the thatched houses on stilts.

  Filimón came out of the store drinking a bottle of tamarind juice and smacking his lips at its tartness. He leaned against the door, gurgling and making faces with each swallow. When he finished, he took his seat on the coach again. That was his signal for them to follow. The children jumped out of the way.

  “Goodbye!” they called as the coach rode away.

  Refreshed now, Teresa settled in her seat comfortably. It felt good to have left the coach for a while. Filimón was driving faster now, and Teresa thought he deserved to be called the best driver in the land. He knew every turn and curve of the road.

  As the coach turned, they came within view of a white house on a hill. It was the largest one she had seen since leaving Caguas. The sloping ground and the cluster of shrubs surrounding it reminded her of her own home. She wondered if that house had a long passageway connecting the front and rear of the house, like her home. She had begun to call the passageway a “neck” when she was a child, and since then no one in the house called it by any other name. She looked back at the house as the coach went by and noticed that the house was square on the back and had an open balcony with potted plants everywhere. She was glad it did not have a “neck.”

  The brown and white house she lived in was an old house, where two generations of Rodrigos had lived and tilled the soil they owned. For Teresa, the nicest and most livable part of it was the “neck.” It was there where her grandmother kept her rare plants, her mother her sewing basket, and her father his desk full of catalogs from which he and Ramón made their orders. It had two windows from which one could see the entire countryside. There were two rocking chairs, from where her grandmother’s cat, Filo, and Ramón’s old dog, Leal, were constantly being pushed off. The oldest possession in the neck was a rose-colored conch shell that stood on a table made of empty spools of thread, painted the colors of the rainbow. The conch shell was used as a horn to signal the time of day for the finca workers. At noon, it heralded the arrival of the wives and daughters with their frugal meal, and at six o’clock it told them the working day was over. Sometimes, when there were unusual events at the finca, the conch shell sent out a special blast over the hills. Every year Teresa had tried unsuccessfully to blow sound out of the shell, but had to be content instead to listen to the sound of the sea by putting it close to her ears. Her lungs were not strong enough to make the shell vibrate its mournful call.

  Teresa wondered if any of the workers had left the finca while she was away at school. She was always meeting new additions upon her return home. Would José still be there? José, the dreamer, who thought nothing of spending all his pay when friends came to see him from Cayey. José, who dreamed of the day when all the workers would own enough land to be their own masters.

  Then there was Gregorio. He was a laborer with political ideas, always eager to know the latest news, although he did not know how to read. How many times during the summer months had she helped his three daughters read aloud to him, and how she had admired the way he interpreted the news to the other workers at the finca. He had even promised to marry his daughters to politicians. She wondered if he had found any suitors available for his Lola, Ernestina and Panchita? Teresa would have to ask her grandmother about that.

  Whatever changes she might find at the finca, she was glad they would not include Felipe, the overseer, and his wife Pilar. Nor Lucía, who came daily to help her mother. Nor Antonio, Lucía’s eightyear-old son who ran in and out of the house all day long. It was good to come home and know that Sixta’s family was across the road down the hill. Teresa would again spend days sitting under the trees, watching Sixta do her drawn work for the stores in the town and listening to her tales about the university.

  There was one neighbor whom she would rather not see: Don Gumersindo Vázquez. Teresa hoped he was gone. He was the miser of all the fincas in the district. No one liked how he used his three daughters in the fields. They did twice the work of any laborer. No one ever saw them outside the fields. Teresa often wondered if they had ever gone back to Cayey since the burial of their mother. No, she did not like Don Gumersindo Vázquez.

  “Look out back there,” cried Filimón.

  The coach rocked, sending all the packages to the floor. Teresa held fast to the sides of the coach. The road was filled with prisoners cutting stones, leaving very little clear space to ride on. Filimón broke into one of his long harangues of Patois and Spanish which was impossible to understand. The coach swerved, and he kept a tight hold on the reins. The pile of cut stones extended as far as the eye could see. Teresa wished Filimón would let them walk rather than stay in the coach, jolting as it was. Finally, after much rattling of wheels and clattering of hooves, they were again on the clear side of the road. Teresa picked up the packages and arranged them on the seat beside her. The box of color paints she was bringing for Ramón was torn, and she had to hold it on her lap for fear the small bottles would roll on the floor again and break. She knew how much Ramón had wanted a real box of paints, and at last she had been able to get it for him.

  Besides th
e finca and the horses, there was nothing Ramón liked better than paints, which he used for decorating most of the simple carvings he did about the finca. He decorated wooden spoons and forks with pictures of palms and butterflies for display on the little tables in the parlor. He also painted scenes on güiros made out of gourds, to be played by peasants in their native orchestras. She called them scratchers, for they were grooved and the noise they made came out by scratching a wire fork across them. There were güiros of all shapes and sizes all over the house.

  Teresa often wondered what would have become of Ramón if he had not come to live at the finca. She remembered how surprised Mercedes had been when Teresa first told her his story. It all had happened when she had asked if Ramón was her brother, and she had said yes and no. She could still remember the look that came over Mercedes’ face. Then Teresa told her the story from the very beginning. How her father, Don Rodrigo, had gone to a finca near Guayama to buy some shares in a sugar refinery and had seen Ramón among a group of children who had come to beg to mind his horse. While the rest of the children jumped and shouted, Ramón stood quietly, hands stretched towards the horse, but not daring to touch it. He kept saying “caballo mío, caballo mío—my horse, my horse.”

  Ramón had followed Teresa’s father around the plant and even waited outside the office for him. Every time Don Rodrigo went to the plant, the same thing had happened, until her father finally made inquiries and found out that Ramón was an orphan who lived with a laborer who had six other children of his own. He learned that Ramón’s parents had been victims of a hurricane. So, on the last visit to the refinery, her father had asked the laborer for Ramón. So earnest was his plea that he was able to adopt Ramón. Ramón arrived at the finca holding a carton box with his few clothes and a small sandalwood box wrapped in layers of old newspapers. When it was opened, they found a coral necklace and a pair of earrings that matched it.

  “And he has been at the finca ever since?” Mercedes had asked.

  It was a silly question to ask, but she was always asking silly questions, like a small child. Ever since Teresa had told her that Ramón had given her the sandalwood box as a birthday present when she was eleven-years old, Mercedes had wanted her to bring it to San Juan so that she could see it. Every year Teresa disappointed her, for she had the box in the bottom of her old trunk, wrapped up in one of her father’s large handkerchieves. Ramón believed the necklace had belonged to his mother, and now that it had come to be Teresa’s, she wanted to keep it as safe as he had himself. Finally, she had compromised with Mercedes by promising to show it to her if she ever came to visit her finca.

  Teresa had been so absorbed in her thoughts that she did not notice how far they had ridden. The road looked extremely familiar. There was the old farmhouse which had been burned almost to the ground the summer before. It was still abandoned. The coach was turning, leaving the main road behind and entering the bumpy country road that led to the finca.

  “There go the packages again,” she said as the coach jolted. Teresa made no effort to pick them up from under the seat where they had rolled, because already way up on the hill the roof of the white and brown house had come into view.

  “Juana,” she cried, “look, up there is home. We have arrived at the finca.”

  CHAPTER 3

  THE FEAST OF THE CROSS

  Teresa’s unexpected arrival was cause for great excitement. Her grandmother, who was working in her garden on the south side of the house, saw her alight from the coach and run up the path.

  “Rodrigo! Anita! Ramón!” she called. “Teresa has come home.”

  Before any of them had come to her call, Teresa reached her grandmother. Leal, disturbed from his nap, came out of the house barking and growling. At the sight of Teresa he jumped on her, licking her hands and face. “Down, Leal, down,” she said, but Leal kept up his welcome until Ramón called him.

  “Aquí, Leal, aquí,” he said softly, and Leal went back to his master and settled down at his feet.

  No one noticed Juana coming up the hill until she stood close to them.

  “Why, Juana,” said Doña Anita, “what are you doing here? Has anything happened to Emilio?”

  “No, Doña Anita,” she answered. “The family is away. Someone had to bring Teresa home. There has been little peace in the house ever since her grandmother’s letter arrived.”

  “But school is not closed yet. How did you manage that?”

  “I did not have to,” said Teresa proudly. “I made the list.”

  “And what does making a list mean,” asked her father.

  “That I did not have to stay for examinations. So what was the use of staying any longer in San Juan, when the feast of the Cross was coming along? Has it begun, Ramón?”

  “Not yet, Teresa. I am going to build a new shed for it this year.”

  Ramón was glad she was home. Last year the feast did not seem the same to him with Teresa in San Juan.

  “I brought you a box of paints,” she said. “Filimón will bring it up with the rest of the packages.”

  When Filimón brought the trunk and the packages up, the family went back to the house.

  Everything looked the same way, and Teresa took in all her familiar nooks and corners, glad to be back home once more.

  Her parents also looked the same. But Ramón had changed. He already looked as tall as her father, and her father was the tallest man at the finca.

  The three men began to talk about the trip, when something her father said made Filimón laugh loud and hardy.

  Don Rodrigo was a good-natured man, with a strong body, as sturdy as some of the old trees in his finca. His eyes were brown and lively, like his daughter’s, and he had abundant hair which the sun had tinted the shade of an early autumn leaf. He cultivated a moustache which covered his upper lip and added maturity to his face. But Don Rodrigo was only fifty, an age which made him remark that half of his existence had been spread over the hills of his finca.

  Before Filimón left, Teresa’s grandmother gave him a cup of steaming black coffee. He stood outside the door, talking and laughing, waiting for the coffee to cool.

  Grandmother was the practical member of the family. She knew how to please everyone who came to the house, no matter who he was. Her snow-white hair contrasted with the firmness of her face, and her energy made her daughter seem like an invalid around the house.

  Regardless of Grandmother’s age, she and her daughter looked much alike. Both had angular faces, thin sharp noses and exactly the same color of almond-shaped eyes: a pale-bluish color, which Grandmother said had been her father’s legacy.

  Grandmother’s parents, like the Rodrigo’s, had been country people, living away from the excitement of towns and cities. They loved the land and the serenity of the hills which surrounded them.

  With Teresa now in the house, plans for the feast began in earnest. The feast, so eagerly awaited by all, was a floral celebration in honor of the Cross, similar in character to the feasts of the Cross of May held in various provinces in Spain, from where the custom found its tradition. It had been well implanted in Puerto Rico, especially in the towns and countryside.

  To celebrate it, nine rosaries were chanted on an improvised altar, for which nine movable steps were made. One step was added each night to show the progress of the feast. Nine godfathers or godmothers, whose duties were to dress the altar and lead the rosary, were selected by the hostess. To set them apart from the rest of the crowd attending the feast, a small white bow was pinned on their chests.

  News of the approaching feast soon reached every worker on the finca. The air of gaiety mounted in each house as the days went on. Housewives began to alter old blouses and skirts, adding a ribbon or a ruffle in their efforts to have something new to wear at the feast. Even the children did not escape the excitement. They, too, took things in their own hands. The older ones renewed their efforts to help more around the house, and the younger ones managed to keep out of mischief, afraid to
be deprived of the privilege of attending the festivities.

  One day, late in the afternoon, Gregorio and José climbed the hill to see Ramón and Valentín, who were in charge of building the new shed for the altar.

  “I wonder how the feast day will go this year?” said José.

  “You fared well last summer,” Gregorio said. “Where did you learn to sing those carols?”

  “That’s the way they sing them in Ponce. I learned them long ago when I used to work there.”

  “Hm,” said Gregorio, pulling at his cigar, “that is about the only thing that scares me about the ceremonies. I can’t whistle a tune.”

  When they reached the shed, they found that Ramón was laying down the floor.

  “I don’t see why they have taken so long to build this shed,” said José. “The walls are not even up yet.”

  “When do you figure the walls will be done, Ramón?” they asked.

  “There won’t be any,” Ramón answered.

  “No walls? Why?”

  “To let everyone who can’t get seats inside see the altar from the outside. They can sit on the grass, provided it doesn’t rain.”

  “A good idea,” they said, remembering how many times last summer they had to wait to see the altar after the crowd had left the shed.

  They waited for Valentín to put away the tools and then walked down the hill together, discussing previous celebrations.

  Little by little the work progressed, and then came the day when at last the shed was finished, with its new altar and nine steps. Ramón bought three lanterns to hang on the ceiling. Word was sent to the workers that Wednesday the feast would begin.

  The day before the opening, Grandmother asked her daughter about the list of godmothers and godfathers for the feast.

  “Let’s not make it beforehand, Mamá. It will be more fun to select them from the group that comes each night.”