At last I had my sheep to ride! I had spent my
life asking for one from Uncle Juca, from cousin Baltasar do Beleza, to all my
relations who had flocks of sheep. One day a sheep came for me. It was soft and
gentle, a sheep born for riding. She was called Jasmin. I had seen the children
of Ze Medeiros of Pilar, each with his sheep tacked up, riding down the road to
our plantation and bitter envy had invaded my heart.
I began to nurse the dream of being the owner
of my own ‘little horse’. And a child’s dream is stronger than an adult’s dream
because his is closer to reality. I dreamt of my sheep day and night. And
because I pestered so much I eventually got what I wanted.
Now that I had my sheep Jasmin I needed a
saddle and tack. All night long I would dream of my steed saddled up with the
best quality tack. I pestered some more and in the end some tack was sent from
Itabaiana.
The canaries were forgotten about, free to sing
in freedom without fear of capture. All I thought about now was Jasmin. In the
morning I took her out to pasture, gave her cold water to drink, washed her
with soap, combed her wool. And in the afternoon we went for a ride. These
rides, on my own, on the road, mounted on my nicely groomed Jasmin, were an
opportunity for gloomy thoughts to invade my head. I thought of bad things,
like what would become of the plantation when my grandfather died. I often
heard people say,
“When the old man shuts his eyes for the last
time, it’s the poor folk of Santa Rosa who will suffer.”
And this idea of the death of old José Paulino
began to worry my mind. Who would look after Santa Rosa? Who would pay the
workers?
My little sheep with her little steps walked
the paths around the plantation and I hardly noticed where I was, so wrapped up
was I in my thoughts.
I thought a lot about Aunt Maria. She was
preparing for her marriage to a cousin from Gameleira. I don’t know how many
seamstresses were working on her white wedding dress. They sewed letters onto
the cushions. And she bought up whatever lace there was going. In the garden
men were setting up a tent, decorated with carnations, for the wedding day.
My great friend was going away.
But the everyday incidents on my travels would
drag me out of my melancholy reverie, and bit by bit I began to see the road.
Jasmin knew our route well. She knew the clumps of grass and the puddles too. I
used to stop at the tenants’ houses. The women would sit at the door without
their jackets, their breasts almost falling out of their blouses, sewing and
mending by the front door. Their children would run to see my sheep and ask me
for a ride. I used to stay and play with my grandfather’s little serfs,
climbing trees and eating fruit that had fallen to the ground. I learned a lot
about their lives, about the birds’ nests they discovered, the little animals
they caught to eat, the little jars of chestnut wood that they made. Many of
them were yellow, with swollen bellies, poor things, their guts infested with
worms. As a remedy their mothers would give them jaracatia fruit and they would
spend the day with the runs. But they would grow up strong and tall, men who
worked in my grandfather’s fields.
The women would ask me for news from the main
house. They wanted to know everything; about my aunt’s wedding, how was
everybody’s health and so on. And when I asked for water they would rinse out
the mug, and fill it with the muddy water they liked so much. I would give them
Aunt Maria’s regards and the medicines that she had promised them. And they
would give me packets of lace:
“Tell Miss Maria that this is for her
trousseau.”
They were also growing carnations in preparation
for the wedding day of the daughter of the master of the plantation.
The sun had almost gone down when I would make
my way home. Underneath the branches of the plum trees I could already feel the
evening chill. My sheep would run back. She was afraid of the silence and of
the long shadows. She veritably charged back home.
Workmen, spades slung over their shoulders,
were making their way home from the fields. They chattered away merrily, as if
the twelve hours labour they had just done weighed upon them not at all.
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