After dinner my grandfather would sit in his
chair on the porch, watching the cattle come in from the pasture. He would read
the newspaper from Pernambuco or he would give 'public audiences' to the
tenants. They came to ask or to complain. They would approach him cap in hand
with a 'God bless you, Sir.' They wanted more land for planting their crops,
permission to build a house, medicines for the children, a letter of
recommendation for sending someone to hospital. Some came to complain about
their neighbours.
"Their animals are destroying our crops,
the pigs digging up the potatoes and the children come and pick the green cane
to chew."
Such people had run out of patience. They came
to complain before they did something they might regret.
"I'll have Chico Carpina come here and
explain himself, I want to know just what's going on."
The tenants would then sit on the bench and
talk to the maids, and often they would ask my Aunt Maria to be the godmother
of one of their children.
Another man might come because he had been
summoned by my grandfather. Of course, everything they said about him was a
lie. He'd never been selling cotton in Pilar. He'd not been pasturing cattle
from elsewhere on our plantation. If he told a lie my grandfather could set
fire to all he owned and graze his cattle on his plot.
My father would call them thieves and rogues
but he wouldn't look angry. These insults from the old patriarch seemed to mean
nothing.
Many people would come to arrange the loan of a
cart from the farm, to give an account of the property they rented, or to pay
what they owed. My grandfather might grumble or insult them, but he always gave
them what they wanted.
Once a man of a different sort arrived. He had
come to ask my grandfather's protection. He had killed a man in Oiteiro, and
had run here to the plantation. The old Colonel wanted to know what had
happened. It had been a quarrel over a woman.
"Go and hand yourself over to the police.
I don't protect criminals. If you killed the man with good reason you'll be set
free. I don't want you here. I only protect people when I serve on the jury.
Hand yourself over to the Law. Tell the judge your story. On my plantation I
don't protect criminals. I don't want the police laying siege to my property.
That's not what I want. Once Lieutenant Maurício entered the
lands of Quincas do Jatòbá to arrest a
criminal and he beat up a number of tenants who had nothing to do with the
criminal."
On the road outside the main house farmers
would return home from the market, Tuesdays at Itabaina and Saturdays at Pilar.
My grandfather would call them over to find out the latest price for flour and
cotton. They would tell him everything, not just the prices, but the latest
gossip too.
"Green beans, they're giving them away.
Colonel Nô Borges is
having problems with the authorities. And Mr. Odilon's people are being
harassed. If they so much as walk in the street with their shirts hanging out
or crack the whip on their animals they get in trouble! A lot of the cattle
coming in from the bush look thin, priced at two and eight a head. Mr.
Ribeirinho bought two hundred head of cattle. Otherwise, a bad market at Pilar.
People are afraid of António Silvino, so
they don't come. They only slaughtered a couple of bulls at the butchers and
there was meat left over.
Before long the cattle in from pasture, and my
grandfather would get up to watch the cows and the oxen with their full
bellies. He asked the boys which meadows the cattle had been in. He told them
to see to any cuts and wounds they might have picked up. There was always one
straggler, one ox who turned up some time after the others.
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