Such moments of seclusion were rare indeed. As Your Excellency already knows, I had to look after the children whom the neighbors entrusted to our care; and besides this, my mother was in much demand thereabouts as a nurse. In cases of minor ills, people came to our house to seek her advice, but when the sick person was unable to go out, they asked my mother to go to their homes. She often spent entire days there and even nights. If the illness was prolonged, or the sick person’s condition required it, she occasionally sent my sisters to stay by the patient’s bedside at night, to give the family a chance to get some rest.
Whenever the sick person was the mother of a young family, or someone who could not stand the noise of children, my mother brought the little ones to our house and charged me with keeping them occupied. I kept the children amused, by teaching them how to prepare the yarn for weaving: they set the wooden winder spinning to wind it into balls; they rolled it into spools; they strung it on the skeiner to make it into skeins; and they guided the balls of yarn as the warp was prepared on the frame.
In this way we always had plenty to do. There were usually several girls working in our house, who had come to learn weaving and dress making. Usually these girls showed great affection for our family, and used to say that the best days of their lives were those spent in our house. At certain times of the year, my sisters had to go out working in the fields during the day time, so they did their weaving and sewing at night. Supper was followed by prayers led by my father, and then the work began.
Everyone had something to do. My sister Maria went to the loom; my father filled the spools; Teresa and Gloria went to their sewing; my mother took up her spinning; Carolina and I, after tidying up the kitchen, had to help with the sewing, taking out basting, sewing on buttons, and so forth: to keep drowsiness away, my brother played the concertina, and we joined in singing all kinds of songs. The neighbors often dropped in to keep us company, and although it meant losing their sleep, they used to tell us that the very sound of our gaiety banished all their worries and filled them with happiness. I heard different women sometimes say to my mother: “How fortunate you are! What lovely children God has given you!” When the time came round to harvest the corn, we removed the husks by moonlight.
There was I sitting atop a heap of corn, and chosen to give a hug all round whenever a dark-colored corn cob appeared.