Between my house and Francisco’s lived my godfather Anastacio, who was married to an older woman whom God had not blessed with children. They were farmers and quite well off, so they didn’t need to work. My father was overseer of their farm and had charge of the day laborers. In gratitude for this they had a special liking for me, particularly my godfather’s wife, whom I called my godmother Teresa. If I didn’t call in during the day, I had to go and sleep there at night, because she couldn’t get along without her little sweet meat, as she called me.
On festive occasions, she delighted in dressing me up with her gold necklace and heavy earrings which hung down below my shoulders, and a pretty little hat decorated with immense feathers of different colors and fastened with an array of gold beads. At the festas, there was no one better turned out than I, and how my sisters and my godmother gloried in the fact! The other children crowded round me to admire the brilliance of my finery. To tell the truth, I myself greatly enjoyed the festa, and vanity was my worst adornment.
Everybody showed liking and esteem for me, except a poor orphan girl whom my godmother Teresa had taken into her home on the death of her mother. She seemed to fear that I would get part of the inheritance she was hoping for, and indeed she would not have been mistaken, had not Our Lord destined for me a far more precious inheritance. As soon as the news of the apparitions got round, my godfather showed unconcern, and my godmother was completely opposed to it all. She made no secret of her disapproval of such ‘inventions’, as she called them. I began, therefore, to keep away from her house as much as I could. My disappearance soon followed by that of the groups of children who so often gathered there, and whom my godmother loved to watch singing and dancing. She treated them to dried figs, nuts, almonds, chestnuts, fruit, and so on.
One Sunday afternoon, I was passing near her house with Francisco and Jacinta, when she called out to us: “Come in, my little swindlers, come! You’ve not been here for a long time!” Once inside, she lavished her usual attentions on us. The other children seemed to guess we were there, and began to come along as well. My kind godmother, happy at seeing us all gathered in her house once again after such a long space of time, heaped delicacies upon us, and wanted to see us sing and dance. “Come on,” we said, “what will it be, this one or that?” My godmother made the choice herself. It was Congratulations with Illusions, a part song for boys and girls:
CHORUS
You are the sun of the sphere,
Do not deny your rays!
These are the smiles of springtime,
Ah! Change them not into sighs!
Congratulations to the maiden,
Fragrant as the dewy dawn,
Smiling, you anticipate
The caressing of another morn.
The year is rich in flowers,
Rich in fruit and every good!
And may the year that dawns
Be rich in hopes for you!
There hopes are the best of gifts,
Our warmest wishes for you!
Place them upon your brow,
They’re the finest crown of all!
If the past was lovely,
The future will be so too!
Greetings for the year now gone,
For the year to come as well!
In this merry banquet of life,
Charming Atlantic flower,
The gardener and the garden fair
Are lauded in glad some song!
Your heart is yearning for the flowers
That bloom on your native soil,
For your home and its purest loves
That entwine around your heart!