: Jose: Our Little Portuguese Cousin by Sawyer Edith A Edith Augusta Marlowe Diantha Horne Illustrator - Children Portugal Juvenile literature

@FreeBooksWed 07 Jun, 2023

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WHEN, the next morning, Jose led Antonio through the garden and vineyard, crimson vine leaves and purple grapes were the only signs of autumn. The green of summer was fresh over everything else.

The granite gate-posts, which divided the front yard and flower garden from the fields, were almost buried in ferns and covered with ivy. In the garden blossomed roses, bright geraniums, asters, balsams, verbenas, salvias and dahlias. The Portuguese are great lovers of flowers. Their climate, where the temperature hardly ever goes below forty degrees, is favorable to the growing of all the flowers, as well as the trees and shrubs, of both temperate and tropical zones.

On the borders of the Almaidas' garden and fields, great palms and tall cedars of Lebanon stood side by side with orange, lemon, citron and fig-trees. Here and there was an olive-tree, with gray-green leaves.

"How beautiful the flowers are, Jose, and how the trees have grown!" Antonio breathed a happy sigh as he spoke. Many times in his absence these last four years his heart had cried out for the flowers and trees and the quiet happiness of his childhood home.

Jose darted off to the house with the large bouquet of flowers he had gathered for his father. As he ran back to Antonio, he called: "Come to the farm-yard. I want you to see our pretty, gentle cow, and the chickens and the pig."

At the right-hand side of the house was a good-sized farm-yard, kept more than ankle-deep in gorse and bracken litter. This yard was formed by one side of the house and by a small granite building which held the grape-vats. High over the yard hung grave-vines on strong wooden trellises. Here the cattle found shade and shelter in the heat of mid-summer. In Portugal, cattle are kept in the yards instead of being put out to pasture.

The dun-brown cow was indeed a gentle creature. She leaned her head to one side while Jose stroked her neck, and she looked at Antonio with friendly brown eyes. The chickens, in their corner coop, hurried forward, as if expecting food, so Jose ran outside the yard and pulled some handfuls of chickweed for them. The long, tall pig grunted a welcome, standing still to have his back scratched. The oxen turned restlessly, as if wondering why work was so late in beginning to-day.

Next the brothers visited the grape-vats. The wide, shallow tubs were full of trodden grapes. For several days Jose with Joanna, and Malfada to help sometimes, had carefully removed the green and decayed grapes from the huge purple clusters they had gathered, and had thrown the good grapes into the vats. Jose and the girls had trodden these grapes with their bare feet. Now the juice was running from the vats through the troughs and the strainers in rich crimson streams into caskets set upon slabs of granite outside. This is the way that port, the wine for which Portugal is famed, is made throughout the country.

Antonio stood looking out over the maize field and vineyard, of about an acre, beyond the flower gardens. It was surrounded by poplar trees. Upon the trees hung grape-vines, heavy with fruit.

"We must gather more grapes to-day, Jose. I will help, and together we will tread the wine-press." Antonio's quick eyes saw that only a small part of the grapes had been taken from the vines. They must make the most of the vineyard crop.

The oxen's inquiring looks had reminded Jose that the day's watering of the gardens and fields ought to begin.

"Let me take the oxen out to-day, Antonio, please," Jose said, when his brother would have gone ahead with the work. Jose knew that his part as leader would soon be ended. Hard as the care had been, he felt more than half sorry to give it up to Antonio.

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