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ries Mary Tomei
65 Barre et.
Montpelier, Vis.
The °Toppi, !Jerkier
EX-STORECUTI'Eft AND HIS WIFE 0. SPANI311
It was a smalls onewroom grocery store in a north.end,
SpanithpItellanneWoorhood. A tinny bell an the door so.
noanced each customer. The space was once the living/4mm
for the Gonssgas in the days before Felipe bad given up
stonecutting tar storekeeping. The two front windows bald
been cut larger; now they displayed oil cans, soap, pasbages
of cereal, sacks of flour, strings of sausages. inside, the
air was a spicy fres:rem°. Perhaps it was the elestko fan
directed less upon the customers than upon the links at fat
sausages that helped flavor the atmosphere with the mmat's
piquancy.
"Stonecutting/ po, no, I will never return to it. I
was never so hippy as here in this store.' Felipe was brown
and lean. His body, ths wiry leanness of youth. Lut his
seamed face and graying hair spoke his age move truly.
"You know what be say once?' it was his wife speaking.
A deep, rich voice that sang together the broken English
mord/ as if they were one. She was Felipeos counterpart
in coloring. There the similarity ended. She was short
and lumpily stout beneath the cotton house dress. Slender
gold oirolets pierced her ears. Iler broad feet strained
against the pliant leather of bedroom slippers. As the
spoke her black eyes rested affectionately, proudly on
her husband.
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"Once he say," 0110 began, "once be say ant I never
forget it that it is more happy for him to sell foods for
to make people live, than to cut stone to make Leoories of
dead people. Ant he is right, no? ilere it is good, clean
work. ror him, ant for me. To more heavy pants for me to
shatre out the dust, to soak them, ant scrub them in the
washtub."
"In these tt, s stonecutters are laid off every once
in a while," Felipe added. "In the store we make our little
profit every day steady. It isn't much, but it is steady
The wife said contentedly. "Here, too, we are all to-
gether. The family. The kitchen to in the back of the
store. The bedrooms, upstairs. If sometimes Felipe is
busy, he rap there an the radiator ant I come to help.
If it is an hour he wants to sleep, I am here to take his
place. e need to hire no extra clerk, the store is small."
Felipe said, "I was born in the hills near f'an 7ebastian
an the Day. (ihe nearest store was in a village about the
size of North 7ontpeller. Tast a small place. Sometimes
I would ride down with my father to get the supply of flour
ant sugar. I used to envy that storekeeper behind the
counter. Re seemed like a king to no. T.it I woule wish
that some day I could have a store like that. e were
poor farmers, ant a big family. ut we lived good. The
earth vac rich for crepe. V.e never needed for good food,
rom the hills I could sec the ships cominr into the Bay
fral Fngland ant from :incrica. It made me want to travel.
Tlo, I did not learn the stonecutting trade over Clore.
I was farmer like my father. 7.1y wife, he is from '',antander,
whore most of the .asre Spanish are from. We wore married
in Farre. r,one of the :earre :7panlah learned the trade in
7pain Ty wife's brother was a good carver. Tie worked
for many .care in Saragossa
The wife interrupted, do not want to brag. It would
do no good to brag, Ile Is dead now for five years. He was
good carver, that one. l_very ahed in 7Jarre was glad to have
7-11n. work .,or than, Ile was a big man, weighed over two
hundred pounds. 'Alt when 71e died there was nothing left to
him.7Tot even a hundred pounds, he weighed. In lungs were
sick a long time. 177e 1 a roan here with us. I ar glad
he was not married, to leave a wife ant children behind
Le nave four children, mc ant Felipe. Only the youngest
girl ls with us now. 2he works: in a beauty parlor an rain
F:treet. Lut she is not satisfied. none day she says she
wifl7,1ave a place of her own. The other two girls are nar-
rated. The boy is worl:Inr for a wholesale company in Boston.
It is a big conpany that Imports Italian and 1:7nanish foods."
"Go back to pain?" Felipe asked. 'fell, 800B
day I would like to co back for a visit. Fut not wIle it
tc the hell Prance has made of it. PirAating all the time,
war, men killed, not oven the women ant children safe. Do,
me, I will wait until it is all over. I have two brothers
Clem, men viti]. families. The last I hear they are fight
wife, olio used to -et a paper from .7antander every
4.
two weeks* but a little while after they start fighting*
the paper stopped coming .0 do not know for sure what
is going an. Vie are Loyalists. V.-0 are for the Spain we
used to know. Veres* a stonecutter who lives down the
street* tells us that his cousin was killed a few months
ago, 1 do not %now the whole story. The brothel, ant two
others ran for protection into a village church. They were
unarmed. io you think the soldiers would wait to take than
outside? ro, they were killed right there in the 61-1717.6h,
in front of the altar* in front of the God that made them.
"Tbc refugees have spread stories* too. Lost of the
nish-iiriorican sympathize with them, Some day they will
turn the tables an Franco. Do you thirlk they will forget
that they saw their fathers ant brothers murdered? 7o,
they will not forget it, ant some day they will make Spain
the good old Spain that it used to be."
Felipe's wife shrugged her shoulders. "Eefugees. Sure,
there are thouzanda of them, but in the whole of Spain they
are just a handful. :11.at can a handful of people do against
a rovcront that has crown stron with the years? Desides,
many of then will not back to Spain. They will make their
hems in France, 1igland or the ,imcricas, Ant when once they
have :lade homes ant are happy* do you think they will give
that up to -0 buck to "pain an' fight. Eo* no Felipe* the
side that wins today is the side that will be Spain as long
an we two are alive* an' lons-er."
-be you are rit," Felipe granted. f'Only the years
5
will tell. Our younceet daughter lia has a cousin her
ar!,so who has been attendirK: a trade school near ran 7.ebastian.
rile school is run by the Bonnet Thins. That is not the
rig:.t name for them, but always I have called them that be-
cause they wear the wide, ()tiff, white bonnets. In the last
letter that :melia received, the cousin says that the school
has been closed against them. Yes, our children speak
c'panieh. Only .xella ant one other girl can write it. They
learned it from Le an ny wife. i)efore they went to school
ther coke pari1ah at hone all the tine.
Club? r-ure, I belonc to the. r,Daniah Club. e have
rood times. In the surer we have picnics. rf.ostly they are
on lay, ant in the country near some pond. Now, any ex-
tra money we have at the Club Gees to the Defugees. But
some day the Club will have :ler awn camp. Like the Italian
Pleasure Club. They have a aqmp at Berlin Pond."