The savage young rascals had thrown him into a canal of stagnant water and his brothers had fished him out covered with disgusting black mud.
The mother put him to bed, for the poor little chap was still trembling in her arms, clinging around her neck, and murmuring with a voice that sounded like the bleating of a lamb,
"Lord God! give us patience!" All that base rabble, big and little, had resolved to put an end to the whole family.
Sad and frowning as though he were going to a funeral, Batiste started forth one Thursday morning on the road to Valencia. It was horse-market day at the river-bed and the little bag of sackcloth containing the remainder of his savings bulged out his sash.
Misfortunes were pouring on the family in a steady stream. The last and fitting climax now would be that the roof should fall on their heads and crush them to death. What people! What a place had they got into!
The little boy was steadily getting worse, and trembled with fever in his mother's arms, while the latter wept continually. He was visited twice a day by the doctor; in short, it was a sickness which was going to cost twelve or fifteen dollars,--a mere trifle, so to speak.
The oldest boy, Batistet, could hardly go about. His head was still swathed in bandages and his face crisscrossed with scratches, after a big battle which he had had one morning with other boys of his own age who were going like himself to gather manure in Valencia. All the _fematers_ (manure-gatherers) of the district had banded against Batistet and the poor boy could not show himself upon the road.
The two younger ones had stopped going to school through fear of the fights that would be forced on them on the way home.
And Roseta, poor girl! she was the saddest of all. Her father put on a gloomy countenance in the house, casting severe glances at her to remind her that she must not show her feelings and that her sufferings were an outrage on paternal authority. But when he was alone, the worthy Batiste felt grieved over the poor girl's sadness. For he had once been young himself and knew how heavy the sufferings of love may be.
Everything had been discovered. After the famous quarrel at the fountain of the Queen, the whole _huerta_ gossiped for days about Roseta's love-affair with old Tomba's grandson.