Compilation of Short Stories

Submitted by: Angeles, Niño J.

Submitted to: Mrs. Loida Cu

IT21FA2

“ The World Is An apple ”

By: Alberto S. Florentino 

Narrator: Mario enters. sits down and buries his head in his hands. Gloria crosses to him and lay a hand on his shoulder.

Gloria: I know something is wrong. Mario, I can feel it. Tell me what it is .

Mario: Gloria, I've lost my job

Gloria: Oh, no! How did you lose it? Mario! Have your sinful fingers brought you trouble again?

Mario: Now, now, Gloria Don't try to accuse me as they did. An apple! Yes, and they kicked me out for it for taking one single apple

Gloria: So that's what you get. . .

Mario: Could I guessed they would do that for one apple? When there were millions of them? We were hauling them to the warehouse. I saw one roll out of a broken crate. It was that big.Suddenly, I found myself putting it in my lunch bag. Do you remember that day I took our little girl out for a walk? On our way home we passed a grocery store that sold "delicious" apples at seventy centavos each. She wanted me to buy one for her but I did not have seventy centavos. She cried. So, when I saw this apple roll out of crate, I thought that Tita would love to have it.

Gloria: We're not rich. We can live without apples.

Mario: Why? Did God create apple trees to bear fruit for the richalone? Didn't He create the whole world for everyone?

Gloria: So, for a measly apple, you lose a job! Filching an applethat's too small a reason to kick a poor man out a work. You should ask them to give you a second chance, Mario.

Mario: They won't do that. Can't you see they had waiting for me to make a slip like that? They've wanted to throw me out for any reason, so that they may bring their men in.

Gloria: You should complain. . . If I did, they would dig up my police record. They will do anything to keep me out. But, don't worry, I have found a good job.

Gloria: I know God wouldn't let us down. Mother was wrong. You know, before we get married, she used to tell me "Gloria, you'll commit the greatest mistake of your life if you marry a good - for - nothing loafer!." Oh, you've changed!

Pablo: Hmmmm. How romantic.

Mario: Pablo!

Gloria: What are you doing here? What do you want?

Pablo: Your daughter. . . how is she? Here, I'll loan you a few pesos. It may help your daughter to get well.

Gloria: No. Thank you. Mario has stopped depending on you, since the day I took him away from your clutches! I have no regrets. Mario has none, either.

Pablo: How you can be sure? When he and I were pals we could go to first -class air- conditioned movie houses every other day. I'll bet all the money I have here now that he has not been to one for four years!

Gloria: One cannot expect too much from honest money - we don't

Pablo: What is honest money? Does it buy more? Staying in this dungeon you call a house, is that what you so beautifully call "honesty"?

Mario: Pablo!

Gloria: I know you have come to lead him back to your dishonest ways, but you can't.

Pablo: You call this living? This Gloria,, is what you call dying- dying slowly minute by minute.

Mario: Pablo, stop it!.

Pablo: Tell her that you no longer believe in the way she wanted you to live.

Gloria: Oh! Mario, . . you promised me you were through with him.

Mario: Gloria. . . you . . . must understand . . . I tried long and hard . . . but could not lift us out of this kind of life. . .

Gloria: You are not going with him, You take good care of yourself and our child.

(Mario walks away with Pablo, Gloria stares dumbly at then.)

Gloria: Mariooooo! ( she cover her face with her dress and cries into it.)

“ The Scent Of An Apple ”

By: Bienvenido N. Santos 

When I arrived in Kalamazoo it was October and the war was still on. Gold and silver stars hung on pennants above silent windows of white and brick-red cottages. In a backyard an old man burned leaves and twigs while a gray-haired woman sat on the porch, her red hands quiet on her lap, watching the smoke rising above the elms, both of them thinking the same thought perhaps, about a tall, grinning boy with his blue eyes and flying hair, who went out to war: where could he be now this month when leaves were turning into gold and the fragrance of gathered apples was in thewind? It was a cold night when I left my room at the hotel for a usual speaking engagement. I walked but a little way. A heavy wind coming up from Lake Michigan was icy on the face. If felt like winter straying early in the northern woodlands. Under the lampposts the leaves shone like bronze. And they rolled on the pavements like the ghost feet of a thousand autumns long dead, long before the boys left for faraway lands without great icy winds and promise of winter early in the air, lands without appletrees, the singing and the gold! It was the same night I met Celestino Fabia, "just a Filipino farmer" as he called himself, who had a farm about thirty miles east of Kalamazoo. "You came all that way on a night like this just to hear me talk?" "I've seen no Filipino for so many years now," he answered quickly. "Sowhen I saw your name in the papers where it says you come from the Islands and that you're going to talk, I come right away." Earlier that night I had addressed a college crowd, mostly women.It appeared they wanted me to talk about my country, they wanted me to tell them things about it because my country had become a lost country. Everywhere in the land the enemy stalked. Over it agreat silence hung, and their boys were there, unheard from, or

they were on their way to some little known island on the Pacific, young boys all, hardly men, thinking of harvest moons and the smell of forest fire. It was not hard talking about our own people. I knew them well and I loved them. And they seemed sofar away during those terrible years that I must have spoken of them with a little fervor, a little nostalgia. In the open forum that followed, the audience wanted to know whether there was muchdifference between our women and the American women. I tried to answer the question as best I could, saying, among other things, that I did not know that much about American women, except that they looked friendly, but differences or similarities in inner qualities such as naturally belonged to the heart or to the mind,I could only speak about with vagueness. While I was trying to explain away the fact that it was not easy to make comparisons, aman rose from the rear of the hall, wanting to say something. In the distance, he looked slight and old and very brown. Even before he spoke, I knew that he was, like me, a Filipino. "I'm a Filipino," he began, loud and clear, in a voice that seemed used to wide open spaces, "I'm just a Filipino farmer out in the country." He waved his hand toward the door. "I left the Philippines more than twenty years ago and have never been back. Never will perhaps. I want to find out, sir, are our Filipino women the same like they were twenty years ago?" As he sat down, the hall filled with voices, hushed and intrigued. I weighed my answer carefully. I did not want to tell a lie yet I did not wantto say anything that would seem platitudinous, insincere. But more important than these considerations, it seemed to me that moment as I looked towards my countryman, I must give him an answer that would not make him so unhappy. Surely, all these years, he must have held on to certain ideals, certain beliefs, even illusions peculiar to the exile. "First," I said as the voices gradually died down and every eye seemed upon me, "First, tell me what our women were like twenty years ago." The man stoodto answer. "Yes," he said, "you're too young . . . Twenty years

ago our women were nice, they were modest, they wore their hair long, they dressed proper and went for no monkey business. They were natural, they went to church regular, and they were faithful." He had spoken slowly, and now in what seemed like an afterthought, added, "It's the men who ain't." Now I knew what I was going to say. "Well," I began, "it will interest you to know that our women have changed--but definitely! The change, however,has been on the outside only. Inside, here," pointing to the heart, "they are the same as they were twenty years ago. God-fearing, faithful, modest, and nice." The man was visibly moved. "I'm very happy, sir," he said, in the manner of one who, having stakes on the land, had found no cause to regret one's sentimental investment. After this, everything that was said and done in that hall that night seemed like an anti-climax, and later, as we walked outside, he gave me his name and told me of his farm thirty miles east of the city. We had stopped at the main entrance to the hotel lobby. We had not talked very much on the way. As a matter of fact, we were never alone. Kindly American friends talked to us, asked us questions, said goodnight. So now I asked him whether he cared to step into the lobby with me and talk. "No, thank you," he said, "you are tired.And I don't want to stay out too late." "Yes, you live very far.""I got a car," he said, "besides . . . " Now he smiled, he truly smiled. All night I had been watching his face and I wondered when he was going to smile. "Will you do me a favor, please," he continued smiling almost sweetly. "I want you to have dinner withmy family out in the country. I'd call for you tomorrow afternoon, then drive you back. Will that be alright?" "Of course," I said. "I'd love to meet your family." I was leaving Kalamazoo for Muncie, Indiana, in two days. There was plenty of time. "You will make my wife very happy," he said. "You flatter me." "Honest. She'll be very happy. Ruth is a country girl and hasn't met many Filipinos. I mean Filipinos younger than I, cleaner looking. We're just poor farmer folk, you know, and we

don't get to town very often. Roger, that's my boy, he goes to school in town. A bus takes him early in the morning and he's back in the afternoon. He's nice boy." "I bet he is," I agreed. "I've seen the children of some of the boys by their American wives and the boys are tall, taller than their father, and very good looking." "Roger, he'd be tall. You'll like him." Then he said goodbye and I waved to him as he disappeared in the darkness. The next day he came, at about three in the afternoon. There was a mild, ineffectual sun shining, and it was not too cold. He was wearing an old brown tweed jacket and worsted trousers to match. His shoes were polished, and although the green of his tie seemed faded, a colored shirt hardly accentuatedit. He looked younger than he appeared the night before now that he was clean shaven and seemed ready to go to a party. He was grinning as we met. "Oh, Ruth can't believe it," he kept repeating as he led me to his car--a nondescript thing in faded black that had known better days and many hands. "I says to her, I'm bringing you a first class Filipino, and she says, aw, go away, quit kidding, there's no such thing as first class Filipino. But Roger, that's my boy, he believed me immediately. What's he like, daddy, he asks. Oh, you will see, I says, he's first class. Like you daddy? No, no, I laugh at him, your daddy ain't first class. Aw, but you are, daddy, he says. So you can see what a nice boy he is, so innocent. Then Ruth starts griping about the house, but the house is a mess, she says. True it's a mess, it's always a mess, but you don't mind, do you? We're poor folks, you know. The trip seemed interminable. We passed through narrow lanes and disappeared into thickets, and came out on barren land overgrown with weeds in places. All around were dead leaves and dry earth. In the distance were apple trees. "Aren't those apple trees?" I asked wanting to be sure. "Yes, those are apple trees," he replied. "Do you like apples? I got lots of 'em.I got an apple orchard, I'll show you." All the beauty of the afternoon seemed in the distance, on the hills, in the dull soft

sky. "Those trees are beautiful on the hills," I said. "Autumn's a lovely season. The trees are getting ready to die, and they show their colors, proud-like." "No such thing in our own country," I said. That remark seemed unkind, I realized later. Ittouched him off on a long deserted tangent, but ever there perhaps. How many times did lonely mind take unpleasant detours away from the familiar winding lanes towards home for fear of this, the remembered hurt, the long lost youth, the grim shadows of the years; how many times indeed, only the exile knows. It wasa rugged road we were traveling and the car made so much noise that I could not hear everything he said, but I understood him. He was telling his story for the first time in many years. He wasremembering his own youth. He was thinking of home. In these odd moments there seemed no cause for fear no cause at all, no pain. That would come later. In the night perhaps. Or lonely on the farm under the apple trees. In this old Visayan town, the streetsare narrow and dirty and strewn with coral shells. You have been there? You could not have missed our house, it was the biggest intown, one of the oldest, ours was a big family. The house stood right on the edge of the street. A door opened heavily and you enter a dark hall leading to the stairs. There is the smell of chickens roosting on the low-topped walls, there is the familiar sound they make and you grope your way up a massive staircase, the bannisters smooth upon the trembling hand. Such nights, they are no better than the days, windows are closed against the sun; they close heavily.Mother sits in her corner looking very white and sick. This was her world, her domain. In all these years, I cannot remember the sound of her voice. Father was different. He moved about. He shouted. He ranted. He lived in the past and talked of honor as though it were the only thing.I was born in that house. I grew up there into a pampered brat. I was mean. Oneday I broke their hearts. I saw mother cry wordlessly as father heaped his curses upon me and drove me out of the house, the gateclosing heavily after me. And my brothers and sisters took up my

father's hate for me and multiplied it numberless times in their own broken hearts. I was no good.But sometimes, you know, I miss that house, the roosting chickens on the low-topped walls. I missmy brothers and sisters, Mother sitting in her chair, looking like a pale ghost in a corner of the room. I would remember the great live posts, massive tree trunks from the forests. Leafy plants grew on the sides, buds pointing downwards, wilted and died before they could become flowers. As they fell on the floor,father bent to pick them and throw them out into the coral streets. His hands were strong. I have kissed these hands . . . many times, many times. Finally we rounded a deep curve and suddenly came upon a shanty, all but ready to crumble in a heap on the ground, its plastered walls were rotting away, the floor was hardly a foot from the ground. I thought of the cottages of the poor colored folk in the south, the hovels of the poor everywhere in the land. This one stood all by itself as though bycommon consent all the folk that used to live here had decided tosay away, despising it, ashamed of it. Even the lovely season could not color it with beauty. A dog barked loudly as we approached. A fat blonde woman stood at the door with a little boy by her side. Roger seemed newly scrubbed. He hardly took his eyes off me. Ruth had a clean apron around her shapeless waist. Now as she shook my hands in sincere delight I noticed shamefacedly (that I should notice) how rough her hands were, howcoarse and red with labor, how ugly! She was no longer young and her smile was pathetic. As we stepped inside and the door closed behind us, immediately I was aware of the familiar scent of apples. The room was bare except for a few ancient pieces of second-hand furniture. In the middle of the room stood a stove tokeep the family warm in winter. The walls were bare. Over the dining table hung a lamp yet unlighted. Ruth got busy with the drinks. She kept coming in and out of a rear room that must have been the kitchen and soon the table was heavy with food, fried chicken legs and rice, and green peas and corn on the ear. Even

as we ate, Ruth kept standing, and going to the kitchen for more food. Roger ate like a little gentleman. "Isn't he nice looking?"his father asked. "You are a handsome boy, Roger," I said. The boy smiled at me. You look like Daddy," he said. Afterwards I noticed an old picture leaning on the top of a dresser and stood to pick it up. It was yellow and soiled with many fingerings. Thefaded figure of a woman in Philippine dress could yet be distinguished although the face had become a blur. "Your . . . " I began. "I don't know who she is," Fabia hastened to say. "I picked that picture many years ago in a room on La Salle street in Chicago. I have often wondered who she is." "The face wasn't ablur in the beginning?" "Oh, no. It was a young face and good." Ruth came with a plate full of apples. "Ah," I cried, picking outa ripe one. "I've been thinking where all the scent of apples came from. The room is full of it." "I'll show you," said Fabia. He showed me a backroom, not very big. It was half-full of apples. "Every day," he explained, "I take some of them to town to sell to the groceries. Prices have been low. I've been losing on the trips." "These apples will spoil," I said. "We'll feed them to the pigs." Then he showed me around the farm. It was twilight now and the apple trees stood bare against a glowing western sky. In apple blossom time it must be lovely here. But what about wintertime? One day, according to Fabia, a few years ago, before Roger was born, he had an attack of acute appendicitis. It was deep winter. The snow lay heavy everywhere. Ruth was pregnant and none too well herself. At first she did notknow what to do. She bundled him in warm clothing and put him on a cot near the stove. She shoveled the snow from their front doorand practically carried the suffering man on her shoulders, dragging him through the newly made path towards the road where they waited for the U.S. Mail car to pass. Meanwhile snowflakes poured all over them and she kept rubbing the man's arms and legsas she herself nearly froze to death. "Go back to the house, Ruth!" her husband cried, "you'll freeze to death." But she clung

to him wordlessly. Even as she massaged his arms and legs, her tears rolled down her cheeks. "I won't leave you," she repeated. Finally the U.S. Mail car arrived. The mailman, who knew them well, helped them board the car, and, without stopping on his usual route, took the sick man and his wife direct to the nearesthospital. Ruth stayed in the hospital with Fabia. She slept in a corridor outside the patients' ward and in the day time helped inscrubbing the floor and washing the dishes and cleaning the men'sthings. They didn't have enough money and Ruth was willing to work like a slave. "Ruth's a nice girl," said Fabia, "like our own Filipino women." Before nightfall, he took me back to the hotel. Ruth and Roger stood at the door holding hands and smilingat me. From inside the room of the shanty, a low light flickered.I had a last glimpse of the apple trees in the orchard under the darkened sky as Fabia backed up the car. And soon we were on our way back to town. The dog had started barking. We could hear it for some time, until finally, we could not hear it anymore, and all was darkness around us, except where the headlamps revealed astretch of road leading somewhere. Fabia did not talk this time. I didn't seem to have anything to say myself. But when finally wecame to the hotel and I got down, Fabia said, "Well, I guess I won't be seeing you again." It was dimly lighted in front of the hotel and I could hardly see Fabia's face. Without getting off the car, he moved to where I had sat, and I saw him extend his hand. I gripped it. "Tell Ruth and Roger," I said, "I love them."He dropped my hand quickly. "They'll be waiting for me now," he said. "Look," I said, not knowing why I said it, "one of these days, very soon, I hope, I'll be going home. I could go to your town." "No," he said softly, sounding very much defeated but brave, "Thanks a lot. But, you see, nobody would remember me now." Then he started the car, and as it moved away, he waved hishand. "Goodbye," I said, waving back into the darkness. And suddenly the night was cold like winter straying early in these

northern woodlands. I hurried inside. There was a train the next morning that left for Muncie, Indiana, at a quarter after eight.

“ How My Brother Leon Brought Home A Wife “

By: Manuel E. Arguilla

She stepped down from the carretela of Ca Celin with a quick, delicate grace. She was lovely. SHe was tall. She looked up to mybrother with a smile, and her forehead was on a level with his mouth.

"You are Baldo," she said and placed her hand lightly on my shoulder. Her nails were long, but they were not painted. She wasfragrant like a morning when papayas are in bloom. And a small dimple appeared momently high on her right cheek. "And this is Labang of whom I have heard so much." She held the wrist of one hand with the other and looked at Labang, and Labang never stopped chewing his cud. He swallowed and brought up to his mouthmore cud and the sound of his insides was like a drum.

I laid a hand on Labang's massive neck and said to her: "You may scratch his forehead now."

She hesitated and I saw that her eyes were on the long, curving horns. But she came and touched Labang's forehead with her long fingers, and Labang never stopped chewing his cud except that hisbig eyes half closed. And by and by she was scratching his forehead very daintily.

My brother Leon put down the two trunks on the grassy side of theroad. He paid Ca Celin twice the usual fare from the station to the edge of Nagrebcan. Then he was standing beside us, and she turned to him eagerly. I watched Ca Celin, where he stood in

front of his horse, and he ran his fingers through its forelock and could not keep his eyes away from her.

"Maria---" my brother Leon said.

He did not say Maring. He did not say Mayang. I knew then that hehad always called her Maria and that to us all she would be Maria; and in my mind I said 'Maria' and it was a beautiful name.

"Yes, Noel."

Now where did she get that name? I pondered the matter quietly tomyself, thinking Father might not like it. But it was only the name of my brother Leon said backward and it sounded much better that way.

"There is Nagrebcan, Maria," my brother Leon said, gesturing widely toward the west.

She moved close to him and slipped her arm through his. And aftera while she said quietly.

"You love Nagrebcan, don't you, Noel?"

Ca Celin drove away hi-yi-ing to his horse loudly. At the bend ofthe camino real where the big duhat tree grew, he rattled the handle of his braided rattan whip against the spokes of the wheel.

We stood alone on the roadside.

The sun was in our eyes, for it was dipping into the bright sea. The sky was wide and deep and very blue above us: but along the saw-tooth rim of the Katayaghan hills to the southwest flamed huge masses of clouds. Before us the fields swam in a golden hazethrough which floated big purple and red and yellow bubbles when I looked at the sinking sun. Labang's white coat, which I had

wshed and brushed that morning with coconut husk, glistened like beaten cotton under the lamplight and his horns appeared tipped with fire.

He faced the sun and from his mouth came a call so loud and vibrant that the earth seemed to tremble underfoot. And far away in the middle of the field a cow lowed softly in answer.

"Hitch him to the cart, Baldo," my brother Leon said, laughing, and she laughed with him a big uncertainly, and I saw that he hadput his arm around her shoulders.

"Why does he make that sound?" she asked. "I have never heard thelike of it."

"There is not another like it," my brother Leon said. "I have yetto hear another bull call like Labang. In all the world there is no other bull like him."

She was smiling at him, and I stopped in the act of tying the sinta across Labang's neck to the opposite end of the yoke, because her teeth were very white, her eyes were so full of laughter, and there was the small dimple high up on her right cheek.

"If you continue to talk about him like that, either I shall fallin love with him or become greatly jealous."

My brother Leon laughed and she laughed and they looked at each other and it seemed to me there was a world of laughter between them and in them.

I climbed into the cart over the wheel and Labang would have bolted, for he was always like that, but I kept a firm hold on his rope. He was restless and would not stand still, so that my brother Leon had to say "Labang" several times. When he was quietagain, my brother Leon lifted the trunks into the cart, placing the smaller on top.

She looked down once at her high-heeled shoes, then she gave her left hand to my brother Leon, placed a foot on the hub of the wheel, and in one breath she had swung up into the cart. Oh, the fragrance of her. But Labang was fairly dancing with impatience and it was all I could do to keep him from running away.

"Give me the rope, Baldo," my brother Leon said. "Maria, sit downon the hay and hold on to anything." Then he put a foot on the left shaft and that instand labang leaped forward. My brother Leon laughed as he drew himself up to the top of the side of the cart and made the slack of the rope hiss above the back of labang. The wind whistled against my cheeks and the rattling of the wheels on the pebbly road echoed in my ears.

She sat up straight on the bottom of the cart, legs bent togther to one side, her skirts spread over them so that only the toes and heels of her shoes were visible. her eyes were on my brother Leon's back; I saw the wind on her hair. When Labang slowed down,my brother Leon handed to me the rope. I knelt on the straw inside the cart and pulled on the rope until Labang was merely shuffling along, then I made him turn around.

"What is it you have forgotten now, Baldo?" my brother Leon said.

I did not say anything but tickled with my fingers the rump of Labang; and away we went---back to where I had unhitched and waited for them. The sun had sunk and down from the wooded sides of the Katayaghan hills shadows were stealing into the fields. High up overhead the sky burned with many slow fires.

When I sent Labang down the deep cut that would take us to the dry bed of the Waig which could be used as a path to our place during the dry season, my brother Leon laid a hand on my shoulderand said sternly:

"Who told you to drive through the fields tonight?"

His hand was heavy on my shoulder, but I did not look at him or utter a word until we were on the rocky bottom of the Waig.

"Baldo, you fool, answer me before I lay the rope of Labang on you. Why do you follow the Wait instead of the camino real?"

His fingers bit into my shoulder.

"Father, he told me to follow the Waig tonight, Manong."

Swiftly, his hand fell away from my shoulder and he reached for the rope of Labang. Then my brother Leon laughed, and he sat back, and laughing still, he said:

"And I suppose Father also told you to hitch Labang to the cart and meet us with him instead of with Castano and the calesa."

Without waiting for me to answer, he turned to her and said, "Maria, why do you think Father should do that, now?" He laughed and added, "Have you ever seen so many stars before?"

I looked back and they were sitting side by side, leaning againstthe trunks, hands clasped across knees. Seemingly, but a man's height above the tops of the steep banks of the Wait, hung the stars. But in the deep gorge the shadows had fallen heavily, and even the white of Labang's coat was merely a dim, grayish blur. Crickets chirped from their homes in the cracks in the banks. Thethick, unpleasant smell of dangla bushes and cooling sun-heated earth mingled with the clean, sharp scent of arrais roots exposedto the night air and of the hay inside the cart.

"Look, Noel, yonder is our star!" Deep surprise and gladness werein her voice. Very low in the west, almost touching the ragged edge of the bank, was the star, the biggest and brightest in the sky.

"I have been looking at it," my brother Leon said. "Do you remember how I would tell you that when you want to see stars youmust come to Nagrebcan?"

"Yes, Noel," she said. "Look at it," she murmured, half to herself. "It is so many times bigger and brighter than it was at Ermita beach."

"The air here is clean, free of dust and smoke."

"So it is, Noel," she said, drawing a long breath.

"Making fun of me, Maria?"

She laughed then and they laughed together and she took my brother Leon's hand and put it against her face.

I stopped Labang, climbed down, and lighted the lantern that hungfrom the cart between the wheels.

"Good boy, Baldo," my brother Leon said as I climbed back into the cart, and my heart sant.

Now the shadows took fright and did not crowd so near. Clumps of andadasi and arrais flashed into view and quickly disappeared as we passed by. Ahead, the elongated shadow of Labang bobbled up and down and swayed drunkenly from side to side, for the lantern rocked jerkily with the cart.

"Have we far to go yet, Noel?" she asked.

"Ask Baldo," my brother Leon said, "we have been neglecting him."

"I am asking you, Baldo," she said.

Without looking back, I answered, picking my words slowly:

"Soon we will get out of the Wait and pass into the fields. Afterthe fields is home---Manong."

"So near already."

I did not say anything more because I did not know what to make of the tone of her voice as she said her last words. All the laughter seemed to have gone out of her. I waited for my brother Leon to say something, but he was not saying anything. Suddenly he broke out into song and the song was 'Sky Sown with Stars'---the same that he and Father sang when we cut hay in the fields atnight before he went away to study. He must have taught her the song because she joined him, and her voice flowed into his like agentle stream meeting a stronger one. And each time the wheels encountered a big rock, her voice would catch in her throat, but my brother Leon would sing on, until, laughing softly, she would join him again.

Then we were climbing out into the fields, and through the spokesof the wheels the light of the lantern mocked the shadows. Labangquickened his steps. The jolting became more frequent and painfulas we crossed the low dikes.

"But it is so very wide here," she said. The light of the stars broke and scattered the darkness so that one could see far on every side, though indistinctly.

"You miss the houses, and the cars, and the people and the noise,don't you?" My brother Leon stopped singing.

"Yes, but in a different way. I am glad they are not here."

With difficulty I turned Labang to the left, for he wanted to go straight on. He was breathing hard, but I knew he was more thirsty than tired. In a little while we drope up the grassy sideonto the camino real.

"---you see," my brother Leon was explaining, "the camino real curves around the foot of the Katayaghan hills and passes by our house. We drove through the fields because---but I'll be asking Father as soon as we get home."

"Noel," she said.

"Yes, Maria."

"I am afraid. He may not like me."

"Does that worry you still, Maria?" my brother Leon said. "From the way you talk, he might be an ogre, for all the world. Except when his leg that was wounded in the Revolution is troubling him,Father is the mildest-tempered, gentlest man I know."

We came to the house of Lacay Julian and I spoke to Labang loudly, but Moning did not come to the window, so I surmised she must be eating with the rest of her family. And I thought of the food being made ready at home and my mouth watered. We met the twins, Urong and Celin, and I said "Hoy!" calling them by name. And they shouted back and asked if my brother Leon and his wife were with me. And my brother Leon shouted to them and then told me to make Labang run; their answers were lost in the noise of the wheels.

I stopped labang on the road before our house and would have gotten down but my brother Leon took the rope and told me to stayin the cart. He turned Labang into the open gate and we dashed into our yard. I thought we would crash into the camachile tree, but my brother Leon reined in Labang in time. There was light downstairs in the kitchen, and Mother stood in the doorway, and Icould see her smiling shyly. My brother Leon was helping Maria over the wheel. The first words that fell from his lips after he had kissed Mother's hand were:

"Father... where is he?"

"He is in his room upstairs," Mother said, her face becoming serious. "His leg is bothering him again."

I did not hear anything more because I had to go back to the cartto unhitch Labang. But I hardly tied him under the barn when I

heard Father calling me. I met my brother Leon going to bring up the trunks. As I passed through the kitchen, there were Mother and my sister Aurelia and Maria and it seemed to me they were crying, all of them.

There was no light in Father's room. There was no movement. He sat in the big armchair by the western window, and a star shone directly through it. He was smoking, but he removed the roll of tobacco from his mouth when he saw me. He laid it carefully on the windowsill before speaking.

"Did you meet anybody on the way?" he asked.

"No, Father," I said. "Nobody passes through the Waig at night."

He reached for his roll of tobacco and hithced himself up in the chair.

"She is very beautiful, Father."

"Was she afraid of Labang?" My father had not raised his voice, but the room seemed to resound with it. And again I saw her eyes on the long curving horns and the arm of my brother Leon around her shoulders.

"No, Father, she was not afraid."

"On the way---"

"She looked at the stars, Father. And Manong Leon sang."

"What did he sing?"

"---Sky Sown with Stars... She sang with him."

He was silent again. I could hear the low voices of Mother and mysister Aurelia downstairs. There was also the voice of my brotherLeon, and I thought that Father's voice must have been like it when Father was young. He had laid the roll of tobacco on the

windowsill once more. I watched the smoke waver faintly upward from the lighted end and vanish slowly into the night outside.

The door opened and my brother Leon and Maria came in.

"Have you watered Labang?" Father spoke to me.

I told him that Labang was resting yet under the barn.

"It is time you watered him, my son," my father said.

I looked at Maria and she was lovely. She was tall. Beside my brother Leon, she was tall and very still. Then I went out, and in the darkened hall the fragrance of her was like a morning whenpapayas are in bloom.

“ Footnote To Youth “

By: Jose Garcia Villa

The sun was salmon and hazy in the west. Dodong thought to himself he would tell his father about Teang when he got home, after he had unhitched the carabao from the plow, and let it to its shed and fed it. He was hesitant about saying it, but he wanted his father to know. What he had to say was of serious import as it would mark a climacteric in his life. Dodong finallydecided to tell it, at a thought came to him his father might refuse to consider it. His father was silent hard-working farmer who chewed areca nut, which he had learned to do from his mother,Dodong's grandmother. I will tell it to him. I will tell it to him. The ground was broken up into many fresh wounds and fragrantwith a sweetish earthy smell. Many slender soft worms emerged from the furrows and then burrowed again deeper into the soil. A

short colorless worm marched blindly to Dodong's foot and crawledcalmly over it. Dodong go tickled and jerked his foot, flinging the worm into the air. Dodong did not bother to look where it fell, but thought of his age, seventeen, and he said to himself he was not young any more. Dodong unhitched the carabao leisurelyand gave it a healthy tap on the hip. The beast turned its head to look at him with dumb faithful eyes. Dodong gave it a slight push and the animal walked alongside him to its shed. He placed bundles of grass before it land the carabao began to eat. Dodong looked at it without interests. Dodong started homeward, thinkinghow he would break his news to his father. He wanted to marry, Dodong did. He was seventeen, he had pimples on his face, the down on his upper lip already was dark-these meant he was no longer a boy. He was growing into a man--he was a man. Dodong felt insolent and big at the thought of it although he was by nature low in statue. Thinking himself a man grown Dodong felt hecould do anything. He walked faster, prodded by the thought of his virility. A small angled stone bled his foot, but he dismissed it cursorily. He lifted his leg and looked at the hurt toe and then went on walking. In the cool sundown he thought wildyou dreams of himself and Teang. Teang, his girl. She had a smallbrown face and small black eyes and straightglossy hair. How desirable she was to him. She made him dream even during the day.Dodong tensed with desire and looked at the muscles of his arms. Dirty. This field work was healthy, invigorating but it begrimed you, smudged you terribly. He turned back the way he had come, then marched obliquely to a creek. Dodong stripped himself and laid his clothes, a gray undershirt and red kundiman shorts, on the grass. The he went into the water, wet his body over, and rubbed at it vigorously. He was not long in bathing, then he marched homeward again. The bath made him feel cool. It was dusk when he reached home. The petroleum lamp on the ceiling already was lighted and the low unvarnished square table was set for supper. His parents and he sat down on the floor around the table

to eat. They had fried fresh-water fish, rice, bananas, and cakedsugar. Dodong ate fish and rice, but didnot partake of the fruit.The bananas were overripe and when one held them they felt more fluid than solid. Dodong broke off a piece of the cakes sugar, dipped it in his glass of water and ate it. He got another piece and wanted some more, but he thought of leaving the remainder forhis parents. Dodong's mother removed the dishes when they were through and went out to the batalan to wash them. She walked withslow careful steps and Dodong wanted to help her carry the dishesout, but he was tired and now felt lazy. He wished as he looked at her that he had a sister who could help his mother in the housework. He pitied her, doing all the housework alone. His father remained in the room, sucking a diseased tooth. It was paining him again, Dodong knew. Dodong had told him often and again to let the town dentist pull it out, but he was afraid, hisfather was. He did not tell that to Dodong, but Dodong guessed it. Afterward Dodong himself thought that if he had a decayed tooth he would be afraid to go to the dentist; he would not be any bolder than his father. Dodong said while his mother was out that he was going to marry Teang. There it was out, what he had to say, and over which he had done so much thinking. He had said it without any effort at all and without self-consciousness. Dodong felt relieved and looked at his father expectantly. A decrescent moon outside shed its feeble light into the window, graying the still black temples of his father. His father looked old now. "I am going to marry Teang," Dodong said.His father looked at him silently and stopped sucking the broken tooth. The silence became intense and cruel, and Dodong wished his father would suck that troublous tooth again. Dodong was uncomfortable and then became angry because his father kept looking at him without uttering anything.

"I will marry Teang," Dodong repeated. "I will marry Teang." His father kept gazing at him in inflexible silence and Dodong fidgeted on his seat. "I asked her last night to marry me and shesaid...yes. I want your permission. I... want... it...." There was impatient clamor in his voice, an exacting protest at this coldness, this indifference. Dodong looked at his father sourly. He cracked his knuckles one by one, and the little sounds it madebroke dully the night stillness. "Must you marry, Dodong?" Dodongresented his father's questions; his father himself had married. Dodong made a quick impassioned easy in his mind about selfishness, but later he got confused. "You are very young, Dodong." "I'm... seventeen." "That's very young to get married at." "I... I want to marry...Teang's good girl." "Tell your mother," his father said. "You tell her, tatay." "Dodong, you tell your inay." "You tell her." "All right, Dodong." "You will let me marry Teang?"

"Son, if that is your wish... of course..." There was a strange helpless light in his father's eyes. Dodong did not read it, too absorbed was he in himself. Dodong was immensely glad he had asserted himself. He lost his resentment for his father. For a while he even felt sorry for him about the diseased tooth. Then he confined his mind to dreaming of Teang and himself. Sweet young dream.... Dodong stood in the sweltering noon heat, sweating profusely, so that his camiseta was damp. He was still like a tree and his thoughts were confused. His mother had told him not to leave the house, but he had left. He had wanted to getout of it without clear reason at all. He was afraid, he felt. Afraid of the house. It had seemed to cage him, to compares his thoughts with severe tyranny. Afraid also of Teang. Teang was giving birth in the house; she gave screams that chilled his blood. He did not want her to scream like that, he seemed to be rebuking him. He began to wonder madly if the process of

childbirth was really painful. Some women, when they gave birth, did not cry. In a few moments he would be a father. "Father, father," he whispered the word with awe, with strangeness. He wasyoung, he realized now, contradicting himself of nine months comfortable... "Your son," people would soon be telling him. "Your son, Dodong." Dodong felt tired standing. He sat down on a saw horse with his feet close together. He looked at his callusedtoes. Suppose he had ten children... What made him think that? What was the matter with him? God! He heard his mother's voice from the house: "Come up, Dodong. It is over." Of a sudden he felt terribly embarrassed as he looked at her. Somehow he was ashamed to his mother of his youthful paternity. It made him feelguilty, as if he had taken something no properly his. He dropped his eyes and pretended to dust dirt off his kundiman shorts. "Dodong," his mother called again. "Dodong." He turned to look again and this time saw his father beside his mother. "It is a boy," his father said. He beckoned Dodong to come up.

Dodong felt more embarrassed and did not move. What a moment for him. His parents' eyes seemed to pierce him through and he felt limp. He wanted to hide from them, to run away. "Dodong, you comeup. You come up," he mother said. Dodong did not want to come up and stayed in the sun. "Dodong. Dodong." "I'll... come up." Dodong traced tremulous steps on the dry parched yard. He ascended the bamboo steps slowly. His heart pounded mercilessly in him. Within, he avoided his parents eyes. He walked ahead of them so that they should not see his face. He felt guilty and untrue. He felt like crying. His eyes smarted and his chest wanted to burst. He wanted to turn back, to go back to the yard. He wanted somebody to punish him. His father thrust his hand in his and gripped it gently. "Son," his father said. And his mother: "Dodong..." How kind were their voices. They flowed into him, making him strong. "Teang?" Dodong said. "She's sleeping.

But you go in..." His father led him into the small sawali room. Dodong saw Teang, his girl wife, asleep on the papag with her black hair soft around her face. He did not want her to look thatpale... Dodong wanted to touch her, to push away that stray wisp of hair that touched her lips, but again that feeling of embarrassment came over him and before his parents he did not want to be demonstrative. The hilot was wrapping the child, Dodong heart it cry. The thin voice pierced him queerly. He couldnot control the swelling of happiness in him. You give him to me.You give him to me," Dodong said. * * * Blas was not Dodong's child. Many more children came. For six successive years a new child came along. Dodong did not want any more children, but theycame. It seemed the coming of children could not be helped. Dodong got angry with himself sometimes. Teang did not complain, but the bearing of children told on her. She was shapeless and thin now, even if she was young. There was interminable work to be done. Cooking. Laundering. The house. The children. She cried sometimes, wishing she had not married. She did not tell Dodong this, not wishing him to dislike her. Yet she wished she had not married. Not even Dodong, whom she loved. There has been another suitor, Lucio, older than Dodong by nine years, and that was why she had chosen Dodong. Young Dodong. Seventeen. Lucio had marriedanother after her marriage to Dodong, but he was childless until now. She wondered if she had married Lucio, would she have borne him children. Maybe not either. That was a better lot. But she loved Dodong... Dodong whom life had made ugly. One night, as he lay beside his wife, he roe and went out of the house. He stood in the moonlight, tired and querulous. He wanted to ask questionsand somebody to answer him. He w anted to be wise about many things. One of them was why life did not fulfill all of Youth's dreams. Why it must be so.

Why one was forsaken... after Love. Dodong would not find the answer. Maybe the question was not to be answered. It must be so to make Youth. Youth. Youth must be dreamfully sweet. Dreamfully sweet. Dodong returned to the house humiliated by himself. He hadwanted to know a little wisdom but was denied it. * * * When Blaswas eighteen he came home one night very flustered and happy. It was late at night and Teang and the other children were asleep. Dodong heard Blas's steps, for he could not sleep well of nights.He watched Blas undress in the dark and lie down softly. Blas wasrestless on his mat and could not sleep. Dodong called him name and asked why he did not sleep. Blas said he could not sleep. "You better go to sleep. It is late," Dodong said. Blas raised himself on his elbow and muttered something in a low fluttering voice. Dodong did not answer and tried to sleep. "Itay ...," Blascalled softly. Dodong stirred and asked him what was it. "I am going to marry Tena.

She accepted me tonight." Dodong lay on the red pillow without moving. "Itay, you think it over." Dodong lay silent. "I love Tena and... I want her." Dodong rose f rom his mat and told Blas to follow him. They descended to the yard, where everything was still and quiet. The moonlight was cold and white. "You want to marry Tena," Dodong said. He did not want Blas to marry yet. Blaswas very young. The life that would follow marriage would be heard... "Yes." "Must you marry?" Blas's voice stilled with resentment. "I will marry Tena." Dodong kept silent, hurt. "You have objections, Itay?" Blas asked acridly. "Son... n-none..." (But truly, God, I don't want Blas to marry yet... not yet. I don't want Blas to marry yet....) But he was helpless. He could not do anything. Youth must triumph... now. Love must triumph... now. Afterwards... it will be life. As long ago Youth and Love did triumph for Dodong... and then Life. Dodong looked wistfully

at his young son in the moonlight. He felt extremely sad and sorry for him.

“ My Father’s Tragedy “

By: Calos Bulosan

It was one of those lean years of our lives. Our rice field was destroyed by locusts that came from the neighboring towns. When the locusts were gone, we planted string beans but a fire burned the whole plantation. My brothers went away because they got tired working for nothing. Mother and my sisters went from house to house, asking for something to do, but every family was plagued with some kind of disaster. The children walked in the streets looking for the fruit that fell to the ground from the

acacia tree. The men hung on the fence around the market and watched the meat dealers hungrily. We were all suffering from lack of proper food.

But the professional gamblers had money. They sat in the fish house at the station and gave their orders aloud. The loafers andother bystanders watched them eat boiled rice and fried fish withsilver spoons. They never used forks because the prongs stuck between their teeth. They always cut their lips and tongues with the knives, so they never asked for them. If the waiter was new and he put the knives on the table, they looked at each other furtively and slipped them into their pockets. They washed their hands in one big wooden bowl of water and wiped their mouths withthe leaves of the arbor trees that fell on the ground.

The rainy season was approaching. There were rumors of famine. The grass did not grow and our carabao became thin. Father’s fighting cock, Burick, was practically the only healthy thing in our household. Its father, Kanaway, had won a house for us some three years before, and Fathers had commanded me to give it the choicest rice. He took the soft-boiled eggs from the plate of my sister Marcela, who was sick with meningitis that year. He was preparing Burick for something big, but the great catastrophe came to our town. The peasants and most of the rich men spent their money on food. They had stopped going to the cockpit for fear of temptation; if they went at all, they just sat in the gallery and shouted at the top of their lungs. They went home with their heads down, thinking of the money they would have won.

It was during this impasse that Father sat every day in our backyard with his fighting cock. He would not go anywhere. He would not do anything. He just sat there caressing Burick and exercising his legs. He spat at his hackles and rubbed them, looking far away with a big dream. When mother came home with some food, he went to the granary and sat there till evening. Sometimes he slept there with Burick, but at dawn the cock woke

him up with its majestic crowing. He crept into the house and fumbled for the cold rice in the pot under the stove. Then, he put the cock in the pen and slept on the bench all day.

Mother was very patient. But the day came when she kicked him offthe bench. He fell on the floor face down, looked up at her, and then resumed his sleep. Mother took my sister Francisca with her.They went from house to house in the neighborhood, pounding rice for some people and hauling drinking water for others. They came home with their share in a big basket that Mother carried on her head.

Father was still sleeping on the bench when they arrived. Mother told my sister to cook some of the rice. The dipped a cup in the jar and splashed the cold water on Father’s face. He jumped up, looked at mother with anger, and went to Burick’s pen. He gathered the cock in his arms and went down the porch. He sat on a log in the backyard and started caressing his fighting cock.

Mother went on with her washing. Francisca fed Marcela with some boiled rice. Father was still caressing Burick. Mother was mad athim.

“Is that all you can do?” she shouted at him.

“Why do you say that to me?” Father said, “I’m thinking of some ways to become rich.”

Mother threw a piece of wood at the cock. Father saw her in time.He ducked and covered the cock with his body. The wood struck him. It cut a hole at the base of his head. He got up and examined Burick. He acted as though the cock were the one that got hurt. He looked up at Mother and his face was pitiful.

“Why don’t you see what you are doing?” he said, hugging Burick.

“I would like to wring that cock’s neck,” mother said.

“That’s his fortune,” I said.

Mother looked sharply atme. “Shut up, idiot!” she said. “ You arebecoming more like your father every day.”

I watched her eyes move foolishly. I thought she would cry. She tucked her skirt between her legs and went on with her work. I ran down the ladder and went to the granary, where Father was treating the wound on his head. I held the cock for him.

“Take good care of it, son,” he said.

“Yes, Sir,” I said.

“Go to the river and exercise its legs. Come back right away. We are going to town.”

I rand down the street with the cock, avoiding the pigs and dogs that came in my way. I plunged into the water in my clothes and swam with Burick. I put some water in my mouth and blew it into his face. I ran back to our house slapping the water off my clothes. Father and I went to the cockpit.

It was Sunday, but there were many loafers and gamblers at the place. There were peasants and teachers. There was a strange man who had a black fighting cock. He had come from one of the neighboring towns to seek his fortune in our cockpit.

His name was Burcio. He held her our cock above his head and closed one eye, looking sharply at Burick’s eyes. He put it on the ground and bent over it, pressing down the cock’s back with his hands. Burcio was testing Burick’s strength. The loafers and gamblers formed a ring around them, watching Burcio’s deft hands expertly moving around Burick.

Father also tested the cock of Burcio. He threw it in the air andwatched it glide smoothly to the ground. He sparred with it. The black cock pecked at his legs and stopped to crow proudly for the

bystanders. Father picked it up and spread its wings, feeling thetough hide beneath the feathers.

The bystanders knew that a fight was about to be matched. They counted the money in their pockets without showing it to their neighbors. They felf the edges of the coins with amazing swiftness and accuracy. Only a highly magnified amplifier could have recorded the tiny clink of the coins that fell between deft fingers. The caressing rustle of the paper money was inaudible. The peasants broke from the ring and hid behind the coconut trees. They unfolded their handkerchiefs and counted their money.They rolled the paper money in their hands and returned to the crowd. They waited for the final decision.

“Shall we make it this coming Sunday?” Burcio asked.

“It’s too soon for my Burick,” Father said. His hand moved mechanically into his pocket. But it was empty. He looked around at his cronies.

But two of the peasants caught Father’s arm and whispered something to him. They slipped some money in his hand and pushed him toward Burcio. He tried to estimate the amount of money in his hand by balling it hard. It was one of his many tricks with money. He knew right away that he had some twenty-peso bills. A light of hope appeared in his face.

“This coming Sunday is all right,” he said.

All at once the men broke into wild confusion. Some went to Burcio with their money; others went to Father. They were not bettors, but inventors. Their money would back up the cocks at the cockpit.

In the late afternoon the fight was arranged. We returned to our house with some hope. Father put Burick in the pen and told me togo to the fish ponds across the river. I ran down the road with

mounting joy. I found a fish pond under the camachile tree. It was the favorite haunt of snails and shrimps. Then I went home.

Mother was cooking something good. I smelled it the moment I entered the gate. I rushed into the house and spilled some of thesnails on the floor. Mother was at the stove. She was stirring the ladle in the boiling pot. Father was still sleeping on the bench. Francisca was feeding Marcela with hot soup. I put the nails and shrimps in a pot and sat on the bench.

Mother was cooking chicken with some bitter melons. I sat wondering where she got it. I knew that our poultry house in the village was empty. We had no poultry in town. Father opened his eyes when he heard the bubbling pot.

Mother put the rice on a big wooden platter and set it on the table she filled our plates with chicken meat and ginger. Father got up suddenly and went to the table. Francisca sat by the stove. Father was reaching for the white meat in the platter whenMother slapped his hand away. She was saying grace. Then we put our legs under the table and started eating.

It was our first tatse of chicken in a long time. Father filled his plate twice and ate very little rice. He usually ate more rice when we had only salted fish and some leaves of tress. We ate “grass” most of the time. Father tilted his plate and took the soup noisily, as though he were drinking wine. He put the empty plate near the pot and asked for some chicken meat.

“It is good chicken,” he said.

Mother was very quiet. She put the breast on a plate and told Francisca to give it to Marcela. She gave me some bitter melons. Father put his hand in the pot and fished out a drumstick.

“Where did you get this lovely chicken?” he asked.

“Where do you think I got it?” Mother said.

The drumstick fell from his mouth. It rolled into the space between the bamboo splits and fell on the ground. Our dog snappedit and ran away. Father’s face broke in great agony. He rushed outside the house. I could hear him running toward the highway. My sister continued eating, but my appetite was gone.

“What are you doing, Son?” Mother said. “Eat your chicken.”