My Brother's Peculiar Chicken (Alejandro R.

Roces)

My brother Kiko once had a very peculiar chicken. It was peculiar because no one could tell whether it
was a rooster or a hen. My brother claimed it was a rooster. I claimed it was a hen. We almost got
whipped because we argued too much.

The whole question began early one morning. Kiko and I were driving the chickens from the cornfield.
The corn had just been planted, and the chickens were scratching the seeds out for food. Suddenly we
heard the rapid flapping of wings. We turned in the direction of the sound and saw two chickens fighting
in the far end of the field. We could not see the birds clearly as they were lunging at each other in a
whirlwind of feathers and dust.

“Look at that rooster fight!” my brother said, pointing exactly at one of the chickens. “Why, if I had a
rooster like that, I could get rich in the cockpits.”
“Let’s go and catch it,” I suggested.

“No, you stay here. I will go and catch it,” Kiko said.

My brother slowly approached the battling chickens. They were so busy fighting that they did not notice
him. When he got near them, he dived and caught one of them by the leg. It struggled and squawked.
Kiko finally held it by both wings and it became still. I ran over where he was and took a good look at the
chicken.

“Why, it is a hen,” I said.

“What is the matter with you?” my brother asked. “Is the heat making you sick?”
“No. Look at its face. It has no comb or wattles.”
“No comb and wattles! Who cares about its comb or wattles? Didn’t you see it in fight?”
“Sure, I saw it in fight. But I still say it is a hen.”
“Ahem! Did you ever see a hen with spurs on its legs like these? Or a hen with a tail like this?”
“I don’t care about its spurs or tail. I tell you it is a hen. Why, look at it.”

The argument went on in the fields the whole morning. At noon we went to eat lunch. We argued about
it on the way home. When we arrived at our house Kiko tied the chicken to a peg. The chicken flapped
its wings and then crowed.

“There! Did you hear that?” my brother exclaimed triumphantly. “I suppose you are going to tell me
now that hens crow and that carabaos fly.”
“I don’t care if it crows or not,” I said. “That chicken is a hen.”
We went into the house, and the discussion continued during lunch.
“It is not a hen,” Kiko said. “It is a rooster.”
“It is a hen,” I said.
“It is not.”
“It is.”
“Now, now,” Mother interrupted, “how many times must Father tell you, boys, not to argue during
lunch? What is the argument about this time?”
We told Mother, and she went out look at the chicken.
“That chicken,” she said, “is a binabae. It is a rooster that looks like a hen.”
That should have ended the argument. But Father also went out to see the chicken, and he said, “Have
you been drinking again?” Mother asked.

“No,” Father answered.

“Then what makes you say that that is a hen? Have you ever seen a hen with feathers like that?”
“Listen. I have handled fighting cocks since I was a boy, and you cannot tell me that that thing is a
rooster.”

Before Kiko and I realized what had happened, Father and Mother were arguing about the chicken by
themselves. Soon Mother was crying. She always cried when she argued with Father.

“You know very well that that is a rooster,” she said. “You are just being mean and stubborn.”
“I am sorry,” Father said. “But I know a hen when I see one.”
“I know who can settle this question,” my brother said.
“Who?” I asked.
“The teniente del Barrio, chief of the village.”

The chief was the oldest man in the village. That did not mean that he was the wisest, but anything
always carried more weight if it is said by a man with gray hair. So my brother untied the chicken and we
took it to the chief.

“Is this a male or a female chicken?” Kiko asked.

“That is a question that should concern only another chicken,” the chief replied.
“My brother and I happen to have a special interest in this particular chicken. Please give us an answer.
Just say yes or no. Is this a rooster?”
“It does not look like any rooster I have ever seen,” the chief said.
“Is it a hen, then?” I asked.
“It does not look like any hen I have ever seen. No, that could not be a chicken. I have never seen like
that. It must be a bird of some other kind.”
“Oh, what’s the use!” Kiko said, and we walked away.
“Well, what shall we do now?” I said.
“I know that,” my brother said. “Let’s go to town and see Mr. Cruz. He would know.”

Mr. Eduardo Cruz lived in a nearby town of Katubusan. He had studied poultry raising in the University
of the Philippines. He owned and operated the largest poultry business in town. We took the chicken to
his office.

“Mr. Cruz,” Kiko said, “is this a hen or a rooster?”

Mr. Cruz looked at the bird curiously and then said:
“Hmmm. I don’t know. I couldn’t tell in one look. I have never run across a chicken like this before.”
“Well, is there any way you can tell?”
“Why, sure. Look at the feathers on its back. If the feathers are round, then it’s a hen. If they are
pointed, it’s a rooster.”

The three of us examined the feathers closely. It had both.

“Hmmm. Very peculiar,” said Mr. Cruz.
“Is there any other way you can tell?”
“I could kill it and examined its insides.”
“No. I do not want it killed,” my brother said.

I took the rooster in my arms and we walked back to the barrio.

Kiko was silent most of the way. Then he said:

“I know how I can prove to you that this is a rooster.”

“How?” I asked.
“Would you agree that this is a rooster if I make it fight in the cockpit and it wins?”
“If this hen of yours can beat a gamecock, I will believe anything,” I said.
“All right,” he said. “We’ll take it to the cockpit this Sunday.”

So that Sunday we took the chicken to the cockpit. Kiko looked around for a suitable opponent. He
finally picked a red rooster.
“Don’t match your hen against that red rooster.” I told him. “That red rooster is not a native chicken. It
is from Texas.”
“I don’t care where it came from,” my brother said. “My rooster will kill it.”
“Don’t be a fool,” I said. “That red rooster is a killer. It has killed more chickens than the fox. There is no
rooster in this town that can stand against it. Pick a lesser rooster.”

My brother would not listen. The match was made and the birds were readied for the killing. Sharp steel
gaffs were tied to their left legs. Everyone wanted to bet on the red gamecock.

The fight was brief. Both birds were released in the centre of the arena. They circled around once and
then faced each other. I expected our chicken to die of fright. Instead, a strange thing happened. A
lovesick expression came into the red rooster’s eyes. Then it did a love dance. That was all our chicken
needed. It rushed at the red rooster with its neck feathers flaring. In one lunge, it buried its spurs into its
opponent’s chest. The fight was over.

“Tiope! Tiope! Fixed fight!” the crowd shouted.

Then a riot broke out. People tore bamboo benches apart and used them as clubs. My brother and I had
to leave through the back way. I had the chicken under my arm. We ran toward the coconut groves and
kept running till we lost the mob. As soon as we were safe, my brother said:

“Do you believe it is a rooster now?”

“Yes,” I answered.

I was glad the whole argument was over.

Just then the chicken began to quiver. It stood up in my arms and cackled with laughter. Something
warm and round dropped into my hand. It was an egg.
My Father Goes To Court (Carlos Bulusan)

When I was four, I lived with my mother and brothers and sisters in a small town on the island of Luzon.
Father’s farm had been destroyed in 1918 by one of our sudden Philippine floods, so several years
afterwards we all lived in the town though he preferred living in the country. We had as a next door
neighbour a very rich man, whose sons and daughters seldom came out of the house. While we boys
and girls played and sang in the sun, his children stayed inside and kept the windows closed. His house
was so tall that his children could look in the window of our house and watched us played, or slept, or
ate, when there was any food in the house to eat.

Now, this rich man’s servants were always frying and cooking something good, and the aroma of the
food was wafted down to us form the windows of the big house. We hung about and took all the
wonderful smells of the food into our beings. Sometimes, in the morning, our whole family stood
outside the windows of the rich man’s house and listened to the musical sizzling of thick strips of bacon
or ham. I can remember one afternoon when our neighbour’s servants roasted three chickens. The
chickens were young and tender and the fat that dripped into the burning coals gave off an enchanting
odour. We watched the servants turn the beautiful birds and inhaled the heavenly spirit that drifted out
to us.

Some days the rich man appeared at a window and glowered down at us. He looked at us one by one, as
though he were condemning us. We were all healthy because we went out in the sun and bathed in the
cool water of the river that flowed from the mountains into the sea. Sometimes we wrestled with one
another in the house before we went to play. We were always in the best of spirits and our laughter was
contagious. Other neighbours who passed by our house often stopped in our yard and joined us in
laughter.

As time went on, the rich man’s children became thin and anaemic, while we grew even more robust
and full of life. Our faces were bright and rosy, but theirs were pale and sad. The rich man started to
cough at night; then he coughed day and night. His wife began coughing too. Then the children started
to cough, one after the other. At night their coughing sounded like the barking of a herd of seals. We
hung outside their windows and listened to them. We wondered what happened. We knew that they
were not sick from the lack of nourishment because they were still always frying something delicious to
eat.

One day the rich man appeared at a window and stood there a long time. He looked at my sisters, who
had grown fat in laughing, then at my brothers, whose arms and legs were like the molave, which is the
sturdiest tree in the Philippines. He banged down the window and ran through his house, shutting all
the windows.

From that day on, the windows of our neighbour’s house were always closed. The children did not come
out anymore. We could still hear the servants cooking in the kitchen, and no matter how tight the
windows were shut, the aroma of the food came to us in the wind and drifted gratuitously into our
house.

One morning a policeman from the presidencia came to our house with a sealed paper. The rich man
had filed a complaint against us. Father took me with him when he went to the town clerk and asked
him what it was about. He told Father the man claimed that for years we had been stealing the spirit of
his wealth and food.
When the day came for us to appear in court, father brushed his old Army uniform and borrowed a pair
of shoes from one of my brothers. We were the first to arrive. Father sat on a chair in the centre of the
courtroom. Mother occupied a chair by the door. We children sat on a long bench by the wall. Father
kept jumping up from his chair and stabbing the air with his arms, as though we were defending himself
before an imaginary jury.

The rich man arrived. He had grown old and feeble; his face was scarred with deep lines. With him was
his young lawyer. Spectators came in and almost filled the chairs. The judge entered the room and sat
on a high chair. We stood in a hurry and then sat down again.

After the courtroom preliminaries, the judge looked at the Father. “Do you have a lawyer?” he asked.

“I don’t need any lawyer, Judge,” he said.

“Proceed,” said the judge.

The rich man’s lawyer jumped up and pointed his finger at Father. “Do you or you do not agree that you
have been stealing the spirit of the complaint’s wealth and food?”

“I do not!” Father said.

“Do you or do you not agree that while the complaint’s servants cooked and fried fat legs of lamb or
young chicken breast you and your family hung outside his windows and inhaled the heavenly spirit of
the food?”

“I agree.” Father said.

“Do you or do you not agree that while the complaint and his children grew sickly and tubercular you
and your family became strong of limb and fair in complexion?”

“I agree.” Father said.

“How do you account for that?”

Father got up and paced around, scratching his head thoughtfully. Then he said, “I would like to see the
children of complaint, Judge.”

“Bring in the children of the complaint.”

They came in shyly. The spectators covered their mouths with their hands, they were so amazed to see
the children so thin and pale. The children walked silently to a bench and sat down without looking up.
They stared at the floor and moved their hands uneasily.

Father could not say anything at first. He just stood by his chair and looked at them. Finally he said, “I
should like to cross – examine the complaint.”

“Proceed.”
“Do you claim that we stole the spirit of your wealth and became a laughing family while yours became
morose and sad?” Father said.

“Yes.”

“Do you claim that we stole the spirit of your food by hanging outside your windows when your servants
cooked it?” Father said.

“Yes.”

“Then we are going to pay you right now,” Father said. He walked over to where we children were
sitting on the bench and took my straw hat off my lap and began filling it up with centavo pieces that he
took out of his pockets. He went to Mother, who added a fistful of silver coins. My brothers threw in
their small change.

“May I walk to the room across the hall and stay there for a few minutes, Judge?” Father said.

“As you wish.”

“Thank you,” father said. He strode into the other room with the hat in his hands. It was almost full of
coins. The doors of both rooms were wide open.

“Are you ready?” Father called.

“Proceed.” The judge said.

The sweet tinkle of the coins carried beautifully in the courtroom. The spectators turned their faces
toward the sound with wonder. Father came back and stood before the complaint.

“Did you hear it?” he asked.

“Hear what?” the man asked.

“The spirit of the money when I shook this hat?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Then you are paid,” Father said.

The rich man opened his mouth to speak and fell to the floor without a sound. The lawyer rushed to his
aid. The judge pounded his gravel.

“Case dismissed.” He said.

Father strutted around the courtroom the judge even came down from his high chair to shake hands
with him. “By the way,” he whispered, “I had an uncle who died laughing.”
“You like to hear my family laugh, Judge?” Father asked?

“Why not?”

“Did you hear that children?” father said.

My sisters started it. The rest of us followed them soon the spectators were laughing with us, holding
their bellies and bending over the chairs. And the laughter of the judge was the loudest of all.
The Wedding Dance (Amador T. Daguio)

Awiyao reached for the upper horizontal log which served as the edge of the head – high threshold.
Clinging to the log, he lifted himself with one bound that carried him across to the narrow door. He slid
back the cover, stepped inside, then pushed the cover back in place. After some moments during which he
seemed to wait, he talked to the listening darkness.

“I’m sorry this had to be done. I am really sorry. But neither of us can help it.”

The woman who had moved when the sliding door opened had been hearing the gangsas for she did not
know how long. She gave no sign that she heard Awiyao, but continued to sit unmoving in the darkness.

But Awiyao knew that she had heard him and his heart pitied her. He crawled to the middle of the room;
he knew exactly where the stove was. With his fingers he stirred the covered embers, and blew into them.
When the coals began to glow, Awiyao put pieces of pine wood on them, and then the room brightened.

“Why don’t you go out and join the dancing women? You should join the dancers as if nothing has
happened.” He looked at the woman huddled in a corner of the room, leaning against the wall. She was
partly sullen, but her sullenness was not because of displeasure.

“Go out – go out and dance. If you really don’t hate me for this separation, go out and dance. One of the
men will see you dance well; he will like your dancing and marry you. Who knows but that, with him, you
will be luckier than you were with me.”

“I don’t want any man,” she said sharply. “I don’t want any other man.”

“You know very well that I don’t want any other woman, either. You know that. Lumnay, you know it,
don’t you?” She did not answer him.

“You know it, Lumnay, don’t you?” he repeated.

“Yes, I know,” She finally answered.

“It’s not my fault,” he said, feeling relieved. “You cannot blame me; I have been a good husband to you.”

‘Neither can you blame me,” she said.

“You, you have been very good to me. You have been a good wife. I have nothing to say against you. It’s
only that a man must have a child. Seven harvests is just too long to wait. Yes, we have waited long. We
should have another chance, before it is too late for both of us.”

“You know that I have done my best,” she said. “I have prayed to Kabunyan much. I have sacrificed many
chickens in my prayers.”

“Yes, I know, but Kabunyan does not see fit for us to have a child,” he said. He stirred the fire. The spark
rose through the crackles of the flames and the smoke went up to the ceiling.
 “I came home,” he said, “because I did not find you among the dancers. Of course, I am not forcing you to
come to join my wedding ceremony. I came to tell you that Madulimay, although I am marrying her, can
never become as good as you are. She is not as strong in planting beans, not as fast in cleaning jars, not as
good in keeping a house clean. You are one of the best wives in the whole village.”

“That has not done me any good, has it?” She said.

She looked at him lovingly and almost seemed to smile.

Awiyao came closer to Lumnay. He held her face between his hands, and looked longingly at her beauty.
But her eyes looked away. The next day she would not be his anymore. She would go back to her parents.

“This house is yours,” he said. “Make it your own, live in it as long as you wish. I will build another house
for Madulimay.”

“I have no need for a house,” She said. “I’ll go to my own house. My parents are old. They will need help in
the planting of the beans, in the pounding of the rice.”

“I will give you the field that I dug out of the mountains during the first year of our marriage. You know I
did it for you. You helped me to make it for the two of us.” “

I have no use for any field,” she said. He looked at her, then turned away, and became silent.

“Go back to the dance. It is not right for you to be here”, she said. They will wonder where you are, and
Madulimay will not feel good.”

“I would feel better if you could come, and dance – for the last time. The gangsas are playing.” “You know
that I cannot.”

“Lumnay,” he said tenderly. “Lumnay, if I did this it is because of my need for a child. You know that life is
not worth living without a child. They have mocked me behind my back. You know that.”

“I know it,” she said. “I will pray that Kabunyan will bless you and Madulimay.” She shook her head wildly,
and sobbed.

“Awiyao, Awiyao, my husband,” she cried.

“I did everything to have a child,” she said passionately in a hoarse whisper.

She took the blanket that covered her. “Look at me. Look at my body. It could dance; it could work fast in
the fields; it could climb the mountains fast. Even now it is firm, full. But, Awiyao, Kabunyan never blessed
me. Awiyao, Kabunyan is cruel to me. Awiyao, I am useless. I must die.”

“It will not be right to die,” he said, gathering her in arms.

“I don’t care about the fields,” she said. “I don’t care about the house. I don’t care for anything but you. I’ll
never have another man.”

“Then you’ll always be fruitless.”

“I’ll go back to my father, I’ll die.”

“Then you hate me,” he said. “If you die it means you hate me. You do not want me to have a child. You
do not want my name to live on in our tribe.”

She was silent. “If I do not try a second time, it means I’ll die. Nobody will get the fields I have carved;
nobody will come after me.”

“If you fail – if you fail this second time –“ she said thoughtfully. Then her voice was a shudder. “No – no, I
don’t want you to fail.”

“If I fail, I’ll come back after to you. Then both of us will vanish from the life of our tribe.” The gangsas
thundered through the walls of their house, sonorous and far away.

“I’ll keep my beads,” she said. “Awiyao, let me keep my beads,” she half – whispered.

“You will keep the beads. My grandmother said they came from way up North, from the slant – eyed
people across the sea. They are worth twenty fields.”

“I’ll keep them because they stand for the love you have for me. I love you. I love you and have nothing to
give.” She took herself away from him, for a voice was calling out to him from outside.

“Awiyao! Awiyao! O Awiyao! They are looking for you at the dance! The elders will scold you. You had
better go.”

“Not until you tell me that it is all right with you.”

“It is all right with me.”

He clasped her hands. “I do this for the sake of the tribe,” he said. “I know,” she said.

He went to the door.

“Awiyao!” He stopped as if suddenly hit by a spear. In pain he turned to her. It pained him to leave. She
had been wonderful to him. What was it in life, in the work in the field, in the planting and harvest, in the
silence of night, in the communing of husband and speech of a child? Why did the unwritten law demand
that a man must have a child to come after him? And if he was fruitless – but he loved Lumnay. It was like
taking away half of his life to leave her like this.

“Awiyao,” she said, and her eyes seemed to smile in the light. “The beads!”

He turned back and walked to the farthest corner of their room, to the trunk where they kept their
worldly possessions. He dug out from the darkness the beads which had been given to him by his
grandmother to give to Lumnay on the day of his marriage. He went to her, lifted her head, put the beads
on, and tied them in place. She suddenly clung to him as if she would never let him go.

“Awiyao! Awiyao, it is hard!” She gasped, and she closed her eyes and buried her face in his neck then
Awiyao hurried out into the night. Lumnay sat for some time in the darkness. Tonight, all the women who
counted, who once danced in her honour, were dancing now in honour of another whose only claim was
that perhaps she could give her husband a child.

“It is not right. It is not right!” she cried. “How does she know? How can anybody know? It is not right.”
She suddenly found courage. She would go to the chief of the village, to the elders, to tell them it was not
right. Awiyao was hers; nobody could take him away from her. Let her be the first woman to complain, to
denounce the unwritten rule that a man may take another woman. She would tell Awiyao to come back to
her. She made for the other side of the village where the dancing was. She was near at last. The men
leaped lithely with their gangsas as they circled the dancing women decked in feast garments and beads,
tripping on the ground, following their men. Her heart warmed to the flaming call of the dance. But the
flaming brightness of the bonfire commanded her to stop. Did anybody see her approach? She stopped.
What if somebody had seen her coming? The flames of the bonfire leaped in countless sparks, which
spread and rose like yellow points and died out in the night. The blaze reached out to her like a spreading
radiance. She did not have the courage to break into the wedding feast. Lumnay walked away from the
dancing ground. She followed the trail above the village. When she came to the mountain stream she
crossed it carefully. The trail went up again, and she was in the moonlight shadows among the trees and
shrubs. Slowly she climbed the mountain. When Lumnay reached the clearing, she could see from where
she stood the blazing bonfire at the edge of the village, where the wedding was. She could hear the far –
off clamour of the gongs echoing from mountain to mountain. The sound did not mock her; they seemed
to speak to her in the language of unspeaking love. She felt the pull of their clamour, almost the feeling
that they were telling her their gratitude for her sacrifice. Lumnay thought of Awiyao as the Awiyao had
known long ago – a strong, muscular boy carrying his heavy loads of fuel logs down the mountains to his
home. She had met him one day as she was on her way to fill her clay jars with water. He had stopped at
the spring to drink and rest. After that it did not take long for him to decide to throw is spear on the stairs
of her father’s house in token of his desire to marry her. Lumnay looked for a big rock on which to sit
down. The bean plants now surrounded her; and she was lost among them. A few more weeks, a few
more months, a few more harvests – what did it matter? She would be holding the bean flowers, soft in
the texture, silken almost, but moist where the dew got into them, silver to look at, silver on the light blue,
blooming whiteness, when the morning comes. The stretching of the bean pods full length from the hearts
of the wilting petals would go on. Lumnay’s fingers moved a long, long time among the growing bean
pods.
Love in the Cornhusks (Aida Rivera)

Tinang stopped before the Señora’s gate and adjusted the baby’s cap. The dogs that came to bark at the
gate were strange dogs, big-mouthed animals with a sense of superiority. They stuck their heads
through the hogfence, lolling their tongues and straining. Suddenly, from the gumamela row, a little
black mongrel emerged and slithered through the fence with ease. It came to her, head down and body
quivering.

“Bantay. Ay, Bantay!” she exclaimed as the little dog laid its paws upon her shirt to sniff the baby on her
arm. The baby was afraid and cried. The big animals barked with displeasure.

Tito, the young master, had seen her and was calling to his mother. “Ma, it’s Tinang. Ma, Ma, it’s
Tinang.” He came running down to open the gate.

“Aba, you are so tall now, Tito.”

He smiled his girl’s smile as he stood by, warding the dogs off. Tinang passed quickly up the veranda
stairs lined with ferns and many-colored bougainville. On landing, she paused to wipe her shoes
carefully. About her, the Señora’s white and lavender butterfly orchids fluttered delicately in the
sunshine. She noticed though that the purple waling-waling that had once been her task to shade from
the hot sun with banana leaves and to water with mixture of charcoal and eggs and water was not in
bloom.

“Is no one covering the waling-waling now?” Tinang asked. “It will die.”

“Oh, the maid will come to cover the orchids later.”

The Señora called from inside. “Tinang, let me see your baby. Is it a boy?”

“Yes, Ma,” Tito shouted from downstairs. “And the ears are huge!”

“What do you expect,” replied his mother; “the father is a Bagobo. Even Tinang looks like a Bagobo
now.”

Tinang laughed and felt warmness for her former mistress and the boy Tito. She sat self-consciously on
the black narra sofa, for the first time a visitor. Her eyes clouded. The sight of the Señora’s flaccidly
plump figure, swathed in a loose waist-less housedress that came down to her ankles, and the faint
scent of agua de colonia blended with kitchen spice, seemed to her the essence of the comfortable
world, and she sighed thinking of the long walk home through the mud, the baby’s legs straddled to her
waist, and Inggo, her husband, waiting for her, his body stinking of tuba and sweat, squatting on the
floor, clad only in his foul undergarments.

“Ano, Tinang, is it not a good thing to be married?” the Señora asked, pitying Tinang because her dress
gave way at the placket and pressed at her swollen breasts. It was, as a matter of fact, a dress she had
given Tinang a long time ago.

“It is hard, Señora, very hard. Better that I were working here again.”
“There!” the Señora said. “Didn’t I tell you what it would be like, huh? . . . that you would be a slave to
your husband and that you would work a baby eternally strapped to you. Are you not pregnant again?”

Tinang squirmed at the Señora’s directness but admitted she was.

“Hala! You will have a dozen before long.” The Señora got up. “Come, I will give you some dresses and
an old blanket that you can cut into things for the baby.”

They went into a cluttered room which looked like a huge closet and as the Señora sorted out some
clothes, Tinang asked, “How is Señor?”

“Ay, he is always losing his temper over the tractor drivers. It is not the way it was when Amado was
here. You remember what a good driver he was. The tractors were always kept in working condition. But
now . . . I wonder why he left all of a sudden. He said he would be gone for only two days . . . .”

“I don’t know,” Tinang said. The baby began to cry. Tinang shushed him with irritation.

“Oy, Tinang, come to the kitchen; your Bagobito is hungry.”

For the next hour, Tinang sat in the kitchen with an odd feeling; she watched the girl who was now in
possession of the kitchen work around with a handkerchief clutched I one hand. She had lipstick on too,
Tinang noted. the girl looked at her briefly but did not smile. She set down a can of evaporated milk for
the baby and served her coffee and cake. The Señora drank coffee with her and lectured about keeping
the baby’s stomach bound and training it to stay by itself so she could work. Finally, Tinang brought up,
haltingly, with phrases like “if it will not offend you” and “if you are not too busy” the purpose of her
visit–which was to ask Señora to be a madrina in baptism. The Señora readily assented and said she
would provide the baptismal clothes and the fee for the priest. It was time to go.

“When are you coming again, Tinang?” the Señore asked as Tinang got the baby ready. “Don’t forget the
bundle of clothes and . . . oh, Tinang, you better stop by the drugstore. They asked me once whether
you were still with us. You have a letter there and I was going to open it to see if there was bad news but
I thought you would be coming.”

A letter! Tinang’s heart beat violently. Somebody is dead; I know somebody is dead, she thought. She
crossed herself and after thanking the Señora profusely, she hurried down. The dogs came forward and
Tito had to restrain them. “Bring me some young corn next time, Tinang,” he called after her.

Tinang waited a while at the drugstore which was also the post office of the barrio. Finally, the man
turned to her: “Mrs., do you want medicine for your baby or for yourself?”

“No, I came for my letter. I was told I have a letter.”

“And what is your name, Mrs.?” He drawled.

“Constantina Tirol.”
The man pulled a box and slowly went through the pile of envelopes most of which were scribbled in
pencil, “Tirol, Tirol, Tirol. . . .” He finally pulled out a letter and handed it to her. She stared at the
unfamiliar scrawl. It was not from her sister and she could think of no one else who could write to her.

Santa Maria, she thought; maybe something has happened to my sister.

“Do you want me to read it for you?”

“No, no.” She hurried from the drugstore, crushed that he should think her illiterate. With the baby on
one arm and the bundle of clothes on the other and the letter clutched in her hand she found herself
walking toward home.

The rains had made a deep slough of the clay road and Tinang followed the prints left by the men and
the carabaos that had gone before her to keep from sinking mud up to her knees. She was deep in the
road before she became conscious of her shoes. In horror, she saw that they were coated with thick,
black clay. Gingerly, she pulled off one shoe after the other with the hand still clutching to the letter.
When she had tied the shoes together with the laces and had slung them on an arm, the baby, the
bundle, and the letter were all smeared with mud.

There must be a place to put the baby down, she thought, desperate now about the letter. She walked
on until she spotted a corner of a field where cornhusks were scattered under a kamansi tree. She
shoved together a pile of husks with her foot and laid the baby down upon it. With a sigh, she drew the
letter from the envelope. She stared at the letter which was written in English.

My dearest Tinay,

Hello, how is life getting along? Are you still in good condition? As for myself, the same as usual. But
you’re far from my side. It is not easy to be far from our lover.

Tinay, do you still love me? I hope your kind and generous heart will never fade. Someday or somehow
I’ll be there again to fulfill our promise.

Many weeks and months have elapsed. Still I remember our bygone days. Especially when I was
suffering with the heat of the tractor under the heat of the sun. I was always in despair until I imagine
your personal appearance coming forward bearing the sweetest smile that enabled me to view the
distant horizon.

Tinay, I could not return because I found that my mother was very ill. That is why I was not able to take
you as a partner of life. Please respond to my missive at once so that I know whether you still love me or
not. I hope you did not love anybody except myself.

I think I am going beyond the limit of your leisure hours, so I close with best wishes to you, my friends
Gonding, Sefarin, Bondio, etc.

Yours forever,

Amado
P.S. My mother died last month.

Address your letter:

Mr. Amado Galauran

Binalunan, Cotabato

It was Tinang’s first love letter. A flush spread over her face and crept into her body. She read the letter
again. “It is not easy to be far from our lover. . . . I imagine your personal appearance coming forward. . .
. Someday, somehow I’ll be there to fulfill our promise. . . .” Tinang was intoxicated. She pressed herself
against the kamansi tree.

My lover is true to me. He never meant to desert me. Amado, she thought. Amado.

And she cried, remembering the young girl she was less than two years ago when she would take food
to Señor in the field and the laborers would eye her furtively. She thought herself above them for she
was always neat and clean in her hometown, before she went away to work, she had gone to school and
had reached sixth grade. Her skin, too, was not as dark as those of the girls who worked in the fields
weeding around the clumps of abaca. Her lower lip jutted out disdainfully when the farm hands spoke to
her with many flattering words. She laughed when a Bagobo with two hectares of land asked her to
marry him. It was only Amado, the tractor driver, who could look at her and make her lower her eyes.
He was very dark and wore filthy and torn clothes on the farm but on Saturdays when he came up to the
house for his week’s salary, his hair was slicked down and he would be dressed as well as Mr. Jacinto,
the schoolteacher. Once he told her he would study in the city night-schools and take up mechanical
engineering someday. He had not said much more to her but one afternoon when she was bidden to
take some bolts and tools to him in the field, a great excitement came over her. The shadows moved
fitfully in the bamboo groves she passed and the cool November air edged into her nostrils sharply. He
stood unmoving beside the tractor with tools and parts scattered on the ground around him. His eyes
were a black glow as he watched her draw near. When she held out the bolts, he seized her wrist and
said: “Come,” pulling her to the screen of trees beyond. She resisted but his arms were strong. He
embraced her roughly and awkwardly, and she trembled and gasped and clung to him. . . .

A little green snake slithered languidly into the tall grass a few yards from the kamansi tree. Tinang
started violently and remembered her child. It lay motionless on the mat of husk. With a shriek she
grabbed it wildly and hugged it close. The baby awoke from its sleep and cries lustily. Ave Maria
Santisima. Do not punish me, she prayed, searching the baby’s skin for marks. Among the cornhusks, the
letter fell unnoticed.