How My Brother Leon Brought Home A Wife

• He enrolled at the University of the Philippines in

1926. As a means to support his studies, he
worked as a writer and printing assistant at the
Carmelo and Bauermann office, and as an editor
of the Literary Apprentice.
• Arguilla also became a member of the UP
Writers Club and presided over it from 1932-
1933. In 1933, he obtained the degree of
Bachelor of Science in Education.
 How My Brother Leon Brought Home A Wife

• Manuel Estabillo Arguilla (1911-1944) was

an Ilokano writer in english, patriot and
martyr
• He was born in Barrio Naguilian, Bauang,
La Union on June 17, 1911. He was the
fourth son of Crisanto Arguilla and
Margarita Estabillo. His father was a
carpenter and farmer while his mother was
an occasional potter.
 How My Brother Leon Brought Home A Wife
• Arguilla often portrayed the life of the ordinary Ilocano farmer in his
short stories. Stories about farmers, rural scenes and the Ilocano
way of life can be read in Arguilla's stories. His more than 50 short
stories have enriched Philippine literature. The critic Dean Leopoldo
Yabes cited him as “the best craftsman among Filipino fictionists in
English, (whose voice) is the only really authentic voice. He is
shamelessly Filipino.” Even foreigners will be amazed at Arguilla's
talent in vividly weaving and creating sentences and paragraphs.
One of his famous sentences can be found in the short story “How
My Brother Leon Brought Home A Wife” when he described the
fragrance of Maria as "like a morning when papayas are in bloom."

• On June 12, 1972, Arguilla was honored with a posthumous award,

the Republic Cultural Heritage Award. The award cited his effort in
producing literary works that have “continued to influence Filipino
fiction writing... and literary scholarship.” In gratitude for his
contribution to Philippine literary advancement, a marker was
installed in his hometown on August 25, 1983.
 How My Brother Leon Brought Home A Wife
• He is known for his widely anthologized short story "How
My Brother Leon Brought Home A Wife," the main story
in the collection How My Brother Leon Brought Home a
Wife and Other Short Stories which won first prize in the
Commonwealth Literary Contest in 1940. His stories
entitled "Midsummer" and "Heat" were published in the
United States by the Prairie Schooner.

• His other works include the short stories "Morning in

Nagrebcan", "Ato", "A Son Is Born", "The Strongest
Man", "Mr. Alisangco", "Though Young He Is Married",
"The Maid, the Man, and the Wife," "Elias," "Imperfect
Farewell," "Felisa," "The Long Vacation," "Caps and
Lower Case," "The Socialists", "Epilogue to Revolt",
"Apes and Men", and "Rice".
 How My Brother Leon Brought Home A Wife
• How My Brother Leon Brought Home A Wife is a story
written by Manuel Arguilla about a man who comes
home to his province to introduce his wife from the city to
his family. This short story won first prize in the
Commonwealth Literary Contest in 1940.

• Baldo and his older brother Leon were both waiting for
the arrival of their visitor riding the carretela. Seeing his
brother's wife, Baldo was easily taken away by the
beauty of the woman from city as he narrates their
journey to Nagrebcan. The idea of meeting with Leon's
parents for the first time made Maria a bit anxious. But
along their way home, Maria discovered the peculiarities
of the life in Nagrebcan as opposed to their life in the city
where she met and fell in love with Leon.
 How My Brother Leon Brought Home A Wife
• How My Brother Leon Brought Home A Wife is a story written by
Manuel Arguilla about a man who comes home to his province to
introduce his wife from the city to his family. This short story won
first prize in the Commonwealth Literary Contest in 1940.

• Characters
– Baldo - younger brother of Leon, fetched Leon and Maria from the road
to Nagrebcan
– Leon (or Noel) - older brother of Baldo who studied in Manila where he
met his wife
– Maria - the beautiful and stunning wife of Leon from Manila
– Labang - the bull whom Baldo considers as his “pet”
– Norman Tabios - Maria's ex-boyfriend who happened to be a loro
– Gagambino - Leon's favorite fictional character who gave him lots of
guts to study in Manila
– Churita - Labang's girlfriend/fiance
• She stepped down from the carretela of Ca
Celin with a quick, delicate grace. She was
lovely. SHe was tall. She looked up to my
brother 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 was fragrant
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 mouth more
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 his big 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 the road. 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 he had 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 to myself, 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 after a 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 of the 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 haze through which floated big
purple and red and yellow bubbles when I
looked at the sinking sun.
• Labang's white coat, which I had washed
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 had put his arm
around her shoulders. 
• "Why does he make that sound?" she
asked. "I have never heard the like of it.“
• "There is not another like it," my brother
Leon said. "I have yet to 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 fall in 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
quiet again, 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 down on 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 shoulder and 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 against the 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. The thick, unpleasant smell of dangla
bushes and cooling sun-heated earth mingled with
the clean, sharp scent of arrais roots exposed to the
night air and of the hay inside the cart. 

"Look, Noel, yonder is our star!" Deep surprise and

gladness were in 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 you must 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 hung from 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.
After the 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 at night before he
went away to study. He must have taught her the
song because she joined him, and her voice flowed
into his like a gentle 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 spokes of the wheels the light of the
lantern mocked the shadows. Labang quickened his
steps. The jolting became more frequent and painful
as 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 side onto 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. 
THE LEGEND OF MAGAT
RIVER
• The story is originated and is set in
Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya where the
Magat river can be found.
• Once upon a time there was a tall,
handsome man living in Bayombong. He
was named Magat. He was young, strong
and fast as a hunter and sure in his spear
shot. He was loved and respected by
everyone in the village. Magat loved
outdoor life, and roamed in the forest
surrounding the struggling settlement.
• One day, fired by adventure he wandered
farther than usual and there he found out the
largest stream he had ever seen.
• He beheld on the grass and saw a very
beautiful maiden bathing on the stream. While
staring at the maiden he saw a great python
that goes to the girl so he killed and saved her
from the stream. Magat fell in love with the
lovely maiden so he asked her to be his wife.
The maiden agreed but for one condition. 
• Magat should not meet her at noon. Magat
had a promised and they lived together. He
built a cozy house for his wife to rest. After
living for many days, Magat mounted more
and confused about the activity of his wife
at noon so he tried to discover. Magat saw
a crocodile on the bed of his wife believing
that the crocodile ate her. He got his spear
and killed the crocodile and when he
looked down he saw his wife dying and his
wife whispering that why he broke his
promise, she said that she can no longer
be happy nor live longer. 
•  Slowly life ebbed from her. On her
beautiful skin, scales appeared, as she
turned into a crocodile before his very
eyes. That was his punishment for
breaking his promise. Sadly, he buried the
crocodile in his front yard. He was worn
out by grief for his lack of fidelity to his
words and over the death of his lovely
wife, 
• Sadly, he buried the crocodile in his front
yard. He was worn out by grief for his lack
of fidelity to his words and over the death
of his lovely wife, he drowned himself and
miseries in the same stream where he met
his wife and the stream grew into the
mighty troublesome Magat river.
The Small Key
Paz Latorena
• Paz Latorena was born in Boac, Marinduque in
1907. At a young age she was brought to
Manila where she completed her basic
schooling, first at St. Scholastica and later at
South High School. In 1925 she enrolled at the
University of the Philippines for a degree in
education. Working by day as an elementary
school teacher, she attended evening classes.
One of these was a short story writing class
conducted by Mrs. Paz Marquez Benitez.
• In 1927 Latorena joined some campus writers
to form the U.P. Writers Club and contributed
a short story, “A Christmas Tale” to the
maiden issue of “The Literary Apprentice.
That same year, her short story “The Small
Key” won third place in Jose Garcia Villa’s
Roll of Honor for the year’s best short stories.
Some of her other stories received similar
prizes over the next several years.
 The Small Key
Paz Latorena
• It was very warm. The sun, up above a sky
that was blue and tremendous and beckoning
to birds ever on the wing, shone bright as if
determined to scorch everything under
heaven, even the low, square nipa house that
stood in an unashamed relief against the gray-
green haze of grass and leaves.
• It was lonely dwelling located far from its
neighbors, which were huddled close to one
another as if for mutual comfort. It was
flanked on both sides by tall, slender bamboo
tree which rustled plaintively under a gentle
wind.
• On the porch  a woman past her early twenties stood
regarding the scene before her with eyes made
incurious by its familiarity. All around her the land
stretched endlessly, it seemed, and vanished into the
distance. There were dark, newly  plowed furrows
where in due time timorous seedling would give rise
to sturdy stalks and golden grain, to a rippling yellow
sea in the wind and sun during harvest time. Promise
of plenty and reward for hard toil! With a sigh of
discontent, however, the woman turned and entered
a small dining room where a man sat over a belated
a midday meal.
• Pedro Buhay, a prosperous farmer, looked up
from his plate and smiled at his wife as she
stood framed by the doorway, the sunlight
glinting on her dark hair, which was drawn
back, without relenting wave, from a rather
prominent and austere brow.
• “Where are the shirts I ironed yesterday?” she
asked as she approached the table.
• “In my trunk, I think,” he answered.
• “Some of them need darning,” and observing  the
empty plate, she added, “do you want some more
rice?”
• 
• “No,” hastily, “I am in a burry to get back. We must
finish plowing the south field today because
tomorrow is Sunday.”
• 
• Pedro pushed the chair back and stood up. Soledad
began  to pile the dirty dishes one on top of the
other.
• “Here is the key to my trunk.” From the pocket of his
khaki coat he pulled a string of non descript red which
held together a big shiny key and another small, rather
rusty looking one.

• With deliberate care he untied the knot and, detaching

the big key, dropped the small one back into his pocket.
She watched him fixedly as he did this. The smile left
her face and a strange look came into her eyes as she
took the big key from  him without a word. Together
they left the dining room.
• 
• Out of the porch he put an arm around her shoulders and peered
into her shadowed face.
• 
• “You look pale and tired,” he remarked softly. “What have you
been doing all morning?”
• 
• “Nothing,” she said listlessly. “But the heat gives me a
headache.”
• 
• “Then lie down and try to sleep while I am gone.” For a moment
they looked deep into each other’s eyes.
• 
• “It is really warm,” he continued. “I think I will take off my coat.”
• He removed the garment absent mindedly and handed it to
her. The stairs creaked under his weight as he went down.
• 
• “Choleng,” he turned his head as he opened the gate, “I
shall pass by Tia Maria’s house and tell her to come. I may
not return before dark.”
• 
• Soledad nodded. Her eyes followed her husband down the
road, noting the fine set of his head and shoulders, the case
of his stride. A strange ache rose in her throat.
• She looked at the coat he had handed to her. It exuded a faint
smell of his favorite cigars, one of which he invariably smoked,
after the day’s work, on his way home from the fields.
Mechanically, she began to fold the garment.
•  
• As she was doing so, s small object fell from the floor with a
dull, metallic sound. Soledad stooped down to pick it up. It was
the small key! She stared at it in her palm as if she had never
seen it before. Her mouth was tightly drawn and for a while
she looked almost old.
•  
• She passed into the small bedroom and tossed the
coat carelessly on the back of a chair. She opened the
window and the early afternoon sunshine flooded in.
On a mat spread on the bamboo floor were some
newly washed garments.

• She began to fold them one by one in feverish haste,

as if seeking in the task of the moment in refuge from
painful thoughts. But her eyes moved restlessly
around the room until they rested almost furtively on
a small trunk that was half concealed by a rolled mat
in a dark corner.
• It was a small old trunk, without anything on the outside that might arouse
one’s curiosity. But it held the things she had come to hate with
unreasoning violence, the things that were causing her so much
unnecessary anguish and pain and threatened to destroy all that was most
beautiful between her and her husband!

• Soledad came across a torn garment. She threaded a needle, but after a few
uneven stitches she pricked her finger and a crimson drop stained the white
garment. Then she saw she had been mending on the wrong side.
•  
• “What is the matter with me?” she asked herself aloud as she pulled the
thread with nervous and impatient fingers.
•  
• What did it matter if her husband chose to keep the clothes of his first
wife?

• “She is dead anyhow. She is dead,” she repeated to herself over and over
again.

• The sound of her own voice calmed her. She tried to thread the needle
once more. But she could not, not for the tears had come unbidden and
completely blinded her.

• “My God,” she cried with a sob, “make me forget Indo’s face as he put the
small key back into his pocket.”
• She brushed her tears with the sleeves of her camisa and
abruptly stood up. The heat was stifling, and the silence in
the house was beginning to be unendurable.

• She looked out of the window. She wondered what was

keeping Tia Maria. Perhaps Pedro had forgotten to pass by
her house in his hurry. She could picture him out there in
the south field gazing far and wide at the newly plowed
land with no thought in his mind but of work, work. For to
the people of the barrio whose patron saint, San Isidro
Labrador, smiled on them with benign eyes from his crude
altar in the little chapel up the hill, this season was a
prolonged hour during which they were blind and dead to
everything but the demands of the land.
• During the next half hour Soledad wandered in and out of the
rooms in effort to seek escape from her own thoughts and to
fight down an overpowering impulse. If Tia Maria would only
come and talk to her to divert her thoughts to other channels!
• But the expression on her husband’s face as he put the small
key back into his pocket kept torturing her like a nightmare,
goading beyond endurance. Then, with all resistance to the
impulse gone, she was kneeling before the small trunk. With
the long drawn breath she inserted the small key. There was
an unpleasant metallic sound, for the key had not been used
for a long time and it was rusty.
• That evening Pedro Buhay hurried home with the
usual cigar dangling from his mouth, pleased with
himself and the tenants because the work in the
south field had been finished. Tia Maria met him at
the gate and told him that Soledad was in bed with
a fever.
•  
• “I shall go to town and bring Doctor Santos,” he
decided, his cool hand on his wife’s brow.
• Soledad opened her eyes.

• “Don’t, Indo,” she begged with a vague terror in her eyes which he
took for anxiety for him because the town was pretty far and the
road was dark and deserted by that hour of the night. “I shall be
alright tomorrow.”

• Pedro returned an hour later, very tired and very worried. The
doctor was not at home but his wife had promised to give him
Pedro’s message as soon as he came in.
•  
Tia Maria  decide to remain for the night. But it was Pedro who stayed up to
watch the sick woman. He was puzzled and worried – more than he cared to
admit it. It was true that Soledad did not looked very well early that afternoon.
Yet, he thought, the fever was rather sudden. He was afraid it might be a
symptom of a serious illness.
Soledad was restless the whole night. She tossed from one side to another, but
toward morning she fell into some sort of troubled sleep. Pedro then lay down
to snatch a few winks.
•He woke up to find the soft morning sunshine streaming through the half-
open window. He got up without making any noise. His wife was still asleep
and now breathing evenly. A sudden rush of tenderness came over him at the
sight of her – so slight, so frail.
• 
• Tia Maria was nowhere to be seen, but that did not bother him, for it
was Sunday and the work in the south field was finished. However, he
missed the pleasant aroma which came from the kitchen every time he
had awakened early in the morning.
•  
• The kitchen was neat but cheerless, and an immediate search for wood
brought no results. So shouldering an ax, Pedro descended the rickety
stairs that led to the backyard.
•  
• The morning was clear and the breeze soft and cool. Pedro took in a
deep breath of air. It was good – it smelt of trees, of the ricefields, of
the land he loved.
• He found a pile of logs under the young mango tree near the house and
began to chop. He swung the ax with rapid clean sweeps, enjoying the
feel of the smooth wooden handle in his palms.

• As he stopped for a while to mop his brow, his eyes caught the remnants
of a smudge that had been built in the backyard.

• “Ah!” he muttered to himself. “She swept the yard yesterday after I left
her. That, coupled with the heat, must have given her a headache and
then the fever.”
• The morning breeze stirred the ashes and a piece of white cloth fluttered
into view.
• Pedro dropped his ax. It was a half-burn panuelo.
Somebody had been burning clothes. He examined the
slightly ruined garment closely. A puzzled expression came
into his eyes. First it was doubt groping for truth, then
amazement, and finally agonized incredulity passed across
his face. He almost ran back to the house. In three strides
he was upstairs. He found his coat hanging from the back of
a chair.
• Cautiously he entered the room. The heavy breathing
of his wife told him that she was still asleep. As he
stood by the small trunk, a vague distaste to open it
assailed to him. Surely he must be mistaken. She could
not have done it, she could not have been that… that
foolish.

• Resolutely he opened the trunk. It was empty.

• It was nearly noon when the doctor arrived. He felt
Soledad’s pulse and asked question which she
answered in monosyllables. Pedro stood by listening to
the whole procedure with an inscrutable expression on
his face. He had the same expression when the doctor
told him that nothing was really wrong with his wife
although she seemed to be worried about something.
The physician merely prescribed a day of complete
rest.
• Pedro lingered on the porch after the doctor left. He
was trying not to be angry with his wife. He hoped it
would be just an interlude that could be recalled
without bitterness. She would explain sooner or later,
she would be repentant, perhaps she would even
listen and eventually forgive her, for she was young
and he loved her. But somehow he knew that this
incident would always remain a shadow in their lives.
#
 POEMS
• Moonlight on Manila Bay
By Fernando M. Maramag (1893 – 1936)
A light, serene, ethereal glory rests
Its beams effulgent on each crestling wave;
The silver touches of the moonlight wave
The deep bare bosom that the breeze molests;
While lingering whispers deepen as the wavy crests
Roll with weird rhythm, now gay, now gently
grave;
And floods of lambent light appear the sea to
pave-
All cast a spell that heeds not time‘s behests.
Not always such the scene; the din of fight
Has swelled the murmur of the peaceful air;
Here East and West have oft displayed their
might;Dark battle clouds have dimmed this scene
so fair;
Here bold Olympia, one historic night,
Presaging freedom, claimed a people‘s care.
 BRINGING THE DOLL by
MERLIE ALUNAN
Two dolls in rags and tatters,
one missing an arm and a leg,
the other blind in one eye—I grabbed them from her arms,
“No,” I said, “they cannot come.”
Each tight baggage
I had packed
only for the barest need:
no room for sentiment or memory
to clutter with loose ends
my stern resolve. I reasoned,
even a child must learn
she cannot take what must be left behind.
• And so the boat turned seaward,
a smart wind blowing dry
the stealthy tears I could not wipe.
Then I saw—rags, tatters and all—
there among the neat trim packs,
the dolls I ruled to leave behind.
• Her silence should have warned me
she knew her burdens
as I knew mine:
her clean white years unlived—
and paid my price.
• She battened on a truth
she knew I too must own:
when what’s at stake
is loyalty or love,
hers are the true rights.
Her own faiths she must keep, not I.