Jose: Our Little Portuguese Cousin

A SLIM slip of a boy, with dark brown eyes and pale olive skin, walked at the head of a pair of fawn-colored oxen as he turned homeward from the market-place of a small village...

Could it be Antonio? Jose's heart-beats almost choked him. But no; this was a well-dressed stranger, with shoes on. He was evidently a man from the city, and a traveller, too, b...

Great was the joy over that home-coming. The father, sitting propped with pillows by the hearth, put his left hand in blessing upon the head of his eldest son and exclaimed "_Gr...

WHEN, the next morning, Jose led Antonio through the garden and vineyard, crimson vine leaves and purple grapes were the only signs of autumn. The green of summer was fresh over...

JOSE and Antonio, Malfada and Joanna worked side by side those busy days of the next two weeks. They gathered and trod the grapes. They cut and carried through the threshing-flo...

THE father was better. He could move the weak hand and foot, although he was not yet able to use them. But he could sit all day in the arm-chair on the porch. From there he was...

WHAT joy in the home when Jose that evening, after the late supper, told the good news! How they crowded around Antonio, clapping him on the shoulders! With what glee did Joanna...

THE hills were sweet with the air of spring. Down their sides ran rills of water, foaming with golden light. The fresh grass of the fields was carpeted with flowers. The young v...

FOR the first time in all his life, Jose was to see Guimarães, the old city where Portugal's hero king, Affonso Henriquez, was born in 1109, the great warrior who made of Portug...

of flutes, pipes, and drums. On many a street the statue figure of St. Antonio, in a shrine, was decorated with flowers and garlands of leaves. Around bonfires in the city squar...

BETTER times had surely come to the Almaida family. By July, the father was able to walk about without a cane; and the doctor, whom Antonio asked to come again, said that Senhor...