looked inside, you saw new coverlets
of down, and white sheets. A coffee percolator began to shine like
polished gold on the counter. The shelter outside the door grew longer
and longer, with more tables and better ones. A dozen hens or more began
to cluck about over the white sand, bossed by a wicked rooster with a
tenor voice who was more than a match for any stray dog that came along
looking for trouble. From a pen nearby echoed the grunts of a hog too
fat to breathe without disturbing the neighborhood. And in front of the
counter, outside the hull, were two stoves with rice and fish sputtering
fragrantly in oil in their respective frying-pans. A going concern, no
doubt of that! Not a question of getting rich, you understand, but a
bite to eat for the boys! And Tona would smile and rub her hands
gloatingly. Not a cent did she owe in the world. The ceiling of the boat
was festooned with dry _morcillas_ and shiny _sobreasadas_--her favorite
sausages; and there were strips of smoked tunny, and a ham or two
sprinkled with red pepper. The barrels were full of drink. Along the
shelves stretched an array of bottles with liqueurs of every color. And
the pots and pans hanging on the walls could be set sizzling in an
instant with all kinds of good nourishing victuals. Just think of it! A
widow starving a short time since, and now already on Easy Street! Say
all you want--but God looks after decent people!

With plenty to eat and nothing to worry about, Tona seemed to grow
young again. Inside her boat there she took on a glowing well-fed
buxomness, and her skin, protected from the sun and brine, lost that
harsh baked bronze of the women who worked along shore. When serving at
the counter her ample breast sported inevitably one of an endless
assortment of colored handkerchiefs, _tomate y huevo_, complicated
arabesques of tomato red and egg yellow worked into thick well woven
silk.

She could even afford purely decorative luxuries. Above the wine casks
at the back of the "shop" the whitewashed timbers screamed aloud with
cheap high colored chromos that reduced Tona's neck-wear to silence,
quite. The fishermen drinking outside under the shelter would look up
over the counter and feast their eyes on "The Lion Hunt," "The Death of
the Good Man and the Sinner," "The Ladder of Life," not to mention a
half dozen miracle-workers with Saint Anthony in the place of honor; and
a cartoon showing the lean merchant who trusts, and the fat on