eet potatoes because the
bundle was so knobby. Besides Tonio felt of them.

"What are you going to do with your sweet potatoes?" asked Dona Teresa.

"I'm going to cook them in molasses and sell them," said Pedro's wife.
"I shall sit under an awning and watch the fun and turn a penny at the
same time. The baby is too heavy to carry round all day, anyway."

"I'll help you," said Dona Teresa. "Very likely I shall be glad enough
to sit down somewhere myself before the day is over."

"Pedro made me a little brasero out of a tin box," said his wife, "and I
have a bundle of wood right here, and the syrup and the dishes, all
ready."

When the reeds had all been put on board, Pancho took Tonio in his arms
and Pedro took Pablo, and they tossed them into the boat as if they had
been sacks of meal. The boys scrambled under the covered part and out to
the bow at once, and Pablo got astride the very nose of the boat and
let his feet hang over.

Then Pedro lifted Tita in.

It was more of a job to get the mothers aboard, for Pedro's wife was
fat, and he was a small man. Pedro shook his head when he looked at his
wife, then he took off his sombrero, and scratched his head. At last he
said, "I think I'll begin with the baby."

He took the baby and waded out to the boat and handed her to Tita, then
he went back to shore and took another look at his wife. "It'll take two
of us," he said to Pancho.

"I'm your man," said Pancho bravely. "I can lift half of her."

So Pedro and Pancho made a chair with their arms, and Pedro's wife sat
on it, and put her arms around their necks, and they waded out with her
into the water.

They got along beautifully until they reached the side of the boat and
undertook to lift her over the edge. Then there came near being an
awful accident, for Pedro's foot slipped on a slimy stone and he let her
down on one side so that one of her feet went into the water.

[Illustration]

"Holy mother!" screamed Pedro's wife. "They are going to drown me!"

She waved her arms about and jounced so that Pancho almost dropped the
other foot in too, but just in time Pedro shouted, "One, two, three, and
over she goes," and as he said _over_, he and Pancho gave a great heave
both together, and in she went all in a heap beside Tita and the baby.

While she crawled under the awning and settled herself with the baby and
stuck her foot out in the sunshine to dry, Pancho and Pedro went back
for Dona Teresa. She wasn't v