The Stub-book
Pedro de Alarcon
Old Buscabeata’s back began to curve during the period of which I am going to tell, and the reason was that he was sixty years old, forty of which had been spent working a piece of ground on the banks of the River Costilla. That year he had cultivated on his farm a crop of enormous pumpkins, and these pumpkins had attained an orange color both inside and out, which showed that it was now the month of June. Buscabeatas knew each one of them perfectly by its form, its state of ripeness, and even by its name, especially the forty which were fattest and richest in colour. He spent all his days gazing at them tenderly, and sadly exclaiming, “Soon we shall have to part！”
One afternoon he decided on the sacrifice. He pointed to the ripest of his beloved pumpkins, which had cost him so much effort, and said the terrible words, “Tomorrow I will cut these forty and take them to the Cadiz market. Happy is the man who ill eat them！” And he walked back to the house with slow steps, and spent the night with the agony of a father who is going to marry off his daughter on the following day. “My poor dear pumpkins！” he sighed again and again, unable to fall asleep. But then he thought, “What else can I do but sell them？ I cultivated them for that purpose. At least I will receive fifteen duros for them.”
Imagine then his extreme astonishment, fury and desperation when, going the following morning to the farm, he discovered that he had been robbed during the night of his forty pumpkins. To save time I will merely say that he was filled with tragic fury and that he repeated again and again the terrible words, “Oh, if I catch you, if I catch you！”
Then he began to reflect, coldly, and he decided that his beloved pumpkins couldnot be in Rota, his native village. It would be impossible to put them on sale there because they would be recognized. Besides, pumpkins fetched a very low price there.
“They are in Cadiz！” He decided after much thought. “That rascal, the robber, robbed me last night at nine or ten o’clock and escaped with them at midnight in the cargo boat. I will take the boat this very morning for Cadiz, and I will be very much surprised if I do not catch the robber and recover the daughters of my labour.” So saying, he yet remained about twenty minutes near the scene of the disaster as if counting the missing pumpkins or planning terrible punishments for the robber, until it was eight o’clock and he left in the direction of the boat.
It was almost ready to sail. It leaves for Cadiz every morning at nine o’clock, carrying passengers, just as the cargo boat leaves every night at midnight carrying fruit and vegetables.
That morning at half past ten Buscabeatas paused in front of a vegetable stall in the Cadiz market-place, and said to a bored policeman who was standing by. “Those are my pumpkins. Arrest that man！” And he pointed to the merchant.
“Arrest me！” exclaimed the merchant, surprised and furious. “Those pumpkins are mine. I bought them...”
“You’ll be able to tell that to the judge,” answered Buscabeatas.
“I won’t.”
“You will.”
“You’re a rascal.”
“You’re a thief.”
“You should speak with more politeness. Men should not talk to each other in this fashion,” the policeman said with extreme calm, hitting each of them in the chest. Meanwhile a crowd had collected, and it was not long before there appeared the police inspector of the public market, the inspector of food.
The policeman told this great man what was happening. He questioned the merchant.
“From whom did you buy these pumpkins？” the inspector asked importantly.
“From Fulano, the old man from Rota,” the merchant replied.
“That would be the man！” cried Buscabeatas. “That’s the fellow I suspected！ His farm is poor,and when it produces little, he begins to rob his neighbours.”
“But if we admit that you were robbed last night of forty pumpkins,” said the inspector, “how can we prove that these and no others, are yours？”
“Why？” replied Buscabeatas. “Because I know them as well as you know your daughters, if you have any, don’t you see that I have raised them？ Look here！ This one is called ’the round one’, that one is ’the fat fellow’, this one is ’the red one’,that is ’Manuela’ because she resembles my youngest daughter.”And the poor old man began to cry bitterly.
“All this is very good,” answered the inspector. “But the law does not rest satisfied with the fact you recognize your pumpkins. It is necessary that authority should be convinced that the thing already existed and that you should identify it with absolute proofs. Senores, you needn’t smile. I am a lawyer. ”
“Well, you will soon see the proofs that the pumpkins came from my farm; and you will see them without moving from this place.”
Buscabeatas’s words astonished the spectators, but he dropped on the ground a package which he had been carrying in his hand. Then he knelt down and calmly began to untie the knots in the handkerchief which was round the package.
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