The winter was colder than the children had ever known, but it brought the same gleeful Christmas, with its almond soup and cinnamon cake, the blessing of the house with rosemary, the dancing before the mimic Bethlehem and the putting out of stubby little shoes on the balcony, a wisp of hay beside them for the camels, that the Three Kings might be pleased and leave some friendly token--a few figs wrapped in a green leaf or a tiny fish made of marchpane--of their mysterious passing in the night. And after the family Christmas--“Every man in his own house and God in the house of all”--there were gatherings of neighbors to sing scores on scores of Holy Eve carols, and then the splendid celebration in the cathedral. Aunt Barbara, by gentle persuasions of which she alone possessed the secret, induced Uncle Manuel to let her give liberal store of food and linen to households in need, and Tia Marta, out in the granite cottage, held Juanito close as she crooned: “Where her happy heart was beating Mary tucked her darling in, Singing softly: ‘O my sweeting, Love the poor and pardon sin.’” There followed dark, chill weeks when all the tiles took to crying: “Ladies sitting on a roof; it is rainy weather; Still the ladies sit there, weeping all together.” And since the new conscription had taken the Vigo sailor-lad away to the war, Dolores, too, wept and wept until her girlish face had lost its dimples and its rosy color. But Pilarica and Rafael, though they did their childish best to comfort Dolores, laughed the winter through. They searched the woods for flowers, bringing home violets in January and narcissus in March, while Dolores, whom they would coax out with them, bore back on her erect young head a burden of fragrant brush for the evening fire. Then came Easter, with its springtide joys, and festal summer, bringing new troops of pilgrims to the shrine of Santiago. “A tree with twelve branches; Four nests on a bough; In each nest seven thrushes; Unriddle me now.” So sang Aunt Barbara, and Pilarica, lifting her radiant little face for one more kiss, made answer: “The months are the branches; A week is a nest; The days are the thrushes; Each song is the best.” XXI WORK AND PLAY Rafael still dreamed of his father, especially on gusty nights, and still, as he worked and played, tried to do what his father would approve. For there was plenty of work, as well as play. Work is the fashion in Galicia and neither Uncle Manuel nor Aunt Barbara could have conceived of a happy life without it. Rafael, though he had developed no liking for arithmetic, pegged faithfully away at the simple sums that his uncle delighted to set him and became, if not swift, tolerably sure.