“Surely not,” the Galician hastened to answer; “there are no bears left in Spain to trouble the king’s highways. But if one should peep out from under the cork trees there, all I would need to do would be to fling a hammer or a horseshoe at him, and whoop! Off would amble Señor Bear, whimpering like Diego when his wife first ate the omelet and then beat him with the frying-pan. For, you see, the bear was once a blacksmith, but so clumsy at the forge that he scorched his beard one day and pounded his thumb the next, till he growled he would rather be a bear than a blacksmith, and our Lord, passing by with Peter, James and John, took him at his word. And the bear is still so afraid of being turned back into a blacksmith that if you throw the least piece of iron at him, he will run away like memory from an old man.” “Grandfather remembers,” protested Pilarica. Pedrillo twisted his head and laughed to see how erect the white-haired rider was sitting upon his pack. “He is only fifty years old to-day,” he said, “but it is high time for our nooning. We’ll not squeeze the orange till the juice is bitter. Eh, señora?” And Tia Marta replied quite affably: “You are right, Don Pedrillo. Fifty years is not old.” “It is the very cream of the milk,” gallantly assented the muleteer, helping down first Tia Marta and then Grandfather, for their muscles were yet stiff, however young their spirits might have grown. How glad the mules and donkeys were to browse in the shade! And how briskly Tia Marta sliced into her best earthenware bowl, the drab one with dull blue bands, whatever was brought her for the salad in addition to her own contribution of a crisp little cabbage! Pedrillo produced from one of his striped saddle-bags a handful of onions, so fresh and delicate that a Spanish taste could fancy them even uncooked, and lifting one between finger and thumb, croaked the _copla_: “This lady has many petticoats, But she has little pride, For the coarsest of her petticoats She wears on the outside.” Then Grandfather, not to be outdone, held up to general view a scarlet pepper full of seeds, reciting: “The church where the tiny people Pray all the week is not Cold marble and soaring steeple, It is round and little and hot; And red it is as a ruby crown, This queer little church of Fairytown.” Pilarica, meanwhile, to whose guardianship Tia Marta had entrusted three hard-boiled eggs that morning, brought them safely forth from the satchel, where they had been hobnobbing with the doll, the fan and the castanets, and passed them over one at a time, to prolong the game. She herself remembered a rhyme to the purpose and sang it very sweetly to a tune of her own, dancing as she sang: “A little white box All can open, but Once it is open, None can shut.”