Off came the paper and out came a square white box. Off came the box-cover and out came an engine and four gaily painted cars,--such a wonderful toy as Jose had never seen before. It was an evening always to be remembered in the Almaida family. They looked at one another's presents. They listened to Antonio's tales of great American cities and railroads and bridges, of active, rapid-moving people, and of his own work as foreman on a section of railroad diggers. By and by the mother saw that the father, in his arm-chair, was growing tired. So she told the children it was time to go to bed, because they could hear more to-morrow about all these things. Jose took the engine and cars, the box and the pink string to bed with him, and held them clasped in both hands to make sure that the treasures were real. He was very wide-awake. He heard his mother and Antonio talking after they had helped the father to his bed. And the little boy never forgot Antonio's last words to his mother that night: "Before I went away from home, mother, you said to me 'Each morning, resolve not to do anything during all the day which will make you feel sorry when night comes.' I remembered that each morning, mother, and it kept me always from wrong ways and wrong places." CHAPTER IV GARDEN AND VINEYARD "Trees manifold here left their branches tall, Fruit laden, fragrant, exquisite and rare." --_Camoens._ WHEN, the next morning, Jose led Antonio through the garden and vineyard, crimson vine leaves and purple grapes were the only signs of autumn. The green of summer was fresh over everything else. The granite gate-posts, which divided the front yard and flower garden from the fields, were almost buried in ferns and covered with ivy. In the garden blossomed roses, bright geraniums, asters, balsams, verbenas, salvias and dahlias. The Portuguese are great lovers of flowers. Their climate, where the temperature hardly ever goes below forty degrees, is favorable to the growing of all the flowers, as well as the trees and shrubs, of both temperate and tropical zones. On the borders of the Almaidas' garden and fields, great palms and tall cedars of Lebanon stood side by side with orange, lemon, citron and fig-trees. Here and there was an olive-tree, with gray-green leaves. "How beautiful the flowers are, Jose, and how the trees have grown!" Antonio breathed a happy sigh as he spoke. Many times in his absence these last four years his heart had cried out for the flowers and trees and the quiet happiness of his childhood home. Jose darted off to the house with the large bouquet of flowers he had gathered for his father. As he ran back to Antonio, he called: "Come to the farm-yard. I want you to see our pretty, gentle cow, and the chickens and the pig."