Foxes Hill

Foxes Hill - Parte 11

The fan, then a very common model used mainly in all the houses of the time, is a flag and is made from a small square wooden strip double one centimeter and more or less forty long, to which it is attached for almost half its length, as a flag, a rectangular card twelve centimeters wide and fifteen long, rather thick and generally depicting sacred images.

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There must be straw and not wood in the stove because sometimes, despite her waving vigorously, smoke comes out and hits her full face.

Carmela coughs, she instinctively tries with her hand, and not with her fan, to remove that smoke which, moreover, by preventing her from breathing, makes her eyes burn too.

"Why do you use your hand and not the fan to remove the smoke? Why do not you close the door and move away a little?" I say, thinking of giving her some advice, reminding me of what my grandmother had told me when it once happened to me.

"Eh! It is nothing, I'm used to it; so much it ends!", she replies rubbing her eyes, already red.

Meanwhile, the kitchen is filling up with smoke, and she runs to throw open a window already opens.

Resuming waving the fan, she tells me: "This evening, come and eat with us; please do not miss it!"

"Yes, I'm coming, but I have to ask my grandmother. Bye!"

"Bye!" she replies without looking at me.

Hands in my pockets I go to the yard, where they are still downloading; as well as looking to learn how they do their job, I want to hear from the men, if they tell, some jokes in dialect; I like their dialect; I'm not interested in their speeches.

I'm no longer going to sit under the tree, but I'm going back to the tractor; it is closer, and above; it is better for me now that the sheaf is almost over: they are finishing, with the last row of bundles, the triangular covering of the sheaf.

The massaro is there who, to some of them, gives orders on how to arrange the last bundles; to others instead, such as spreading the ropes against the wind on the long side of the sheaf, distancing them precisely from each other.

They are ropes which, with two stones of equal weight attached to the ends, have the function of exerting a certain pressure on the ridge bundles and therefore on the sheaf.

This is a precaution that, if the wind blows, perhaps a strong wind, until the beginning of the threshing, does not create problems and does not damage the sheaf by making the bundles fly away.

After completing the first sheaf, following the instructions of the massaro, a cart advances stopping further ahead, where the next will be built; on this cart there are still several bundles to unload while the other, already empty, returns to the stable.

Also on the trailer, there are bundles still to be unloaded; this should also be moved, but Uncle Armando is not there.

The massaro tells me to go and look for him in the house: "Maybe he is there; tell him we're in a hurry, it is getting late!", and to give more prominence to what he said, he claps his hands several times inviting me to hurry.

I have already gotten off the tractor when I see Uncle, who, appearing on the veranda, gestures to me that he has heard.

"Luigi, my uncle is coming; you see him..., he's coming down the stairs!" I shout to the massaro, who in the meantime has gone away.

"Va buon: Appost!" (Okay: All right!) He yells back, resuming giving directions to the workers.

I'm still there, next to the tractor, when my uncle arrives; he sits at the wheel and starts the tractor, inviting me to stand beside him: standing up.