I lost sight of Don Evaristo when I was sixteen, having gone to live
in another district about thirty miles from my old home. He was then
just at the end of the middle period of life, with a few grey hairs
beginning to show in his black beard, but he was still a strong man
and more children were being added to his numerous family. Some time
later I heard that he had acquired a second estate a long day's
journey on horseback from the first, and that some of his wives and
children had emigrated to the new esctancia and that he divided his
time between the two establishments. But his people were not wholly
separated from each other; from time to time some of them would take
the long journey to visit the absent ones and there would be an
exchange of homes between them. For, incredible as it may seem, they
were in spirit, or appeared to be, a united family.
Seven years had passed since I lost sight of them, when it chanced
that I was travelling home from the southern frontier, with only two
horses to carry me. One gave out, and I was compelled to leave him on
the road. I put up that evening at a little wayside pulperia, or
public-house, and was hospitably entertained by the landlord, who
turned out to be an Englishman. But he had lived so long among the
gauchos, having left his country when very young, that he had almost
forgotten his own language.
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