The Tale of the Young Scholar and His Loves

Title: The Tale of the Young Scholar and His Loves
Author: kira
Word Count: 2000
World: Santiago
Main Characters: Antonio, Maria (his sister), Conchita (her best friend), Paloma (his mother), Rico (his father)
Borrow: yes
Summary: Antonio longs to go to school, but he’s needed at home. Determined to keep up with his studies, he nonetheless finds Conchita a welcome dstraction…


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Antonio sighed softly as he desperately wanted to continue his schooling, but at fifteen he was needed at home to work the fields, especially now that it was harvest time. His younger brothers, Vidal and Tercero were lucky; they could still attend school along with his three sisters, although it would be María’s last year to attend school this year as she would be getting married when she turned fifteen. His only hope of continuing his education would be to give his life over to the church, but as the eldest, he would inherit his family’s small farm. It was hard sitting at the dinner table while his siblings chatted excited about the upcoming school year.

“Toño, are you sick?” his mother asked.

“Leave the boy alone, Paloma,” his father said.

“He’s not eating, Rico, and I’m worried he might be sick. If he can’t help you in the fields, then Vidal will have to miss school.”

“I’m fine, Mamá,” Antonio replied. To allay his mother’s fears, he dug into his dinner with a gusto he did not feel.

“See? The boy’s fine, Palomacita.” He father winked at him. “Toño, when we’re finished with the harvest, I’ll talk to Conchita’s father about her coming to visit María for a few days.”

Antonio smiled. “Gracias, Papá.” He sighed as visions of his sister’s best friend danced in his head. A year younger than him, Conchita was just as tall and dark as he was. Just like his sister Maria, she was beginning to get curves and Antonio thought she was the prettiest thing he had ever seen. He hoped his father would talk to hers about a possible marriage as he loved her very much; the fact that a union between them would give Antonio a bigger farm, since she was the oldest of three girls, was just gravy.

Dinner sped by for Antonio in a flurry of thoughts about the girl of his dreams, his disappointment about being unable to continue his education momentarily forgotten. Life quickly settled back into its old familiar routines, with Antonio going to fetch water from the cistern so he and his brothers could bathe in the big tin washtub out back. When they were finished the water would be dumped in their mother’s small vegetable garden and Antonio would refill it for his sisters’ use. Then it would be time for bed as they had to be up early the next day for school.

Lying in bed that night, Antonio realized that this would be the first time he would be going to school without staying. His father and his two uncles would start harvesting the crops they grew while he rode into town with his siblings and younger cousins, leaving them at the school which was run by the church, before going home, only to reverse the process later on. In between, Antonio was expected to work in the fields. When it was finished, his Tío Ángel would ride into town and spend a week there, selling the harvest to the people who lived on the coast. Sometimes he traded them for dried fish and other luxuries that they couldn’t get on the farm. Unfortunately, Antonio would not be able to go with him as he was still needed to take his siblings to school. He also helped his father with other chores around the farm, leaving him little time to keep up with his studies even if he had wanted to. But that was the life of a farmer and the only way out was to die or join a monastery. He soon drifted off into a fitful sleep.

Antonio was tired the next day when he woke up, but he decided to make the best of his situation. By taking his siblings and cousins to school each day, he would able to get a glimpse of Conchita and then there was their homework, which he had always helped with. The priests, who taught in the school, liked Antonio as he had been a good student and soon he was bringing home a treasured book to study in his spare time. They knew that after a certain age only the boys destined for priesthood remained in school.

“Toño?” Maria said softly.

“What?” he replied.

“Do you think Mamá and Papá would be mad if I left school to stay home and help Tía Caridad with the new baby? It won’t be long before she has it.”

Antonio was silent as he thought it over. He was angry she would give up school for something he considered stupid, but he understood her reasoning. Their father was busy looking for a husband for her and if they were lucky, she would marry a second or third son and remain on the farm, giving Antonio the help he would need when he took over their father’s farm. It hurt, seeing her throw something away that he found precious, as Antonio was a born scholar. After several long minutes passed, he finally answered. “I don’t know, Maria, you’d have to ask them.”

“Okay…” she said uncertainly.

Antonio slowed the horse down to a walk when they approached the church in the middle of town, before coming to a stop in the small plaza in front of the church, where an old nun stood, ringing a bell. He smiled sadly as his siblings and cousins got down out of the wagon and hurried over to her. He watched Maria walk inside, hand in hand with Conchita. He sighed, wishing he was holding her hand. When they disappeared inside the school, he turned the wagon around and went home. That had become his daily routine; taking the kids to school, returning home to work in the fields, picking them up, dinner, homework help, and off to bed, before starting all over again in the morning. So when everyone got a week off to celebrate the end of the fall harvest along with Michaelmas, Antonio could not have been happier. What made it all the sweeter; Conchita was invited over to spend a few days.

Antonio found it unexpectedly hard to spend any time with his sister and Conchita. Even though he no longer had to ferry the kids to school and back, he still had his chores around the farm. There was livestock to tend to, vegetables to put up for the mild winter and  which crops to plant next spring while the fields lay fallow, and keeping up with his studies at night. Antonio was determined to be more than just a simple peasant farmer and he desired as much education as he could get. If it was not for his interest in Conchita and the subtle pressure he had been putting on his parents to arrange a betrothal for them,  Antonio was sure they would have been tearing their hair out, thinking he wanted to be a priest. But he kept to his studies, arguing that Santiago was going to be more than just another pig town in vast array of them, seeing it as growing into a major trading center with agricultural products as well as those that came from a huge fishing industry along the coast, mostly centered a two day ride away in Santa Maria del Mar.

In the end, his father gave in and allowed Antonio time to study during the day in the free hour just before the family took a siesta in the early afternoon. It was during one such study period, that Conchita happened to find him, while strolling under the fruit trees that grew in the small orchard near the house. Antonio was sitting in the low bough of an old apple tree, his nose in a copy of antique book about keeping a business ledger.

“¡Hola, Toño!”

Antonio looked up and smiled. “¡Hola, Conchita!” he replied, and shutting his book, he jumped down to greet her. “Where’s my sister?” he asked, aghast that she was wandering around the farm without a chaperone.

Conchita smiled. “She’s in the house with your mother; your aunt thinks she’s going to have her baby.”

Antonio felt his cheeks heating up. “Oh…”

“Yeah… Your father went to get the midwife and since I’m supposed to be looking after the little ones…” Conchita found it hard not to giggle at the blush that spread across his cheeks. She thought he looked adorable and felt a sudden urge to kiss him.

“You need any help?”

Conchita giggled. “No, silly, they’re asleep, so I thought I’d go wandering around. Maria is busy with your aunt and mother, so… ummm…”

“Oh…”

Conchita looked away and back. “Antonio…” She closed the distance between them.

“Yeah…?” He stood there, unsure if he should step back or not, and not really wanting to.

“Will you kiss me?”

He could not believe his ears. Conchita, the love of his young life, wanted a kiss. Antonio leaned in, but at the last minute he pulled away. “We shouldn’t, Chita! What if someone catches us?”

She giggled. “So what? Maybe it’ll get our fathers to hurry up and betroth us.”

Antonio nodded even though a betrothal would not necessarily get rid of the need for a chaperone. They were supposed to be pure when they got married; hence the need for a chaperone, but Antonio was not exactly sure about that, if some of the things his father and uncles joked about were true. All he knew was that he loved Conchita with all his heart and she felt the same way, and the last thing he wanted to do was cause her any trouble. Then again it was only a kiss…

“Antonio! It’s just a kiss,” she said as if reading his mind. Giggling and leaning in, Conchita chastely gave him a small peck on the lips. Antonio felt his cheeks heating up when she stepped back. She met his gaze and he felt his color rising even more, but he could not help it.  “So… ummm, what are you reading?”

“A book Father Rafael lent me. It’s about how to make a thing called a ledger and… Hey!” Antonio cried when she took the book away from him. “Chita, please be careful! I have to give it back!”

Conchita giggled. “I won’t hurt it, but if you want it back, you have to pay a fee.”

“I do?”

She nodded. “It’ll cost you another kiss.”

“Oh…” Antonio blushed. “What if someone sees us?”

Conchita shrugged, a smug little smile tugging the corners of her mouth upwards. She had the feeling he would kiss her despite his protests. “I guess you don’t want your-” the rest of what she was going to say was swallowed up in a kiss. When they both came up for air, Antonio stepped back, the book in hand. “That wasn’t fair,” she teased.

“Life isn’t fair,” he countered, “if it was, I could still go to school, instead of teaching myself, and we’d get married and have the best, most prosperous farm in all of Santiago and I’d have a lot of men working for me and you’d have a whole room full of pretty dresses to wear like Princess Carmina Infantanta and…”

“You think we’ll be able to marry?”

“I think so, but who knows, Chita, maybe you father wants a husband for you that doesn’t have his nose stuck in a book, like Mamá always says.” Antonio sighed.

“I will talk to Papá when I get home, Toño.” Conchita cupped his cheek. “So don’t worry, okay?”

“Okay.” Feeling a bit bolder, Antonio leaned in and kissed her cheek. “I’ll see you later, Chita.”

She nodded and turned to go. Sighing softly, Antonio watched her go, before sitting down at the base of the apple tree. Opening his book, he began to read, determined to finish his self imposed lessons so that he would be free to spend a bit of time with her after dinner while everyone was busy fussing over the new baby.