My Father Goes to Court

By: Carlos Bulosan

When I was four, I lived with my mother and brothers and sisters in a small town
on the island of Luzon. Father‟s farm had been destroyed in 1910 by one of our sudden
Philippine floods, so several years afterwards we all lived in the town though he preferred
living in the country. We had as a next door neighbor a very rich man, whose sons and
daughters seldom came out of the house. While we boys and girls played and sang in the
sun, his children stayed inside and kept the windows closed. His house was so tall that
his children could look in the window of our house and watched us played, or slept, or
ate, when there was any food in the house to eat.

Now, this rich man’s servants were always frying and cooking something good,
and the aroma of the food was wafted down to us from the windows of the big house. We
hung about and took all the wonderful smells of the food into our beings. Sometimes, in
the morning, our whole family stood outside the windows of the rich man’s house and
listened to the musical sizzling of thick strips of bacon or ham. I can remember one
afternoon when our neighbor’s servants roasted three chickens. The chickens were
young and tender and the fat that dripped into the burning coals gave off an enchanting
odor. We watched the servants turn the beautiful birds and inhaled the heavenly spirit
that drifted out to us.

Some days the rich man appeared at a window and glowered down at us. He
looked at us one by one, as though he were condemning us. We were all healthy
because we went out in the sun and bathed in the cool water of the river that flowed from
the mountains into the sea. Sometimes we wrestled with one another in the house before
we went to play.

We were always in the best of spirits and our laughter was contagious. Other
neighbors who passed by our house often stopped in our yard and joined us in laughter.
Laughter was our only wealth. Father was a laughing man. He would go in to the living
and stand in front of the tall mirror, stretching his mouth into grotesque shapes with his
fingers and making faces at himself, and then he would rush into the kitchen roaring with
laughter.

There was plenty to make us laugh. There was, for instance, the day one of my
brothers came home and brought a small bundle under his arm, pretending that he
bought something to eat, maybe a leg of lamb or something as extravagant as that to
make our mouths water. He rushed to mother and through the bundle into her lap. We all
stood around, watching mother undo the complicated strings. Suddenly, a black cat
leaped out of the bundle and ran wildly around the house. Mother chased my brother and
beat him with her little fists, while the rest of us bent double, choking with laughter.
Another time, one of my sisters suddenly started screaming in the middle of the
night. Mother reached her first and tried to calm her. My sister cried and groaned. When
father lifted the lamp, my sister stared at us with shame in her eyes.
“What is it?” “I’m pregnant!” she cried.
“You’re only a child,” Mother said.
“I’m pregnant, I tell you!” she cried.

Father knelt by my sister. He put his hand on her belly and rubbed it gently. “How
do you know you are pregnant?” he asked.
“Feel it!” she cried.
 We put our hands on her belly. There was something moving inside. Father was
frightened Mother was shocked. “Who’s the man?” she asked.

“There’s no man,” my sister said.

What is it then?” Father asked.

Suddenly my sister opened her blouse and a bullfrog jumped out. Mother fainted,
father dropped the lamp, the oil spilled on the floor, and my sister’s blanket caught fire.
One of my brothers laughed so hard he rolled on the floor.

When the fire was extinguished and Mother was revived, we turned to be and tried
to sleep, but Father kept on laughing so loud we could not sleep anymore. Mother got up
again and lighted the oil lamp, we rolled up the mats on the floor and began dancing
about and laughing with all our might. We made so much noise that all our neighbors
except the rich family came into the yard and joined us in loud, genuine laughter. It was
like that for years.

As time went on, the rich man’s children became thin and anemic, while we grew
even more robust and full of life. Our faces were bright and rosy, but theirs was pale and
sad. The rich man started to cough at night; then he coughed day and night. His wife
began coughing too. Then the children started to cough, one after the other. At night
their coughing sounded like the barking of a herd of seals. We hung outside their
windows and listened to them. We wondered what happened. We knew that they were
not sick from the lack of nourishment because they were still always frying something
delicious to eat.

One day, the rich man appeared at a window and stood there long time. He looked
at my sisters, who had grown fat in laughing, then at my brothers, whose arms and legs
were like the molave, which is the sturdiest tree in the Philippines. He banged down the
window and ran through his house, shutting all the windows. From that day on, the
windows of our neighbor’ s house were always closed. The children did not come out
anymore. We could still hear the servants cooking in the kitchen, and no matter how tight
the windows were shut, the aroma of the food came to us in the wind and drifted
gratuitously into our house.
One morning a policeman from the presidencia came to our house with a sealed
paper. The rich man had filed a complaint against us. Father took me with him when he
went to the town clerk and asked him what it was about. He told father the man claimed
that for years we had been stealing the spirit of his wealth and food.

When the day came for us to appear in court, father brushed his old Army uniform
and borrowed a pair of shoes from one of my brothers. We were the first to arrive. Father
sat on a chair in the center of the courtroom. Mother occupied a chair by the door. We
children sat on a long bench by the wall. Father kept jumping up from his chair and
stabbing the air with his arms, as though we were defending himself before an imaginary
jury.

The rich man arrived. He had grown old and feeble; his face was scarred with
deep lines. With his was his young lawyer. Spectators came in and almost filled the
chairs. The judge entered the room and sat on a high chair. We stood in a hurry and then
sat down again.
 After the courtroom preliminaries, the judge looked at the father. “Do you have a
lawyer?” he asked.

“I don’t need any lawyer, Judge,” He said.

“Proceed,” said the judge.

The rich man’s lawyer jumped up and pointed his finger at Father. “Do you or do
you not agree that you have been stealing the spirit of the complainant’s wealth and
food?”

“I do not!” Father said.

“Do you or do you not agree that while the complainant’s servants cooked and
fried fat legs of lamb or young chicken breast you and your family hung outside his
windows and inhaled the heavenly spirit of the food?”

“I agree.” Father said.

“How do you account for that?”
Father got up and paced around, scratching his head thoughtfully. Then he said “I
would to see the children of the complainant, Judge” Bring the children of the
complainant.”

“Do you or do you not agree that while the complaint and his children grew sickly
and tubercular and you and your family became strong of limb and fair in complexion?” “I
agree.” Father said. “How do you account for that?” father got up and paced around,
scratching his head thoughtfully. Then he said, “I would like to see the children of
complaint, judge.” “Bring in the children of the complaint.” They came in shyly. The
spectators covered their mouths with their hands, they were so amazed to see the
children so thin and pale. The children walked silently to a bench and sat down without
looking up. They stared at the floor and moved their hands uneasily. Father could not say
anything at first. He just stood but his chair and looked at them. Finally he said, “I should
like to cross - examine the complaint.” “Proceed.” “Do you claim that we stole the spirit of
your wealth and became a laughing family while you became morose and sad?” Father
said. “Yes.” “Do you claim that we stole the spirit of your food by hanging outside your
windows when your servants cooked it?” Father said. “Yes.” “Then we are going to pay
you right now,” Father said. He walked over to where we children were sitting on the
bench and took straw hat off my lap and began filling it up with centavo pieces that he
took out of his pockets. He went to Mother, who added a fistful of silver coins. My
brothers threw their small change. “May I walk to the room across the hall and stay there
for a few minutes, judge?” Father said. “As you wish.” “Thank you,” father said. He strode
into the other room with the hat in his hands. It was almost full of coins. The doors of both
room were wide open. “Are you ready?” Father called. “Proceed.” The judge said. The
sweet tinkle of the coins carried beautifully in the courtroom. The spectators turned their
faces toward the sound with wonder. Father came back and stood before the complaint.
“Did you hear it?” he asked. “Hear what?” the man asked. “The spirit of the money when I
shook this hat?” he asked. “Yes.” “Then you are paid,” Father said. The lawyer rushed to
his aid. The judge pounded his gravel. “Case dismissed.” He said. Father strutted around
the courtroom the judge even came down from his high chair to shake hands with him.
“By the way,” he whispered, “I had an uncle who died laughing.” “You like to hear my
family laugh judge?” Father asked. “Why not?” “Did you hear that children?” father said.
My sisters started it. The rest of us followed them soon the spectators were laughing with
us, holding their bellies and bending over the chairs. And the laughter of the judge was
the loudest of all.

My Father’s Tragedy
By: Carlos Bulosan

It was one of those lean years of our lives. Our rice field was destroyed by locusts
that came from the neighboring towns. When the locusts were gone, we planted string
beans, but a fire burned the whole plantation. My brothers went away because they got
tired of working for nothing. Mother and my sisters went from house to house, asking for
something to do, but every family was plagued by some kind of disaster. The children
walked in the streets looking for the fruit of the acacia trees that fell to the ground. The
man hung on the face around the market and watched the meat dealers hungrily. We
were all suffering from lack of proper food.

But the professional gamblers had money. They sat in the fish house in the station
and gave their orders aloud. The loafers and other by-standers watched them eat boiled
rice and fried fish with their silver spoons. They never used forks because the prongs
stuck between their teeth. They always cut their lips and tongues with the knives, so they
never asked for them. If the water was new and he put the knives on the table, they
looked at each other furtively and slipped them in their pockets. They washed their hands
in one big wooden bowl of water and wiped their mouths with the leaves of the arbor
trees that fell on the ground. They hung on the fence around the public market waiting for
men who had some money.

The rainy season was approaching. There were rumors of famine. The grass did
not grow and our carabao became thin. Father’s fighting cock, Burick was practically the
only healthy living thing in our household. It’s father’s Kanaway, who had won a house for
us some three years before and fathers had commanded me to give it the choicest rice.
He took the soft-boiled eggs from the plate of my sister Marcela, who was sick with
meningitis that year. He was preparing Burick from something big. But the great
catastrophe came to our town. The peasants and most of the rich men spent their money
on food. They had stopped going to the cockpit for fear of temptation; if they went at all,
they just sat in the gallery and shouted at the top of their lungs. They went home with
their heads down, thinking of the money they would have won. It was this impasse that
father sat every day with his fighting cock. He would not go anywhere. He would not do
anything, he just sat there caressing Burick and exercising his legs. He spat at his hackes
and rubbed them, looking faraway with a big dream. When mother came home with some
food, he went to the granary and sat there till evening. Sometimes he slept there with
Burick, but at dawn the cock would woke him up with its majestic crowing. He crept into
the house and fumbled for the cold rice in the pot under the stove. Then he put the cock
in the pen and slept on the bench the whole day.

Mother was very patient. But the day came when she kicked him off the bench. He
fell on the floor face down, looked up at her, and then resumed his sleep. Mother took my
sister Francisca with her. They went from house to house in the neighborhood, pounding
rice from some people and hauling drinking water for other. They came home with their
share in a big basket that mother carried on her head.

Father was still sleeping on the bench, when they arrived. Mother told my sister to
cook some of the rice. She dipped up a cup in the jar and splashed the cold water on
Father’s face. He jumped up, looked at Mother with anger, and went to Burick’s pen. He
gathered the cock in his arms, and climbed down the porch. He sat on a log in the back
yard and started caressing his fighting cock.

Mother went on with her washing. Francisca fed Marcela with some boiled rice.
Father was still caressing Burick Mother was mad at him. “Is that all you can do?” she
shouted at him. “Why do you say that to me?” Father said. “I’m thinking of some ways to
become rich.”

Mother threw a piece of wood at the cock. Father saw her in time. He ducked and
covered the cock with his body. The wood struck him and first; it cut a hole in the base of
his head. He got up and examined Burick. He acted as though the cock were the one that
was hurt. He looked up at mother and his face was pitiful. “Why don‟t you see what are
you doing?” he said, hugging Burick. “I would like to wring that cock‟s neck.” Mother said.
“That‟s his fortune,” I said. Mother looked sharply at me. “Shut up, idiot!” she said. “You
are more becoming your father every day.”

I watched her eyes moved foolishly. I thought she would cry. She tucked her skirt
between her legs and went on with her work. I ran down the ladder and went to the
granary, where father treating the wound on his head. I held the cock for him. “Take good
care of it son,” he said. “Yes sir,” I said.

“Go to the river and exercise its legs. Come back right away. We are going to
town.” I ran down the street with the cock, kicking the pigs and dogs that went in my way.
I plunged into the water with my clothes and swam with Burick. I put some water in my
mouth and blew it into his face. I ran back to our house slapping the water off my clothes.
Father and I went to the cockpit.

It was Sunday, but there were many loafers and gamblers at the place. There were
peasants and teachers. There was a strange man with black fighting cock. He had come
from one of the neighboring towns to seek his fortune in our cockpit.

His name was Burcio. He held our cock above his head and closed one eye,
looking sharply at Burick’s eyes. He put it on the ground and bent over it, pressing down
the cock’s back with his hands, Burcio was teasing Burick’s strength. The loafers and
gamblers formed a ring around them watching Burcio’s left hand expertly moving around
Burick.
 Father also tested the cock of Burcio. He threw it in the air and watched it glide
smoothly to the ground. He sparred with it. The black cock pecked at his legs and
stopped to crow proudly for bystanders. Father picked it up and sparred its wings, feeling
the rough hide beneath the feathers.

The bystanders knew that a fight was about to be matched. They counted the
money in their pockets without showing it to their neighbors. They felt the edges of the
coins with amazing swiftness and accuracy. Only a highly magnified magnifier could have
recorded the tiny clink of the coins that fell between deft fingers. The caressing rustle of
the paper money was inaudible. The peasants broke from the ring and hid behind the
coconut trees. They unfolded their handkerchiefs and hands and returned to the crowd.
They waited for the final decision. “Shall we make it this coming Sunday?” Burcio asked.
“It’s too soon for my Burick,” father said. His hand moved mechanically into his pocket.
But it was empty. He looked around his cronies.

But two of the peasants caught father’s arm and whispered something to him.
They slipped some money in his hand and pushed him toward Burcio. He tried to
estimate the amount of money in his hand by balling it hard. It was one of his many tricks
with money. He knew right away that he had some twenty-peso bills. A light of hope
appeared in his face. “This coming Sunday is all right,” he said.

All at once the men broke into wild confusion. Some went to Burcio with their
money, others went to father. They were not bettors, but inventors. Their money would
back up the cocks at the cockpit.

In the late afternoon the fight was arranged. We returned to our house with some
hope. Father put Burick in the pen and told me to go the ponds across the river. I ran
down the road with the mounting joy. I found a fish pond under the camachile tree. It was
the favourite haunt of snails and shrimps. Then I went home.

Mother was cooking something good. I smelled it the moment I entered the gate. I
rushed into the house and spilled some of the snails on the floor. Mother was at the
stove. She was stirring the ladle in the boiling pot. Father was still sleeping on the bench.
Francisca was feeding Marcela with hot soup. I put the snails and shrimps in a pot and
sat on the bench.

Mother was cooking chicken with some bitter melons. I sat wondering where she
got it. I knew that our poultry house in the village was empty. We had no poultry in the
town. Father opened his eyes when he heard the boiling pot.

Mother put the rice on a big wooden platter and set it on the table. She filled our
plates with chicken meat and ginger. Father got up suddenly and went to the table.
Francisca sat by at the stove. Father was reaching for the white meat in the platter when
mother slapped his hand away. She was saying grace. Then we put our legs under the
table and started eating.

It was our first taste of chicken for a long time. Father filled his plate twice and ate
very little rice. He usually ate more rive when we had only salted fish and some leaves of
trees. We ate “grass” most of the time. Father tilted his plate and took the soup noisily, as
though he were drinking wine. He put the empty plate near the pot and asked for some
chicken meat. “It is good,” he said.
 Mother was very quiet. She put the breast on a plate and told Francisca to give it
to Marcela. She gave me some bitter melons. Father put his hand on the pot and fished
out a drumstick.

“Where did you get this lovely chicken?” he asked. “Where do you think I got it?”
Mother said.

The drumstick fell from his mouth. It rolled into the space between bamboo splits
and fell on the ground. Our dog snapped it and ran away. Father’s face broke in great
agony. He rushed outside the house. I could hear him running toward the highway. My
sister continued eating, but my appetite was gone. “What are you doing son?” Mother
said. “Eat your chicken.”

The Soldier
By: Carlos Bulosan

They were arguing in the living room.

“You’ve invited him to come here?” the mother asked

“Why not?” the daughter said. “He’s nice and intelligent.”

The mother looked at her daughter with horror. “A soldier?” she said. “A Filipino
soldier?” the father came from the kitchen with a glass of wine in one hand and a bottle in
the other.

He heard his wife and daughter arguing when he came home but had gone
straight to his room as though he were unconcerned. At the dinner table, his wife and
daughter had been very solemn. At the end of the dinner, his wife had looked strangely at
the girl. The daughter had rushed to the living-room and she threw herself into a chair. He
looked at his wife then, long, questioning he purpose. Their argument had already
touched him. He had looked at his wife through the years of their life together, trying to
put his thought together.

“Would you like your daughter to bring a Filipino here?” she asked him. He had
merely looked at her with great patience of a husband who had worked dutifully for the
years to have a decent home.

“Would you? She cried. He had walked to the living-room without answering her.
He had stood near the chair where the girl is weeping. He had wanted to understand her.
He had bent over to touch her suddenly ha had straightened up, stood for a while, eager,
then walked to the kitchen for the bottle of wine.

Now he came out of the kitchen with a glass of wine in one hand and the bottle in
the other.

“Go up to your room, Marcella.” He said.

The girl looked up at her father the way she had always looked at him that way.
There was a time when she had come home from school and cried to him. It seemed that
she had met a boy that time. If it were not for him, she would have neglected her studies
that year.

She looked now at her father as though all years were crowding in upon her,
challenging his victories and deep convictions. He could see in her eyes the light that
once glowed warmly in his eyes; the immortal light that has shone in the other lands and
times.
If only I could go back the beginning, he thought. Instead, he said to his
daughter. “Go up to your room now, Marcella.”

She knew that she was defeated. She jumped from the chair and fled across the
room and rushed up the stairway. She slammed the door and flung herself upon the bed,
sobbing and kicking the air.

“Martha,” he said to his wife looking up stairs. “Where did she meet him?” “In the
public library.”

He walked to his chair and sat down. “Well, he must be a nice boy.” “Walter!” she
cried with horror. He made a motion to go to her, hesitated, sat back and shook his head.
Then he got up and walked to the table for his pipe. Suddenly, the doorbell rang out loud.

“That’s probably him right now,” he said.

She brushed the tears from her eyes. The bell rang again. The man walked to the
door and opened it. A Filipino soldier was standing in the light rain. He got a box of
candies.

“Is this Miss Marcella Roberts’s house?” he asked.

“Yes,” the man said, hesitant, pondering. Then he said, “Come on in.” The soldier
walked into the house and stood on the threshold for a moment, the cold of night outside
still clinging heavily on him. The man closed the door and took the soldier’s cap, walking
over to the far corner of the room where his wife was
waiting.

“You are Marcella’s mother?” the soldier asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“I thought so,” the soldier said. “You look exactly as I thought you would, only you
are much younger.”

The man gave him a chair. He stood waiting for the young man to speak. The book
and the box candies were still in his lap.
“Where is your station?” the man asked.
“Fort Ord,” the soldier said.

“How is it out there?”

“It is great.” He said. “Nice bunch of fellows in that camp. I like the place. I’ve been
studying seriously.”
There was still standing before the soldier, fumbling deliberately with his pipe.

“It was in first war,” he started and stopped.

There was a sudden interest in the young man’s voice. “Were you?” he said,
jumping to his feet.

“I’ve served ten months in France.”

“Then you understand the feeling of a soldier. They say the other was fought for
democracy. Some of those who fought in it say it’s a lie. I don’t interpret that way, though.
It was fought for democracy all right, but somewhere in the ideals were gobbled up by
powerful men.”

The man was beginning to feel that he had something in common with the soldier.
The only difference was when he was a soldier he did not have the chance to clarify his
beliefs. He was glad that at last, some twenty-five years later, he had met another soldier
who, though born in another part of the world, could have been himself; bringing with him
the bright hopes he had fought or in that other war. He walked back to his chair and sat
down, facing the soldier. He glanced at his wife swiftly. Looking back at the soldier, he felt
a yearning to confide something personal surging through him.

“Have you ever lived in this city before?” he asked.

“Yes,” the soldier said. “Ten years ago. But most people I knew are gone. This
afternoon you walked around looking at the new stores and buildings. I stopped at the
newsstands and touched the magazines and newspapers. I like this city very much
indeed. Life itself reacts in the city streets. Ten years ago I used to stand in the station
watching people, and always there was a powerful yearning in me to go away.
“Someday,‟ I used to say to myself, I’ll go away and never come back,‟
 But I never went away. I remember when I was a little boy, my father and I used to
go to the mountains just for the sheer of joy of walking ling distances. I’m like my father,
who had a yearning for far away places. It took a war to take me away, though. I may not
come back to all this wonderful place,” he stopped and looked around the house with a
strange affection and sincerity, as though he were storing up the bright image of the room
in his mental world. He appreciated all of it.

The man stirred in his chair “Marcella is ill and she can’t come down,” he said.

“Ill?” the soldier said, frightened.

“She has the flu, but she’ll be alright.”

“I hope she’ll be alright.”

“We’ll tell her that you called,” the mother said.

“Thank you Mrs. Roberts,” he said. He walked across the room and put the book
and box of candies on the table. “I’ll leave these candies for Marcella. This small
book of poem is written by a Filipino who lived in this city. He was the first of my
people to write a book in English.”

The man felt the strong pride in the soldier’s voice. “We’ll give them to her,” he
said. “Tell her to get well soon,” the soldier said. “Tell her not to get flu anymore. Tell her
the weather is dangerous this year.” He walked to the door and the man followed him.
“Goodnight, Mrs. Roberts,” he said, and stepped out of the house. “I’ll walk with you to
the street,” the man said.

The rain had stopped falling and there was a misty moonlight in the trees. There
was a fresh smell in the air. The man and the soldier stood under a wide arc of light in the
street.

“I’m glad you feel that way sir,” the soldier said. The man gave his hand eagerly.
“Good luck young man,” he said. The Filipino soldier walked into the night. He did not
look back to see that the man was watching him walking away.
 The Faith of My Mother
By Carlos Bulosan

Editor's note: This story was originally published in FOLIO (formerlyLiving

Poetry), Vol. IV, No. 1 Autumn 1946 (editors: Margaret Dierkes & Henry Dierkes)
recovered by R. Grefalda and now reprinted here in Our Own Voice after 62 years.

My sister Marcela was sick for a long time with a mysterious disease. She went to
bed on her sixth birthday and stayed flat on her back for three years. She just looked
straight into the low ceiling and tears rolled down her face. She never made any noise
during the day, but at night we could hear her sobbing bitterly. There was nothing we
could do for her, so we turned away and tried to sleep.

Mother was always working in the fields and doing some chores in the house.
Sometimes Marcela would ask Mother to sit by her side. Mother would rest only for a few
hours, because when the dawn came, she was up again, cooking for my sister and
preparing to go to work. But one day when she came home from the public market she
found my sister walking in the yard as if she had never been sick. Mother put her load on
the ground and ran up to my sister and grabbed her with great tenderness. Then she
knelt on the ground and started to cry.

The neighbors came to the fence and hung on it with solemnity, for they had
shared the agony of my sister's illness. Mother carried Marcela in her arms and rushed
up the house. She ran from the living room to the kitchen, and back again, looking for
something she could not find. Finally she saw me sitting on the windowsill and caressing
Uncle Sergio's new fighting cock.

"Where is our santo, son?" she said (Santos are wooden figures of the saint and
the Holy Trinity carved by journeyman artists for the village houses.)

We had a santo, a wooden figure of Jesus on the Cross, but it had disappeared
when my brother Silvestre came home for a visit from Manila. I said, hoping father did not
sell it: "I didn't see it for a long time, Mother."

"Go to your uncle and borrow his santo," Mother said.

"Yes, Mother," I said, jumping off the windowsill. I ran down the ladder with the
cock in my hands. My uncle was not home. I took the santo from the niche in the wall and
carried it with the gamecock to our house.

The rooster had dirtied the face of St. Peter with its wastes, so Mother took it from
me and went to the kitchen. She filled a small wooden tub with water and washed
the santo with soap. Father suddenly came up the house feeling ungracious and mad.

"You sure take good care of that piece of wood while your husband walks in the
street like a stinking pig," he said.

"Why do you say such an unholy thing?" Mother said. She wiped the santo with
her skirt and went to the living room. She put the figure in the niche and lighted a candle.
 My sister Marcela knelt on the floor beside Mother, and they started to pray. When
Father saw that my sister could walk, he looked at me with cruel eyes. He looked as if it
was my fault that I did not tell him why Mother had to clean the  santo. His face changed
suddenly and inevitably, because he was also a religious man in his own way. Maybe he
was not as religious as Mother, but he felt grateful that my sister was well again.

Father knelt beside Mother and my sister, bowing his head low in sincere devotion
and even clapping his hand restfully under his wine-stained chin. There was nothing I
could do, so I knelt beside him with the gamecock in my arms. He looked sideways at the
cock, but Mother was already chanting the litany. I tried to concentrate on the holy beard
of St. Peter, but the rooster kept cackling and pecking at the floor. Perhaps the cock was
also praying because when the ceremony was over, it wiggled out of my arms and stood
on the floor for quite some time staring at the beard of St. Peter.

Mother looked at Father with great admiration and respect. She looked at me and
the gamecock, but there was doubt in her face. My sister got up and kissed Mother's
hands; then she kissed Father's hands and went to the kitchen. Father and Mother got up
and walked about the house with great holiness. I climbed down the ladder and walked in
the bright afternoon sun.

For quite some time there was great holiness in our house. The rains came and
the farmers started planting rice. Then the dry season came and the women and children
went to the fields and harvested the rice. The men hauled the rice bundles in small carts
and stacked them in their granaries. Then the hot days came and the women spread their
bundles in the sun to be dried, so that it would be easy to separate the husks from the
grains with wooden pestles. The men sat under the coconut trees and drank wine from
big earthen jars and talked about their women and children.

Toward the beginning of November, before the Christmas holidays occupied the
minds of the townspeople, peddlers from all over the island of Luzon started coming to
our Province. From Pampanga, a province to the south of Pangasinan, our province,
came cloth peddlers with long broad canes, and walked in our street for many days. From
the province of Ilocos Norte, in the northern part of the island came illiterate peddlers
selling prayer books and paper bound vernacular novels. And from Abra, another
province in the north, came men who sold plow handles, bolos, knives and other metal
implements that were necessary to the peasants in our province.

Then in the middle of December, when we were preparing for the holidays,
the santo peddlers with their wooden figures hanging on both ends of long poles that they
carried on their shoulders came to our town shouting their wares. The women untied their
handkerchiefs and counted their year's savings.

When the first santo peddler came to our street, Mother grabbed her money and
met him eagerly. The peddler bent his knees and let the pole slide off his shoulders. The
wooden figures stood on the ground. Mother picked up a small figure of St. Lourdes.

"How much?" she asked.

"Five pesos," the peddler said.

"It was only a peso ten years ago," Mother said.

 "Lady, that was ten years ago," the peddler said. "That was in my father's time. In
my grandfather's time, if you want to know, it was only ten centavos. And you could get it
for nothing sometimes because people were not hungry for money. The artists were
interested only in their art, but the worshippers were interested in the divinity of
the santo. From my grandfather's time to my time, however, many years of intensive
study in woodcarving have elapsed. Now you tell me that five pesos is too much for this
beautifully hand-carved figure of St. Lourdes, the patron saint of your province."

"You should have been a politician, uncle," I said. "You talk pompously and also
beautifully."

"Do you think so, son? The peddler said.

"Maybe you should have been a town crier or poet or something like that," I said.

"Yes, I believe what you said, son," he said. "We are born with a very special gift
for humanity, but nobody seems to care when you are not a politician. I took to carving
wooden figures because I can say anything I want to these mute things. When I am alone
in my shack in San Vicente-that is my town-I put my figures around the wall and talk to
them. St. Judas-are you surprised?-is the best listener because he has a guilty
conscience."

"They talk to you, too?" I asked.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you that they do," he said. Suddenly he looked at
Mother and said, "Lady, St. Agustin, the figure in your left hand, is six pesos. And that
one in your right, St. Joseph, is ten pesos."

"You sure know your coconuts," I said.

"I like selling better than carving, although I am a great artist," the peddler said. "I
am not a quiet man, but I was forced to silence by my work. Woodcarving needs deep
concentration of mind and body. Now I like shouting aloud to the world, because I feel as
though I were the herald of kingdom come."

"You should have been a preacher," I said. "I like your voice very much."
"Do you think I am honest enough to be a preacher, son? " he asked.
"I don't care if you are honest with the santos or not," I said. "But I think you've a holy
voice."

"Is there money in it?" he said.

"Yes, there is money in it," I said. "But there is more money in gambling."

The peddler grabbed me with affection. When the women in the neighborhood
started coming, he pushed me in the corner of the gate. I knew that he wanted me to stay
there and wait for him. I knew that he wanted to talk to me about gambling.

It was then that Father started coming down the road toward our house. He
stopped behind the women who were bargaining with the peddler over the prices of the
wooden figures. At first he seemed bored and disinterested, but he pushed his way closer
when he saw Mother holding the figure of the Holy Trinity.
 "How much?" Mother asked, rubbing the nose of the Virgin Mary."
"Twenty pesos," the peddler said.

Mother trembled a little. "That is too much money," she said. "Besides, I have only
a very little faith."

"Do you think twenty pesos is too much for the Mother and Father of God-and the
great Child Jesus Himself?" he shouted, gesticulating wildly with his hands.

"I have only four pesos." Mother said.

"Lady, how long did you earn that money?" the peddler said.
"One whole year," Mother said.

"Well, you can have St. Lucas," the peddler said. "He is worth four pesos."

"I don't remember him," Father said suddenly." "Is he a holy man?"

"Well, kind of, " the peddler said.

"Who is he, anyway?" Father asked.

"Oh, he is a man in San Vicente," the peddler said.

"You have a holy man in San Vicente, the town of santomakers?" Father asked
suggestively.

"Well, this man is a town character," the peddler said. "He is always doing some
mischief here and there. I thought of making a santo while he is still alive, so that it will
not be so hard for him when he goes."

"I like that sentiment very much," Father said. "I am a town character too. Do you
think you can make me a santo before I go?"

"It depends," the peddler said, evading the attentive ears of the women. Then he
whispered something to Father.

"It is a good racket," Father said.

The peddler turned around and smiled at me. Then the women paid the peddler
and went away rubbing their figures with their skirts. Mother was still undecided.

"Lady, are you waiting for kingdom come?" the peddler said.

"Three pesos for St. Mary," Mother said.

"Ten pesos," the peddler said.

"Three and a half," Mother said. "I need the fifty centavos for rice."

"Lady, it is five and I will never go down," he said.

"Maybe St. Mary likes to be sold for three and a half," Father suggested.
 The peddler pondered over it. "I think you are right," he said. "All right, three and a
half."

Mother paid the peddler and went to the house. When everybody was gone,
Father saw me hiding in the corner of the fence. The peddler told me to come out and
gave me a figure of Christ on the Cross. He was completely nude.

"You like it, boy?" the peddler asked.

"You don't need that santo, son," Father said, grabbing it away from me. "That is
only for grown men. You still don't understand certain ways of the world."

"Do you know this holiest of the unholy, boy? The peddler asked.

"He is my youngest son," Father said.

"You have a fortune in this boy," the peddler said, twinkling with delight. Then he
grabbed me affectionately in his arms and said: "Now, tell me more about the gambling
racket." 
 The Soldier Came Marching Summary
By Carlos Bulosan

“I was a month old when the first World War was declared, but the sound of
distant gun shook away my childhood. I grew up quickly and found that my brother
Polon was one of the 25,000 volunteers in the Philippine National Guard that
fought in Europe. Suddenly the war came and suddenly it ended. Then my
childhood was gone forever.”

The war had just ended and the soldiers had gone back to their hometowns. The
war veterans quickly lapsed into lethargy, spending whole day sleeping and being idle. To
help them, The father put up a wine store which catered to “Ex-Service Men Only.”

One day, the servant of Don Rico, the richest man in the town, went to the store
and ordered some wine, but the Father refused to serve him. Don Rico himself later came
and threatened the Father, but the old man was not to be so easily intimidated. The wine
store was later burned by one of Don Rico’s men. In retaliation, the soldiers mobilized
many other veterans from neighboring towns and together they stood under Don Rico’s
house and sang the whole day, “disturbing his sleep and his conscience.” Seeing that
neither his personal power nor the power of the town council which was under his control
could do anything about the situation, Don Rico finally yielded and ended up paying for
the damages and expenses of the soldiers. Later he “became insane and hanged himself
with a rope. His tongue was sticking out when the servants found him.” This is of course a
case of poetic justice, since justice for the poor in actual life did not come easily in the
society which Bulosan knew. The author’s sympathy is clearly for the less fortunate ones,
and the contempt he has for exploitative men of wealth and power is nowhere more
starkly pictured than in his grotesque description of Don Rico’s death.