018. The Strip of Skin (La Tira De Piel)
A man had two sons, one of eighteen years old and the other sixteen. One day, the younger one said to his father:
[Father,] I want to leave home to [go] look for a position as a servant.
The father consented and the boy went [away] to see where he could find a house to serve in.
He found a master in which he agreed to work as a servant for, but the master made him sign a document in which it said that they wouldn’t settle accounts [e.g. make and receive payments for the work being done] until the cuckoo sang and, moreover, that whoever among them two that got angry first would have to remove a strip of skin from the nape of his neck to his foot.
The boy went to work [tilling] the lands and at noon a maid arrived to give him lunch. She brought lunch in a cooking pot and also carried a plate [with her], and she said to him that, on behalf [by orders] of his master, he had to eat without transferring the food from the pot to the plate and without opening the pot. The boy, of course, said:
That is impossible [to do], so you can take the lunch back and I will speak with the master.
So the maid carried it back. In the evening, when he returned to the master’s house, the master asked him:
Are you angry?
And the boy responded:
No, I’m not angry.
And the master made him sleep on the floor, in a corner [of the house].
The next morning the same thing happened again and the maid again brought him lunch with the same set of conditions, so the boy did not have lunch this time either. In the evening, when he returned from work, the master again asked him:
Are you angry?
And the boy replied this time:
Yes señor, I am angry, because you made me work without any food and you made me sleep on the floor.
And the master said to him:
Well, if you are angry, you owe me a strip of skin according to what our agreement says.
And he removed it from his body.
The boy returned to his father’s house in much pain and hurt and told [them] what had happened to him. And the older brother, angry to see that his little brother had been stripped of his skin, asked to tell him how everything had come to be, and once he had learned all about it, he said:
Very well, now tell me where is this house so I can go there and you will see how things turn out this time.
So the older brother went to the place where the little one [had] served and offered to serve the master [owner]. The master set forth the same conditions that he had offered the younger brother, and the young man agree to them.
The next day he went to the field to work, but he sat beneath a tree and did nothing but wait. At twelve, the maid came with the food and she told him to neither transfer the food from the pot to the plate nor to take the lid off of the pot. The young man said [to her]:
That’s the way it should be!
and with a sharp stone he struck the pot until he broke it, and with that he took the food out and ate it.
He returned to the house in the evening and when he saw the master, he said:
Are you angry?
and the other said to him:
No, but…
And he saw that dinner was ready to be served, and without further ado, he wolfed down everything and left the others with nothing to eat. And he said to the master:
Are you angry now?
And the master replied:
No, but…
They then went upstairs to sleep and he climbed into the master’s bed. And the master said to him:
Why, what are you doing here?
And the young man said:
Are you angry [now]?
And the master replied:
No, but…
The next day, the master told him to go fetch two oxen that he had in the stable and to yoke them, but the oxen had to come with one smiling and the other bowing. So the young man quietly got up in the morning, went to the stable and, without wasting any time, cut off the snout of the first ox with a knife so that they’d see its teeth, and cut off half of the front legs of the second. And with this done, he took them outside and said to the master:
You see, my master, here I bring you the oxen, with one smiling and the other bowing.
The master put his hands to his head and said:
But, you brute! What have you done to the oxen?
And the young man asked him then:
Are you angry?
No, but…
Another day went by and this time the master asked him to go and sell some mares at the fair. And so the young man went with the mares, which were fourteen in number, and each mare had a bell on it. And he sold them all, except one, which was white, for the others were all black. Then he was left with the bells and the mare and returned home [with them]. On his way home he saw a storm cloud coming over him and, without thinking about it twice, he pulled out the knife, slashed open the mare and protected himself under it while it was pouring down. When it stopped raining, thirteen black and one white vultures appeared and they began to eat the dead mare. And the young man trapped them and put a bell on the neck of each, he [then] scared them away and grabbed the white one, then went to where the master was and shouted out loud:
Miracle! the mares had transformed into vultures and this white one, which I was taking to the fair, had turned into a vulture, too!
The master was suspicious of this and began to reprimand him, but the young man said:
Are you angry, señor master?
And the master said:
No, but …
The master talked over with his wife to see what they could do, because he saw that he was losing to the [new] servant.
And the cuckoo has yet to sing
said the wife.
And they both decided that the wife would climb up a tree which grew next to the house and sing as if she was a cuckoo, to which she imitated quite well. So they agreed to this and the wife climbed up the tree at night and began to sing as a cuckoo. Then the master shouted to the servant:
Eh, the cuckoo is singing now! Do you hear it?
And the young man said:
Cuckoo at this hours? This seems strange to me, so let me go and see if it is a male cuckoo or a female cuckoo.
He grabbed his shotgun, discharged and the wife fell dead to the ground. And the master jumped up [wildly]:
Now I am truly mad, for you have killed the one I loved most in this house.
And the young man said:
That’s all right, the strip of skin.
And he tore off a strip of skin from the nape of the neck to the foot, plus a thousand reales in wages, and returned home with great joy to relate everything to his father and his brother.
—– VOCABULARY —–
Abrir en canal – open up
Afilado – sharp, pointed
Afuera – outside, outdoors
Ajustarse – to fit; (to agree) to match; to adapt to, to adjust
Almozar – to have lunch
Amo – master, owner, boss
Arrancar – (to remove by force) to pull out
Arreglar – to fix, to repair, to mend; (to organize) to arrange; (to clean) to tidy
Arreglar cuentas – settle, settle accounts
Así ha de ser – so it shall be
Bastante – quite, a lot of
Buitre – vulture
Canto – (stone) pebble
Catorce – fourteen
Cena – dinner
Cencerro – cowbell
Conforme – (content) happy, satisfied, agreed
Contar – (to list) to count; (to narrate) to tell
Cuco – cuckoo
Cuello – neck
Dar con – to find, to track down (a person)
Deber – to owe, should
Delantera – lead, front
Demás – other, the rest
De parte de – on behalf of
Destapar – to open, to take the lid off
Diente – tooth, fang
Diluviar – to pour (rain)
Disparar – to discharge, to shoot
Dolorido – sore, in pain
Enfadarse – to get angry
Enseñarse – to teach, to show
Enterarse – to find out; to know; to understand
Entero/a – whole, entire
Escopeta – shotgun
Espantar – to frighten, to scare
Estimar – to respect, to value
Faltar – (to be missing) to be absent
Feria – exposition, fair
Firmar – to sign
Lastimado – hurt
Lista – (thin piece) strip; list; ready
Lo que pasa – what happens
Milagro – miracle
Morro – snout; lip, mouth
Navaja – razor, penknife
Ni corto ni perezoso – without thinking twice
Nubarrón – storm cloud
Nuca – nape, back of the neck
Perezoso – lazy, sloth
Protegerse – to protect oneself; to shelter
Puchero – cooking pot
Pues nada – well, okay, anyway
Quadra – animal quarters, stable; ward, barracks
Que aquel que – that the one who, that he who
Que tener que hacer – have to do
Regañar – to reprimand, to scold
Rincón – corner, nook
Sin más ni más – just
Sonreír – to smile
Tampoco – neither
Tirar – to discharge, to fire, to shoot
Tranquilamente – peacefully, calmly
Trecer – thirteen
Uncir – to yoke
Venia – permission, consent; (forgiveness) pardon; bowing
Verse – to see oneself; to find oneself
Yegua – mare
Zampar – to wolf down