FROM AN ISLAND TO ANOTHER

I was illiterate, like the majority of people from my generation, but that did not mean I was not clever and intelligent.

For example, when it was time to sell manure from our garden, I would sit at the kitchen table and put one kernel of corn for every basketful of manure going through the house to be loaded onto the cart out parked on the street.

Then, I would ask one of the men to count off, out loud, all the kernels placed on the table and tell me how much he owed me.

I knew how to count the "escudos" and the bills. He could not fool me.