Read Online The Children of Sanchez by Oscar Lewis - Free Book Online

the street again.
    But these difficulties help one to become a man, to appreciate the true value of things. One learns what it means to earn a living with the sweat of one’s brow. To grow up away from your parents helps you to become mature.
    When I was at the store, I had met a boy who had a relative who was a janitor in a building downtown. I asked for a note to this man and went to see him. I showed him the note. “Sure, why not? The building is empty,” he said. “Pick out any place you like and put your box there.” I stayed there without a
centavo
and once more I began to look for work.
    That’s when I found a job in the La Gloria restaurant. They paidme twelve
pesos
a month and three meals. I went in with my package of clothes and began to do everything they asked me. I was eager to work and while lifting a heavy package I got a hernia. I went to the toilet and saw a little lump here in my groin. I pressed on it and it hurt. I went to a doctor and he told me I had a hernia. I was lucky because the doctor belonged to the General Hospital and had me admitted. Now what about my job? I spoke to the owner, a Spaniard, a decent man, a real human being, I asked permission to go and be operated. They operated on me quickly but then I did a stupid thing. After the operation it hurt near the stitches and so I lifted the bandage and touched it and infected myself. Instead of being in the hospital for two weeks, I was there for five weeks.
    When I got out I went to the restaurant and found someone at my job. But the owner took me back. Yes, I’ve worked there for over thirty years, and I’ve rarely missed a day. For the first fifteen years, I worked on the inside as a general helper and learned to bake bread and make ice cream. I worked fourteen to fifteen hours a day. Later, I began to do the shopping for the restaurant and I became their food buyer. When I began to work I earned eighty
centavos
a day. Now after thirty years, I earn the minimum wage of eleven
pesos
a day. But I could never live on this wage alone.
    In thirty years I’ve rarely missed a day of work. Even when I’m sick I go. It seems that work is medicine for me. It makes me forget my troubles. And I like my work. I like all the walking I have to do and I enjoy speaking to the market vendors. I know them all after these many years of buying fruits, vegetables, cheese, butter and meats. I look for the best buys and all that. One has to know about buying, because each fruit has its season, no? Like melons. They’re getting good at this time and I can buy them. The early melons were bad. They come from different places, from Morelos, from Michoacán, Cortázar. The ones from Guanajuato are very good; also the yellow ones from Durango. The same with oranges, they come from all over the Republic. Vegetables, too. The best avocados come from Atlixco and Silao, but they send most of those to the United States. The same with tomatoes. One must observe much to learn to know fruits and to be able to buy.
    I buy six hundred
pesos
’ worth of food for the restaurant each day. They give me the money in the morning and I pay cash for eachpurchase. There are no bills or receipts. I keep my own accounts and hand in a list of expenses each day.
    I get to the restaurant each morning at seven to open the iron shutters. Then I work inside for a while, have breakfast and leave for the market at nine-thirty. Two boys assist me and they cart the purchases back to the restaurant. I get back at about one-thirty and usually there is something missing, so I run to the market again. I go back to the restaurant at three o’clock, have lunch and leave about four to look after my pigs, to sell lottery tickets and to visit my daughter Marta and the children.
    My work companions at the restaurant think well of me and appreciate me because I am the oldest employee in the establishment. We joke and tease a lot and this, too, is a distraction. I’ve always behaved myself and gotten on