"There is to be a free primary school opened this winter, with a good teacher, in our village where we go on market-days. I want you to attend the school, Jose."
"But who will do the work at home, Antonio? You will soon go back to America, I think." Jose never forgot, even in the joy of having Antonio at home, that this big brother might soon go away again.
Antonio was silent a long time. Then he said slowly, looking off to the far Penha Mountain: "Jose, how would you feel if I told you I will stay at home?"
"I should be very happy, oh, so happy, brother."
Jose raised himself upon his elbow and looked eagerly into Antonio's face: "Do you really mean it?" he asked.
"Then I _can_ go to school, and learn as much as you know?"
Antonio laughed a little sadly: "It is not very much that I know, from books. Most of the small amount I know is what I have learned from men and things in America, and from the newspapers. But I will study in the evenings this winter. I would rather have an education than be a millionaire. There was a school in the village when I was your age. The new school will be better than that."
"Why will it be better, Antonio?" Jose asked. He knew nothing of schools except that they were places where children could learn to read from books.
"We had old, dull books to study, and we had to wait, all in one class, until every boy and every girl had learned the lesson. But Senhor Castillo has told me that in the new school there will be new books, and there will be more than one class, so that the boys and girls who are quickest to learn can go ahead of the others."
"I am afraid I shall not be quickest to learn, Antonio."
"Try as hard as you can, Jose. Then, in the future, perhaps you will be one of the rulers of Portugal. The time is coming in this country when education will mean power."
Jose listened with close attention. And although he could not understand Antonio's words, he remembered them. A moment later he asked: "May I be the one to tell the family that you will stay at home with us, Antonio? I know the father and mother have felt very anxious about this."
"Yes, Jose, you may tell them this evening. Now take a last look toward Guimarães. We must start for home. It is nearly the sunset hour, and darkness will soon follow. The path is so steep that we need light to tread it."