Cigarettes

On my eight years old, my brother (four years old) and me, we did what the devil, himself, never would think of.

One day, me, my brother and my mate Domingos, we got cigarettes (and matches), I don’t remember how. That we already subtracted cassava to the natives and ate this, concealed, it wasn’t very bad.  That we used to go up the cashew-trees and mango trees, yes, it was bad because the fruits were delicious and, called at table, we ate nothing and our parents roared at our ears. How we screwed up our courage with the cigarettes I can’t, today, guess!! We started by wandering till we found a spot far of all the people of the village. There we smoked, we coughed badly, we talked of all and nothing, but when we came back, home, it was the end of the world to ourselves. My mother felt an odd smell and passing by my little brother she sniffed at him and called my father that, astonished, got a brush upon the table on the back. Not long ago, and in that time, at school, we were punished with blows of a wooden ruler, on our hands, and the brush was for that purpose but on the wooden side! My father summoned my little brother, that was four years old, and got the cigarettes saying I want to see you smoking! My little brother smoked, a little, with the cigarette between his two fingers and my father was really astounded! We, both, got our ears in fire with all kind of threats from my dad. But Domingos, at home, got an amount of beating! In his house the discipline, of many brothers and sisters, was rigorously kept by his father!

That day another shame was set. With the matches we got the dried savannah in fire pretty near the village!!