Casa Francisco de Lacerda, Fajã da Fragueira, Calheta S. Jorge, Açores
My dear Francisco,
(…)
We were going to spend two of the summer months - August and September - in our little house in Fragueira, where I finally came to settle. You often slipped away from the house to go digging in a small piece of land bordering the line of reeds that gave onto the coast of the sea. There I found you many times in shirttails, digging, or sitting to rest and eating the piece of bread that mother gave you to eat.
You finally managed - with much fatigue! - to make a small vegetable patch where you sowed potatoes. The crop yielded close to a quarter of the harvest, which you sold us for 60 shillings. It was the first money you could legitimately call your own because it was earned with the sweat of your brow.
Soon after - moved by ambition - you began to dig another patch of land further down, which you called Queimada de Baixo, to distinguish it from the first lot, that you had named Queimada (scorched), certainly because of the heat that you suffered there. Both were licked away by the sea, but the memory, that remains!
Even today when I pass by, I see you portrayed as you were then, in the mirror of imagination, digging or resting, with the blonde hair blown by the afternoon breeze.... After those two summer months, we returned to Ribeira Seca.
There was not a day that you wouldn’t go to your grandparents' house, naturally fishing for some candy. You had learned, I don’t know where, a macabre little song, that you sang, dancing and doing with your right hand across your left arm the gesture of someone who plays the fiddle.
(…) ‘till the next «S. Miguel».
Your father,
J. C.
20th of August of 1908
Excerpt of the father J.C. transcribed from the book Cartas (Letters) to Francisco de Lacerda from Teresa and J.M Bettencourt da Câmara, published by the Regional Department of Education in 1988
GPS Coordinates: H3R2+3J Fajã da Fragueira
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My dear Francisco,
(…)
We were going to spend two of the summer months - August and September - in our little house in Fragueira, where I finally came to settle. You often slipped away from the house to go digging in a small piece of land bordering the line of reeds that gave onto the coast of the sea. There I found you many times in shirttails, digging, or sitting to rest and eating the piece of bread that mother gave you to eat.
You finally managed - with much fatigue! - to make a small vegetable patch where you sowed potatoes. The crop yielded close to a quarter of the harvest, which you sold us for 60 shillings. It was the first money you could legitimately call your own because it was earned with the sweat of your brow.
Soon after - moved by ambition - you began to dig another patch of land further down, which you called Queimada de Baixo, to distinguish it from the first lot, that you had named Queimada (scorched), certainly because of the heat that you suffered there. Both were licked away by the sea, but the memory, that remains!
Even today when I pass by, I see you portrayed as you were then, in the mirror of imagination, digging or resting, with the blonde hair blown by the afternoon breeze.... After those two summer months, we returned to Ribeira Seca.
There was not a day that you wouldn’t go to your grandparents' house, naturally fishing for some candy. You had learned, I don’t know where, a macabre little song, that you sang, dancing and doing with your right hand across your left arm the gesture of someone who plays the fiddle.
(…) ‘till the next «S. Miguel».
Your father,
J. C.
20th of August of 1908
Excerpt of the father J.C. transcribed from the book Cartas (Letters) to Francisco de Lacerda from Teresa and J.M Bettencourt da Câmara, published by the Regional Department of Education in 1988
GPS Coordinates: H3R2+3J Fajã da Fragueira
