CHAPTER II

My Schooling in Biñan

Biñan is a town about one and one-half hour's drive from my own town,

Kalamba. My father was born in Biñan, and he wished me to go there to

continue the study of Latin, which I had just begun. He sent me over

one Sunday in the care of my brother. The parting from my family was

tearful on the side of my parents and my sisters, but I was nine years

old and managed to hide my own tears. We reached Biñan at nightfall. We

went to an aunt's house where I was to live. When the moon came up,

a cousin took me around the town. Biñan appeared to me large and

wealthy but neither attractive nor cheerful.

My brother left me after he presented me to the schoolmaster, who,

it seemed, had been his own teacher. The schoolmaster was a tall,

thin man with a long neck and a sharp nose. His body leaned slightly

forward. He wore a shirt of sinamay that had been woven by the deft

fingers of Batangas women. He knew Latin and Spanish grammar by heart;

but his severity, I believe now, was too great. This is all that I

remember of him. His classroom was in his own house, only some thirty

meters from my aunt's home.

When I entered the classroom for the first time, he said to me:

"You, do you speak Spanish?"

"A little, sir," I answered.

"Do you know Latin?"

"A little, sir," I again answered.

Because of these answers, the teacher's son, who was the worst boy in

the class, began to make fun of me. He was some years my elder and

was taller than I, yet we had a tussle. Somehow or other, I don't

know how, I got the better of him. I bent him down over the class

benches. Then I let him loose, having hurt only his pride. After this,

possibly because of my small size, my schoolmates thought me a clever

wrestler. On going from the class one boy challenged me. He offered

me my hold, but I lost and came near breaking my head on the sidewalk.

I do not want to take up time with telling about the beatings I

got, nor shall I attempt to say how it hurt when I received the

first ruler blow on my hand. I used to win in the competitions,

for no one happened to be better than I. I made the most of these

successes. But in spite of the reputation I had of being a good boy,

rare were the days in which my teacher did not call me up to receive

five or six blows on the hand. When I went out with my companions,

they jokingly called me nicknames. But individually they used to

be so kind to me that I thought little of their teasings. A few of

them were very good and always treated me well. Among these few was

a second cousin of mine. Later, some of them were my schoolmates in

Manila and then it became my turn to tease.

Near the house of my teacher, Justiniano Aquin Cruz, lived his

father-in-law, generally called Juancho. Juancho was an aged artist

who let me help him with his paintings. I had already such a liking

for this art that our schoolmates called José Guevarra, another pupil,

and myself the class painters.