Well, I continued helping my father in his furniture factory. He was doing very well and I was very happy while working with him. A few months passed by, when some other people began to make the same furniture. My father used to order some of the materials from Chicago. One of them was a roll of wire which he used to make springs for the beds.

T his wire came by boat and while they were traveling, the salty water and air damaged some of the rolls and they became rusty. By the time they reached us, my father couldn’t use some of the rolls so he placed them in the backyard to be disposed of. One day I was standing in the backyard when a man about 35 years old passed by and took a look in the yard and saw some of the wire rolls. He saw me standing there and asked me, "If you give me one of the wire rolls I will bring you an owl that I have back home in a cage." I accepted, and since it was useless for us I gave him the roll of wire and he left very happy. Well believe me, I never saw that man again. So he made a big fool of me and that ends the story of the owl!!

While I was in Puerto Rico, my friend gave me a beautiful dog as a gift. He was very friendly but my family never liked animals in the house so I had to keep him outside, especially at night. I became very attached to him and he used to follow me wherever I went. But one day he disappeared and I was getting worried and wondering what had happened to him. Our house was very close to a power plant where they produced the electricity for the city of Mayaguez. In front of the plant was kept very bright and there were a few benches where people went to sit, relax and socialize. I was walking in front of the plant, when I saw three boys. I heard one of them talking about a dog. When I heard that, I slowed down and sat on a bench next to them and tried to listen to what they were saying. One boy was telling the others that he had a dog in his house tied up with a piece of rope. It might not have been the one I was looking for but I was suspicious and started walking very fast to tell my friend about what I had just heard. My friend said, “We better hurry before they take off." When we got there they were already climbing on one of the oxen wagons. We waited for the next one and followed them. These wagons were used to carry sugar canes from the farms to the Mayaguez railroad station where they delivered the load, then they returned to the farms.

These boys came on one of these wagons and they were sitting on one of the benches waiting for an empty wagon to pass by. These boys knew the drivers of the wagons since we found out later that they lived in the sugar cane farm. They jumped on one of them. We got back just in time to see them and my friend and I did the same in the following wagon that passed by.

We never took our eyes off the wagon in front of us so we kept going until they were getting close to the farm. There was a big gate and one of the wagon drivers got off and opened it. That’s when he saw us sitting in the back of the other wagon. He told us to get off. They continued their way into the farm. We were a little stubborn so when they went further, we passed to the other side by going under the gate. Once we were in, we saw the boys getting off the wagon and into their house. We went there and spoke to their mother. The boys came and admitted to taking the dog and tying it up in the back of the house. It was definitely my dog because I called him by his name (Clarin) and he jumped on me and I held him for ten minutes while he was wagging his tail. We started to walk back home, which was very far but we got home almost all the way carrying my lost dog. When we arrived home, even my mother was very happy to see Clarin with me. It was a very happy ending.

When I was living on Barcelona Street in the city of Mayaguez the house was built on uneven ground; the front part was level with the street but the ground was lower in the back which made the back yard deeper. Anyone who wanted to go to the back yard had to go down five steps from the sidewalk. The street was a hill going from Mendez Vigo to Rio Yaguez (Yaguez River).