nos calentábamos.
     De manera que, continuando la posada y conversación, mi madre vino a darme un negrito muy bonito, el cual yo brincaba y ayudaba a calentar. Y me acuerdo que estando el negro de mi padrastro trebejando con el mozuelo, como el niño veía a mi madre y a mí blancos, y a él no, huía de él con miedo para mi madre, y señalando con el dedo, decía: «¡Madre, coco!» Respondió él riendo: «¡Hideputa!»
     Yo, aunque bien muchacho, noté aquella palabra de mi hermanico, y dije entre mí: «¡Cuántos debe de haber en el mundo que huyen de otros, porque no se ven a sí mismos!»
     Quiso nuestra fortuna que la conversación del Zaide,⁵ que así se llamaba, llegó a oídos del mayordomo, y hecha pesquisa, se halló que la mitad por medio de la cebada, que para las bestias le daban, hurtaba. Salvados, leña, almohazas, mandiles, y las mantas y sábanas de los caballos hacía perdidas. Cuando otra cosa no tenía, las bestias desherraba, y con todo esto acudía a mi madre para criar a mi hermanico. No nos maravillemos de un clérigo ni de un fraile porque el uno hurta de los pobres y el otro de casa para sus devotas y para ayuda de otro tanto, cuando a un pobre esclavo el amor le animaba a esto.
     Y se le probó cuanto digo, y aun más, porque a mí, con amenazas, me preguntaban, y como niño respondía. Descubría cuanto sabía con miedo, hasta ciertas herraduras que por mandado de mi madre a un herrero vendí.
     Al triste de mi padrastro azotaron y pringaron. A mi madre pusieron pena por justicia, sobre el acostumbrado centenario, que en casa del sobredicho Comendador no entrase ni al lastimado Zaide en la suya acogiese.

    Por no echar la soga tras el caldero,⁶ la triste se esforzó y cumplió la sentencia. Por evitar peligro y quitarse de malas lenguas, se fue a servir a los que al presente vivían en el mesón de la Solana. Y allí, padeciendo mil importunidades, se acabó de criar mi hermanico hasta que supo

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the winter firewood that warmed us.
     In such a way as this, continuing the hospitality and idle talk, my mother came to giving me a cute little black boy who I bounced and helped to warm. And I remember my ill-starred, dark-skinned stepfather playing with the little boy, but as the child saw my mother and me white, and his father not, he fled fearfully from him to my mother and pointing his finger said: "Mother, bogeyman!" Laughing, the man replied,: "You little bastard!"
     I, although only a boy, noted that word from my little brother, and said to myself: "How many must there be in the world that flee from others, because they don't look the same as us!"
     It was our fortune that talk of Zaide,⁵ as he was called, reached the ears of the majordomo and, by making inquiries, it was found that on average half the barley they were giving him for the animals, was being stolen. Bran, firewood, curry combs, leather aprons, and the horses' blankets and sheets had been lost. And when he had not another thing, he unshod the animals and rushed to my mother with all this in order to provide for my little brother. We aren't astonished at a cleric or friar, because the one steals for the poor and the other for his monastery, its devotees, and in aid of his co-workers nor when love inspires a poor slave to this.
     And it was proved of him all I'm saying, and even more, because using threats they asked me and, like a child, I answered. Through intimidation, it was discovered how much I knew about certain horseshoes that I, on my mothers's orders, sold to a blacksmith.
     They whipped and tortured my sorrowful stepfather, rendering bacon grease into his wounds. For justice sake, they imposed on my mother, in addition to the usual hundred lashes, the penalty that she was not to enter the house of the aforementioned Comendador, nor was she to shelter the pitiful Zaide in hers.
     Not to toss the rope in after the bucket,⁶ the sorry woman strived and completed her sentence. In order to shun danger and avoid slander, she went to serve those who at present lived at the La Solana Inn. And there, enduring  a thousand indecent proposals, she finished bringing up my little brother until