17. The mail coach of Cruz Machado

This heavy tarped wagon hitched with four horses was the mail coach of Cruz Machado. It would make the trip weekly, leaving Monday morning only to return Friday night.

How we waited its arrival with impatience! As soon as dinnertime, we would be all ears, trying to perceive – among the rumblings of the ending day, the barking of a dog from a distant farm, the chatting of drunkards lingering in front of the bar, the cackling of hen regaining their roost, the commotion from the kitchen – the jangling of the bells and the cracking of the whip, once the hilltop passed, burst in the falling evening like the last noisy tuning of a countryside symphony.​