12 English

Weights and measure. Since  Rosario doesn't  have  much to do during the late afternoon, she  goes to  the store  to buy  something.  Even though she doesn't need it,  she justifies it in her conscience as a married  woman with  children .   When she arrived  today,  they  were choosing  seed potatoes.  Each worker was taking what he needed   according   to the  fanegas  he had   to sow;    The   twenty-fourth  part of  the acre was not considered, since the big sacks are sold by quintals and not   by   kilos. This year  they  are  expensive and no  one  wants to sow more than two fanegas, because even that much will eat up a few hundred    pesos.

There are also men with big jugs for wine.  The sale of wine for home use  is  almost   always  done by    4   liters,   8    liters  or 16   liters.  The  purchase requires concentration.  First, they taste a half liter, or a  neto  as   the elders   say. The   most   temperate ones  are happy   with  three  or  four glasses.  It's a job to go for the wine;  the jug is heavy and sometimes you  have to walk a  whole  league,  but it has the advantage  that at each kilometer, or less in the case of a problem, you can stop and confirm the quality  of the      article. Someone  would gladly help  the tavern owner, who always goes around with containers changing wine from one barrel   to  another.

Rosario bought a meter's length of rubber, even though a quarter of it   might   be in  excess;  a  spool,   and a  half  dozen of  needles.   Her   mother -in-law, who  is deceased, used to buy things by a 'stick  measure' and by   the sixth part of   a  stick.   If the bill  was greater   than a   peseta,   she haggled  ten cents by  ten cents until she got them to discount by one real,    then she  left   satisfied.  Rosario,    with so    few    things,   didn't spend so much and after a little conversation with a neighbor, who had come for a liter   of oil   and a  pound  of sugar, she  left to  make   the afternoon snack.