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For young people

Fried potatoes and peppers

Tags: Education, The Escriva family, For younger readers, Character, Discipline
© Paulina Mönckeberg
© Paulina Mönckeberg
But the Little Watch-mender’s job did not end there. In fact it was only just beginning.

When he got home from school Josemaria ran into the house shouting, “Mom, Mom, I’m back!”

And he burst into the kitchen in search of something to eat, emerging in triumph with two or three french fries in his hands.

But the Little Watch-mender’s biggest battle was at meal-times. One day when he was still very small he refused to be put in his high chair, because he wanted to sit in a big chair like grown-ups.

“I won’t! I won’t!” he kept shouting. His father had to give him a smack – for the first and last time – to make him behave.

When the meal included peppers there was trouble, because Josemaria refused to eat them.

“I don’t like it!”

His sister Carmen liked everything, and she said politely, “Mom, this is delicious!”

“No! No!” said Josemaria. “I don’t like it!”

In fact he never even tried it. The maid said, “Mrs Escriva, he doesn’t want this. Shall we give him something else?”

“No. If he doesn’t want it, then he can leave it.”

His parents didn’t scold him, but they never gave him anything different from the rest.

“And how I loved peppers afterwards!” recalled Josemaria in later life.


From © Vida y venturas de un borrico de noria, Paulina Monckeberg, (“The Life and Adventures of a Water-Wheel Donkey and His Little Watch-Mender”) Madrid: Ediciones Palabra, S.A., 2004