Joe Joe &apos;s notice-board . by B A McPhee . un paquete de cigarillos , sen&amp;oacute;r , said the man with the small cloth cap , the white arms and the cheery tourist smile . you mean a packet of cigarettes , Joe Joe replied in English , first regretting his abruptness , then on instant reflection not regretting it but thinking that perhaps he should have been even more curt . these tourists were trying on one &apos;s patience at times , with their vague ill-pronounced Spanish and their standard benign smiles . Joe Joe had once thought of putting up a notice reading a little English spoken here . he had actually obtained the board , and his friend Jos&amp;eacute; Puerett&amp;eacute; had gallantly volunteered to paint it for him free of cost . they had set to work early one evening , Jos&amp;eacute; with a large tin of purple paint , which he said he &apos;d found on the wharf , and a strong brush borrowed from Carlo Berrano , the owner of the only hardware shop in Pasto Del Sol . however , the word spoken had presented an unsurmountable problem . Joe Joe had to admit that the spelling of the word was beyond him , and he knew no one that night who could help him in any way . so the work had stopped there ; for Jos&amp;eacute; had to get the paint back to the wharf before morning , in case , as he said , the person who owns it wants to use it . in point of fact , Joe Joe was glad that the notice-board had never been completed and that it was instead cast into the back of his shop with the empty wine-bottles and the vegetable-bags - dust-covered and useless . he had discussed the matter at length with Sen&amp;oacute;r Juarez , who had once been on the town council and who was able ( so it was said ) to combine aesthetic appreciation with a fine business brain - a rare quality in any man . it was also widely known that Sen&amp;oacute;r Juarez had composed a poem , and a few close friends of his had heard this poem recited , but only after a lot of persuasion on their part and a lot of vinos on the part of Sen&amp;oacute;r Juarez . Sen&amp;oacute;r Juarez had advised that it was unsound practice to deprive a tourist of the pleasure of trying to speak a little Spanish . he had been told once , he said , that some English tourists took courses in Spanish especially for their annual holidays , and these people must be humoured and encouraged to use this knowledge of which they were secretly very proud . if they were n&apos;t pampered in this way they could find no justification for a fortnight &apos;s idleness in the sun , and indeed their main sense of purpose was destroyed - they thereby suffered a slump in morale and concluded that Pasto Del Sol was an ungrateful place and would determine to go to Italy for their holidays next year . although Joe Joe could not understand all of what Sen&amp;oacute;r Juarez had said , there was no doubt that one should accept the advice of an experienced and educated man , and especially one who had been on the town council and had written a poem . life was difficult , Joe Joe reflected . Sen&amp;oacute;r Juarez was not afflicted with a temper such as his , nor did he run a little shop which , during the summer , was often filled with tourist people who all smiled at you widely in the same tourist way , and expected you to smile widely back at them in such a manner as to indicate that you were pleased that they had smiled at you . Joe Joe made up his mind to see Father Brenes at the little church on the hill about his problem . it was n&apos;t that he liked burdening Father Brenes with his minor worries , but the good and kind Father had assisted him once before about the same thing , and had n&apos;t he said , if this occurs again , Joe Joe , then please come to see me : I &apos;m always ready to see one of our little flock . that was the time his wife Maria had called him an under-grown donkey and after , when he had restrained himself from saying anything in reply , she had thrown a melon at him , and this when his back was turned and he was looking out of the window for guidance . then he had all but lost his temper . as he said to Father Brenes at the time , I nearly swore at her , Father . it was only by clasping the window-sill and clenching my teeth that I saved myself from uttering a blasphemous word . you did right , my son , Father Brenes had said . you did right to clench your teeth and clasp the window-sill and utter not a word . but you were wrong in even contemplating using such a word , because the proper Christian attitude is one of patience , tolerance and understanding , and two wrongs do n&apos;t make a right . so now he hoped that he would not feel any similar temptations , but it would be especially difficult if Maria threw another melon at him when his back was turned . &amp;hellip; and two boxes of matches , the white-armed tourist continued , the laughter having gone from his voice . Joe Joe cut a piece of brown paper with the large wooden-handled all-purpose knife , wrapped up the cigarettes and matches and handed them to the now somewhat disinterested customer . gracias , acknowledged the white-armed one , a suggestion of a smile returning to his lips . adios , sen&amp;oacute;r , Joe Joe said . Maria called down the steps that descended to the shop from the two rooms above , which formed their little home . Joe Joe , she shouted , when are you going to close the shop and clean the fish which are making my kitchen smell like a fish-shop ? I am going to close the shop now , Maria , he answered resignedly , and I will then clean the fish which are making your kitchen smell like a fish-shop . Maria was sitting in her usual position in a heavy and ornately designed wooden chair given to her by her mother at the time of her marriage to Joe Joe . since then it had occupied a large area of the small kitchen . she had an almost irritating habit of shuffling her feet on the bare boards as she sat and sewed . she was carefully embroidering a lace handkerchief , as she had been doing for six weeks now . I can n&apos;t smell anything , Joe Joe commented as he came up the stairs sniffing loudly . it &apos;s all right for you , his wife replied sharply , down in that shop all day while I &apos;m stuck here with two uncleaned fish for company . Joe Joe nearly said , why did n&apos;t you clean them yourself , by Saint Christopher ? but remembered Father Brenes and instead picked up the fish and began scaling them with the all-purpose knife . he glanced over at Maria as she sat there in her formidable high-backed chair with her six-weeks&apos; lace handkerchief on her knee , and as he put one fish down and picked up another , his mind drifted back to the night , many years ago , when he and Maria had together sat on the little pebbly beach that adjoins the beach of Pasto Del Sol . he and Maria had been courting then . she had stolen away from her Mama ( a significant woman ) to meet him below the cliff-face at the far end of the bay . together they had sat throwing hard , round pebbles into the dark waters , and there was a moon that was not a full moon but was nevertheless the finest moon that Joe Joe had seen up until then . Maria had long black hair when she was young . it reached down her back in a broad sweep . it was her pride and joy , and the pride and joy of her Mama , and the talk of the lads at the Market Square on Saturday nights . her eyes were deep and dark , and her waist one of the slimmest in the village . it was possible to wind the cane band at the top of a lobster-pot round it with ease . that night he had trembled . trembled at the calm , dark waters , the moon and the pebbly beach . trembled when he touched her long warm fingers and heard her soft low pebbly-beach voice . then he had kissed her red lips , once , clumsily but strongly . the night had been still and silent and even the waves slumbered . he had said to her , as they sat there mute together , Maria , my lovely Maria , I want you to marry me , and she &apos;d replied with a spontaneity which amazed him . I will , Joe Joe , my darling little Joe Joe , but we must wait until your father lets you have his shop for yourself and then we may make our home in the two rooms above the little shop . it is best Joe Joe , and Mama would think so too . Joe Joe had been so elated and the months succeeding had been so blissful that he had become less and less aware of Maria &apos;s four large front teeth , which protruded from her mouth very sharply , and which also were the talk of the lads at the Market Square on Saturday nights . now the ebony black hair was discoloured with grey strands and tied in a tight and severe bun . her eyes were still deep and dark it was true , and flashed , it was also true , but somehow in a different way . now it would be impossible to wind around her waist even the lowest band of a lobster-pot , and the voice of the pebbly beach was no more . Joe Joe finished getting the fish washed and laid them neatly on a large flat plate . he cleaned the all-purpose knife with the long wooden handle and put it away carefully . taking up his sombrero and with a quick adios to Maria , who did not take her eyes from her sewing ( for strict concentration was required ) , he walked out of the door with his hands deep in his pockets . it was Joe Joe &apos;s custom to keep his hands in his pockets on the way to the Caf&amp;eacute; Del Costa , since he could count the coins he had there as he walked along and thereby gauge the number of cognacs he would be able to purchase . at the caf&amp;eacute; he met his friend Jos&amp;eacute; Puerett&amp;eacute; , as he did every evening , and the two friends shook hands warmly and sat at their usual place at a table in the corner . well , Joe Joe , my friend , Jos&amp;eacute; said ; the fish were not biting today , but the water was calm and the sun was hot and my brother and I were not greatly disappointed . Jos&amp;eacute; and his brother were the joint-owners of a fishing-boat which , laden with nets , set off from the beach every morning just as the sun peeped over the mountains at the back of Pasto Del Sol , in an almost fruitless search for fish . it was said ( allegedly by rivals ) that the Puerett&amp;eacute; brothers , who had not been fishermen for long , lacked the native instinct of the others whose fathers and whose fathers before them were fishermen of the bay , and that this accounted for their singular lack of success in obtaining hauls . others said that they spent too much time in siesta and that they would pull round one of the rocky inlets to the north of the bay and anchor there , sleeping , munching bread and drinking wine . Joe Joe did not really believe this latter story which he suspected was invented by Jos&amp;eacute; &apos;s wife , a hardworking but mean woman with sharp cheek-bones . in fact , Jos&amp;eacute; was a resourceful and practical person who , one afternoon when the boat had started to fill up with water from a large leak , had calmly awakened his brother and then had swum ashore to enlist help , leaving his brother to tread water so as to mark the spot where the boat had sunk . with the aid of other boats the craft had been brought to the surface and towed ashore , and Jos&amp;eacute; had that night accepted many congratulationary cognacs proffered him by those who admired his quick thinking and coolness in a crisis . 