The Way of Don Gregorio

There is a village where the tobacco grows right up to the doorsteps. It climbs the hillsides and fills the valley floor, all the way down to where the river bends beneath an old stone bridge. Above it all stands the bell tower, and above the bell tower, the mountains.

It was not always so. Long ago, the land was poor. The sugarcane grew thin, and so did the people who worked it.

One evening, as the bells rang at dusk, a stranger came up the road to a small sugarcane farm at the edge of the village. His clothes were dusty and his shoes were worn through. He asked for nothing but a meal.

The old farmer and his wife had little to give, but they set another plate at the table anyway. Beside them sat their grandson, a small boy who watched the stranger eat and did not say a word. That boy was none other than Don Gregorio himself.

When the meal was done, the stranger reached into his coat and set a small cloth pouch on the table. "I have no money," he said. "But these are the finest tobacco seeds in all the land. Plant them and be patient."

By morning he was gone. No one in the village had seen him come, and no one saw him leave.

The old farmer reluctantly planted the seeds. And the boy who had watched from the table never forgot the stranger's words.

What follows are his stories. Some are true. Some are legends. And some, the village still whispers about to this day.