"Instead of teasing me, wouldn't it be better if we became friends? You seem like a smart kid..."
"What are you saying, you fool?" Tasmas interrupted him. "Do you take me for a priest's kid, you sickly one!" And he started slapping and kicking him with even more fury. "Take a different path to avoid him," his father gave him a second piece of advice. That was Antipas. Good-natured, gentle, tolerant, as if the world resembled the two almond trees in his yard that he cared for with great attention. Watering them, digging around them, fertilizing them with manure, pruning them, spreading lime on their trunks, and harvesting their fruit around the end of August. In the same way, he behaved at his job as a carter and sometimes as a wagon driver. He had a cart which, depending on the occasion, he would convert into a carriage, as he learned after working for Nikolakis Efendi. Whenever there was a fare, he would fit double facing seats and a canopy on iron rails on the cart and serve the customers.
