Maganda ang dagat at ang ilog sa aming bayan sa Laguna. Bughaw na may halong luntian kapag walang sigwa. Ang tubig sa wawa ay napapaligiran ng mga kawayang sumasayaw na tila umiindak kapag nahihipan ng hangin.
Ang mga bangkang may layag ay parang mga paru-parong puti na naghahabulan.
Ang bangka ay karaniwang gawa sa kahoy na inukit sa matibay na kahoy na nakukuha sa aming gubat. Kung minsan ito ay may dalawang katig na gawa sa matitibay at mahabang kawayan upang ang bangka ay hindi gumiwang kapag ito ay nakatigil sa tubig.
Karamihan sa gamit nito ay pangingisda nguni't sa aming lalawigan, ang ay ginagamit namin sa paglalakbay lalo na sa pagtawid sa ibayo ng dagat. Mas mabilis ito kaysa gumamit ng kalabaw o ng karetela.
Naalala ko pa noon kasalukuyang kaming nakasakay sa bangka nang humulagpos ang isa kong tsinelas. Ang tsinelas ay ang gamit namin sa pagpasok at pagpunta sa mga lakaran kung saan ang bakya na gawa sa kahoy ay hindi nararapat.
Mabilis itong inanod sa tubig bago ko nahabol para kunin. Malungkot ako dahil iniisip ko ang aking ina na magagalit dahil sa pagkawala ng aking tsinelas.
Tiningnan ako ng nagsasagwan nang kinuha ko ang aking isa pang tsinelas at dali dali kong itinapon sa dagat, kasama ang dasal na mahabol nito ang kapares na tsinelas.
"Bakit mo itinapon ang iyong isa pang tsinelas?" tanong sa akin ng kasamahan ko sa bangka.
"Isang tsinelas ang nawala sa akin at walang silbi sa makakakita. Ang isang tsinelas na nasa akin ay wala ring silbi sa akin. Kung sino man ang makakuha ng pares ng tsinelas ay magagamit niya ito sa kaniyang paglakad.
Napatingin ulit sa akin ang mama. Marahil naunawaan niya ang isang batang katulad ko.
My mother then was still young. After a bath her hair which she let down to dry, dragged half a handbreadth on the floor, by which reason she knotted its end. She taught me to read in Amigo de los Niños, a very rare book, an old edition, which had lost its cover and which a very industrious sister of mine had covered again by pasting on its back a thick blue paper, the remnant of the wrapper of a bolt of cloth. My mother undoubtedly annoyed at hearing me read pitifully, for, as I didn�t understand Spanish, I could not give meaning to the phrases, took away the book from me. After scolding me for the drawings I had made on its pages, with legs and arms extended like a cross, she began to read asking me to follow her example. My mother, when she cold still see, read very well, recited, and knew how to make verses. How many times during Christmas vacation afterwards, she corrected my poems, making very apt observations. I listened to her full of childish admiration. Marveling at the ease with which she made them and at the sonorous phrases that she cold get from some pages that cost me so much effort to read and that I deciphered haltingly. Perhaps my ears soon got tired of hearing sounds that to me meant nothing. Perhaps due to my natural distraction, I gave little attention to the reading and watched more closely the cheerful flame around which some small moths fluttered with playful and uneven flight, perhaps I yawned, be it what it might, the case was that my mother, realizing the little interest that I showed, stopped her reading and said to me: �I�m going to read to you a very pretty story; be attentive.�
Upon hearing the word story I opened my eyes expecting a new and wonderful one. I looked at my mother who leafed through the book as if looking for it, and I got ready to listen with impatience and wonder. I didn�t suspect that in that old book that I read without understanding, there could be stories and pretty stories. My mother began to read to me the fable of the young and the old moths, translating it to me piece by piece into Tagalog. At the first verses my attention redoubled in such a way that I looked towards the light and fixed my attention on the moths that fluttered around it. The story could not have been more opportune. My mother emphasized and commented a great deal on the warnings of the old moth and directed them to me as if to tell me that these applied to me. I listened to her and what a rare phenomenon the light seemed to me more beautiful each time, the flame brighter, and I even envied instinctively the fate of those insects that played so cheerfully in its magical exhalation. Those that had succumbed were drowned in the oil; they didn�t frighten me. My mother continued her reading, I listened anxiously, and the fate of the two insects interested me intensely. The light agitated its golden tongue on one side, a singed moth in one of these movements fell into the oil, clapped its wings for sometime and died. That assumed for me that the flame and the moths were moving far away, very far, and that my mother�s voice acquired a strange, sepulchral timbre.
My mother finished the fable. I was not listening; all my attention, all my mind and all my thoughts were concentrated on the fate of that moth, young, dead, full of illusions.
�You see?� my mother said to me taking me to bed. �Don�t imitate the young moth and don�t be disobedient; you�ll get burned like it.�
I don�t know if I replied, promised something, or cried. The only thing I remember is that it took me a long time before I could sleep. That story had revealed to me tings unknown to me until then. To me moths ceased to be insignificant insects; moths talked and knew how to warn and advise as well as my mother did. The light seemed to be more beautiful, dazzling, attractive. I understand why moths fluttered around lights. Advices and warnings resounded feebly in my ears. What preoccupied me most was the death of the imprudent, but at the bottom of my heart, I didn�t blame it. My mother�s solicitude didn�t have all the success that she hoped it would.
No; many years have elapsed; the child has become a man; has plowed the most famous foreign rivers and meditated besides their copious streams. The steamship has taken him across the seas and all the oceans; he has climbed the region of perpetual snow on mountains very much higher than the Makiling of his province. From experience he has received bitter lessons, oh, infinitely more than the sweet lesson that his mother gave him, and nevertheless the man preserves the heart of a child and he believes that light is the most beautiful thing there is in creation and that it is worthy for a man to sacrifice his life for it.
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