He works with a skill which is a conscious pleasure; a pleasure unknown to those who have never had opportunity of acquiring a manual craft or appreciating the wondrous power that God has put into human limbs.

He has complete control over his two thin sticks, can pick up with them a single strand of wool, or half a mattress.

He can throw aside a pin that lurks in a ball of wool, or kill a fly that settles on his work, without staining the snowy mass.

And all the while, from the moment that the mattress is open till the heap is complete, the two sticks never cease playing their thin and woody air so that any within hearing may know that the "colchonero" is at work.
When the mattress case is empty he pauses to wipe his brow (for he must needs work in the sun) and smoke a cigarette in the shade.

It is then that he gossips.
In a Southern land such a worker as this must always have an audience, and the children hail with delight the coming of the mattress-maker.