A habit of theirs
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Era costume dellas, ás tardes, e ás manhãs tambem.
It was a habit of theirs, in the afternoons, and in the mornings too.
Going to the neighboring yard was the legs' custom, mornings and afternoons alike.
The possessive is telling: the habit belongs to the legs — 'costume dellas' — not to Bento. Machado sustains the conceit a beat longer than a lesser writer would, letting the body keep its own routine independent of the boy who owns it. The joke is light, but it quietly excuses him: if the going-to-Capitú is a reflex of the flesh, then no one, least of all the narrator recalling it, need be held to account.
The doubling of 'ás tardes' and 'ás manhãs tambem' fills in the tempo of the two children's days. This is not a single stolen visit but the steady metronome of a shared childhood, morning and afternoon, wall and gate. The reader feels how thoroughly Capitú is woven into the ordinary hours of Bento's life, long before either of them has a word for what they are to each other.
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