“The best thing for us to do is to get to work,” said Alison. “The time will pass much more quickly if we do. There is no use in our sitting still and moping. Besides we want to make the place comfortable as soon as possible.”
“But if I only knew what had become of Steve,” said Christine wofully. “Suppose the Indians should have captured him. Suppose they should be torturing him.”
“Nonsense,” said Louisa briskly. “I don’t believe a word of that. You heard Mr. John say that he had probably gone to a neighbor’s and they’ll easy find him. Don’t get yourself all worked up, Miss Tina. It ain’t as if it were Mr. John, your own brother.”
Christine gave her a look which a less simple girl would have understood, but Louisa, blissfully unconscious of the reason for these terrors, went on unpacking and felt that the last word had been spoken upon the subject.
Christine went on murmuringly: “And I was so happy this morning and thought he would be here to meet us.”
This time it was Alison who listened to her plaint, and who began to have a dawning idea that this was a real grief to her sister. “Why, Tina,” she said with some show of indignation, “I believe you are in love with Steve Hayward.”
“CHRISTINE DROPPED HER HEAD ON THE TABLE AND BURST INTO TEARS.”
At this charge Christine dropped her head on the table and burst into tears, to Louisa’s astonishment and Alison’s distress. “Why, Tina, why, Tina,” said the latter kneeling down by her side. “I didn’t mean to make you cry. I didn’t know you cared, though I might have suspected. Don’t cry, Tina dear.” She murmured her words caressingly and the little Mexican, standing by with his head to one side, assumed an expression of interest and sympathy.
“Pobrecita,” he said. “Mientras mas alto es al monte mas profundio es el valle.” Then shaking his head he tried to say in English, “More high is the hill; more low is the val. The sister is so high as the hill and now she make the tear.” He wiped his eye in such a mockingly funny way that Alison had to laugh in spite of herself, and realizing that the old man understood English better than he spoke it Christine restrained herself from further exhibition of feeling and set to work with the rest.