As the second craft cast off and moved away, Ina saw her mother and Antonio going with it, and the big tears came into her lovely eyes. She watched them till they were gone from sight, and then turned away so that neither my wife nor I could see her face. Every now and then her sleeve would go up to her face, but she was very quiet. Soon she turned around, and the signs of tears were gone, but in a moment she turned away again. She was struggling bravely against her wish to cry.
“What is the matter, Ina?” said my wife at last, when the tears began to roll faster. Ina forced a smile and said,—
“Oh, nothing truly, except the sun hurts my eyes.”
Waiting, waiting, waiting, without food and without water; or, if there was water, we could not get to it on account of the crush of people. Children cried, mothers strove to hush them, the musically inclined sang or played, and then the sun went down while we waited and still waited. My wife and one of the boys had walked into the space roped off around the plank which had been put aboard. Just then some of the youngsters who had been trying to steal off the forward end of the barge, boylike, were chased back by the barge men, one of whom began rushing and pushing the people in the open space back into the crowd—a very needless procedure, as there was no reason why what room there was should not be utilized.
“What are you doing, mate?” called one of the other men outside.
“Oh, I’m driving these animals back,” and he swore foully.
Just at that instant he caught my wife by the arm, menacing her and the boy with a short bit of board he had in his hand.
“Take your dirty hands off me this instant,” said my wife, white with anger. The fellow stepped back, amazed at her resentment and her English.
“Meant no harm, lady,” he deprecated. “You’ve got to be rough with this bunch. I get so sick handling these dirty bums coming over here to this country, I’m going to get in trouble some time for rousting ’em, I s’pose.”
“If that is so,” she answered, “you had better get another job, for you are not fit to handle even wild animals, let alone kind-hearted, sensitive people like these, who are not to be blamed if everything, even your speech, is strange to them.”