"What you making down yonder, honey?" she ventured to ask.
"I am making nothing; I am finished," said Lola. "To-morrow you shall see my work." Jane felt taken aback. It had been work, then; not simple play. She awaited what should follow with curious interest.
Upon the next morning Lola ran off through the alfalfa rather excitedly. After a little she reappeared, walking slowly, with an air of importance. She carried something carefully before her, holding it above the reach of the alfalfa's snatching green fingers.
It was a square pedestal of adobe, sun-baked hard as stone, upon which sat a queer adobe creature, with a lean body and a great bulbous head. This personage showed the presence in his anatomy of an element of finely chopped straw. His slits of eyes were turned prayerfully upward. From his widely open mouth hung a thirsty mud tongue, and between his knobby knees he held an empty bowl, toward the filling of which his whole expression seemed an invocation.
"He is for you," said Lola, beaming artistic gratification. "He is to show my thanks for your caring for me in my broken-bonedness. He is Tesuque, the rain-god. You can let your ditches fill with weeds, if you like. You won't need to irrigate your vega any more. Tesuque will make showers come."
Jane trembled with surprised pleasure. The powers ascribed to Tesuque were hardly accountable for the gratification with which she received him.
"I'll value him as long as I live!" she exclaimed. "He—he's real handsome!"
"Not handsome," corrected Lola, with a tone of modest pride, "but good! He makes the rain come. In Taos are many Tesuques."
"I reckon it must rain considerable there," surmised Jane, not unnaturally.
Lola shook her head. "No. It's pretty dry—but it wouldn't rain at all, you see, if it wasn't for Tesuque!"