"Don't prick yourself," she warned. "Are you the one they call Rose-Ellen?"
"Yes, ma'am," said Rose-Ellen, burying her nose in the flowers.
"I had a little sister named Rose-Ellen," the woman said gently. "You come play on the grass sometime, and we'll pick flowers for your mother."
"And can Nico and Vicente come, too?" Rose-Ellen asked. "They're my best friends."
The woman looked at Nico and Vicente with cold eyes. "I can't ask all the children," she answered.
"Thank you, ma'am," Rose-Ellen stammered. When they were out of sight down the road, she threw the roses into the dust. Nico snatched them up again.
"I wouldn't go there--I wouldn't go there for ten dollars," Rose-Ellen declared. Vicente looked at her with wise deep eyes. "I could 'a' told you," she said, shrugging. "American ladies, they mostly don't like Mexican kids. I don't know why."
October came. It was the time for the topping of the beets. The Martinez family went back to Denver for school. The Garcias stayed; their children would go into the special room when they returned, to have English lessons and to catch up in other studies--or rather, to try to catch up.
"But me, always I am two years in back of myself," Vicente regretted one day, "even with specials room. Early out of school and late into it, for me that makes too hard."
Now Farmer Lukes went through the Beechams' acres, lifting the beets loose by machine. Rose-Ellen could not believe they were beets-great dirt-colored clods, they looked. Not at all like the beets she knew.