"The doctor, he said I was to speak to you about his pay," the Mexican stated after a time, when he and Bryant had talked awhile in Spanish.
Bryant waved the words aside.
"There's no charge, nothing," said he. "I was delighted to send the doctor. I hope your son improves rapidly. The physician will continue to pay you calls until the boy no longer requires them. Those are very pretty geraniums you have in the window, señora. Are they fragrant?" Lee crossed the room and bent his face above them.
The man's wife rubbed her hands together under her apron with much pleasure. Thus politely for him to notice and praise her flowers! In her heart, as in the heart of her husband, there formerly had been resentment at this white canal-builder for cutting their field with a big ditch, an occurrence which the county judge somehow had stupidly permitted. But now she did not know what to feel. Yesterday he had sent them a doctor for nothing, and this evening was smelling her flowers admiringly. He could not be exactly a monster. Removing one hand from beneath her apron, she inserted a finger-nail in her black hair and scratched her scalp, considering the subject. Winter was coming, too. Food would be needed—and besides, she long had desired one of those loud phonographs at Menocal's store, and also needed a new stove. She perceived that her husband was staring at Bryant's back with a thoughtful air. Undoubtedly he was thinking the same thing as she.
"You yet want men and teams for your work, señor?" she inquired.
"All I can get."
"If a man falls sick while at work, would he have the services of the doctor?"
"Yes, without charge. There will be work on the dam most of the winter, where the building is only a matter of stone and brush. I can use all who want employment. Then in the spring there will be the digging of the ditch on the mesa."
"Five dollars for a man and his team, is it not so?" the Mexican inquired.
"Yes."