“Muy bien.” He nodded his head and reached for the bucket Jo Ann was holding out to him.
“Thank my stars someone knows where to get water in this awful desert!” Miss Prudence exclaimed, feeling relieved at sight of the water. “Do you suppose that is the only way the people have of getting water out here, Florence?”
“Probably so.”
“Well, I’d certainly hate to live here! Imagine having to drink that water! And washing dishes and clothes in a thimbleful of water wouldn’t suit me at all, either. I have the whole Atlantic Ocean right at the edge of my home in Massachusetts.”
Florence smiled at the contrast of life in the desert and on the seacoast.
After they had filled the radiator and their thermos jug with the precious fluid, they drove off, the girls and Carlitos all calling a smiling “adios” to the water carrier.
A little later, at the old stone house on the edge of the village, they were halted and their passports examined. As they were waiting for one of the men to look over the papers Carlitos and Florence talked in Spanish to the other man. Jo Ann half smiled to herself as she noticed Miss Prudence’s evident disapproval at seeing Carlitos’s delight on finding someone with whom to speak Spanish.
Catching Jo Ann’s expression, Miss Prudence remarked crisply, “I can’t get used to having a foreigner for a nephew. I have my doubts if he’ll ever get to be a genuine American.”
“I wish I knew Spanish as well as he does. I love the language—it’s beautiful,” Jo Ann replied. “I’d be glad, if I were you, that he knows it; maybe he’ll soon be speaking English as easily as Spanish.”
“I hope so.”