“Ah, gracias, señoritas. You are too good,” the mother said, smiling. In a rapid flow of Spanish she began telling Florence that they had been traveling for days and had had very little food. “When Papá make the charcoal, then we will have food.”
In the pause that followed, Florence told Jo Ann what the woman had said.
“It’s strange they came away up here to make the charcoal. It looks as if they’d have stopped sooner,” Jo Ann remarked. “Hurry up and ask her about the blue-eyed boy, Carlitos. Ask her if he and Pepito are twins.”
The mother shook her head when Florence asked, “Which is the older one—Carlitos?”
“No. Pepito.”
“They don’t look a bit alike.”
A strange expression passed over the woman’s face; then she said slowly, “Carlitos is not my child.”
Jo Ann caught this last remark and spoke up eagerly: “Ask her if he is related to her family.”
When Florence obediently asked this question, the mother merely shook her head without saying a word.
“Ask her if his eyes aren’t a deep blue, just as I said,” put in Jo Ann.