“Yes.”
“So I was right at first about his not being a Mexican. What else did she say?”
Florence quickly recounted all that the mother had told her.
When she had finished, Jo Ann said, “Well, there’s something queer about a beautiful American woman leaving her baby with an ignorant Indian nurse. Ask her where his father is. That child’s bound to have some relatives somewhere. Looks strange to me that, as poor as this family is, they’d keep Carlitos when they can hardly feed their own children.”
“Well, all right, I’ll ask her. She doesn’t seem to mind talking about him today as much as she did yesterday.”
Florence turned to the mother. “Why did you have to keep Carlitos when you have so many children? Where was his father?”
The woman shook her head. “I don’t know. He no come back.”
“Where did he go?”
“To the mine. The beautiful American woman go every day to watch for her husband, but he no come. It was cold, and she got sick. She had much cough, and one day she died.”
To the girls’ surprise the woman walked over to the grandmother and began talking in a low, rapid voice. The grandmother nodded and smiled over at the girls.