"Why, you're real eager, ain't you?" said Marm Prudence. "Now I'm glad I spoke; I thought mebbe 'twould suit you. Young folks like to be at something."
In a few minutes the two were seated on the cool inner verandah, looking out on the garden, with a great basket between them, heaped with delicate strips of palmetto leaf, white and smooth.
"Husband, he whittles 'em for me," Marm Prudence explained. "It's occupation for him. Fleshy as he is, he can't get about none too much, and this keeps his hands busy. It's hard to be a man and lose the activity of your limbs. But there! there's compensations, I always say. If Noonsey was as he was ten years ago, he'd be off with the rest, and then where'd I be?"
"Then"—Rita's eyes flashed, and she bent nearer her hostess, and spoke low. "Then you are not at heart pacificos, Marm Prudence. On the surface, I understand, I comprehend, it is necessary; but au fond, in your secret hearts, you are with us; you are Cubans. Is it not so? It must be so!"
"Oh, land, yes!" said Marm Prudence, composedly. "I'm an American, you see; and husband, he's a Cuban five generations back. We don't have no dealin's with the Gringos, more than we're obleeged to. Livin' right close t' the road as we do, we can't let out the way we feel, but I guess there's mighty few Mambis about here but knows where to come when they want things. There ain't many so bold as your brother, to come in open daylight, but come night, they're often as thick as bats about the garden here. There! I have to shoo' em off sometimes; yet I like to have 'em, too."
Rita's face glowed with excitement. "Oh, Marm Prudence," she cried; "how glorious! Oh, what fortune, what joy, to be here with you! We will work together; we will toil; our blood shall flow in fountains, if it is needed. Embrace me, mother of Cuba!"
Marm Prudence put on her spectacles, and surveyed the excited girl with some anxiety.
"Let me feel your pult, dear!" she said, soothingly. "You got a touch o' sun, like as not, riding in that heat this morning. Now there's no call to get worked up, or talk about blood-sheddin'. Blood-sheddin' ain't in our line, yours nor mine, nor husband's neither. Fur as doin' goes, we're all pacificos here, Miss Margaritty, and you mustn't forget that. Just wait a minute, and I'll go and git you a cup of my balm-tea; 'tis real steadyin' to the nerves, and I expect yours is strung up some with all you've be'n through."
Rita protested that she was perfectly well, and not at all excited; but she submitted, and drank the balm-tea meekly, as it was cold and refreshing.
"It is my ardent nature!" she explained. "It is the fire of my patriotism which consumes me. Do you not feel it, Marm Prudence, oftentimes, like a flame in your bosom?"