"Give me the letter," said Agueda. "I will send it to the palm grove."
Not waiting to see Andres depart, Agueda hurried to the home potrero. There Uncle Adan was keeping tally at the sucker pile.
"Uncle Adan," she said, "is there a man who can take a message to the Señor?"
"I cannot spare another peon, Agueda—that the good God knows. What with Garcia Garcito and the Palandrez off all the morning at the palm grove, and Eduardo Juan hurrying away but a half-hour ago with the san-coche, I am very short of hands. What is it that you want? Do not load the little white bull so heavily, Anito; it is these heavy weights that take the life out of them. What is it that you want, Agueda, child?"
"It is a message for the Señor, Uncle Adan. It comes from the Señor Silencio. It may be of importance."
"Very well, then; it is I who cannot go. The Señor should be at home sometimes, like other Señors. Since these visitors came I cannot get a word with him."
"The Señor is not always away, Uncle Adan," protested Agueda, faintly.
"It is true that he is not always away," said Uncle Adan, tossing a sprouted sucker into a waste pile, "but his head is, and that is as bad. He seems to take no interest in the coloñia nowadays, and I am doing much for which I have no warrant."
Agueda recalled the many times when she had seen her uncle approach Beltran with some request to make, or project to unfold, and his shrug of the shoulders, and the answer, "Don't bother me now, Adan, there's a good fellow; some other time—some other time." Agueda stood with her eyes downcast. She knew it all but too well. Every word of Uncle Adan's struck at her heart like a knife.