“‘The hunchback is dead.
Ay! Ay! Ay!
And no one could be found to bury him except—’”
“Luis, aren’t you going to get my water for me?”
“Poco tiempo: I’ll bring it directly.”
“You have to go to the Tinaja Bonita for it.”
The Pretty Spring—or water-hole, or tank—was half a mile from the cabin.
“Well, it’s not nice out there in the sun. I like it better in here, where it is pleasant.
“‘And no one could be found to bury him except
Five dragoons and a corporal
And the sacristan’s cat.’”
Singing resentfully, young Luis stayed in here, where it was pleasant. Bright green branches of fruit-trees and small cottonwoods and a fenced irrigated square of green growing garden hid the tiny adobe home like a nut, smooth and hard and dry in their clustered midst. The lightest air that could blow among these limber, ready leaves set going at once their varnished twinkling round the house. Their white and dark sides gleamed and went out with chasing lights that quickened the torpid place into a holiday of motion. Closed in by this cool green, you did not have to see or think of Arizona, just outside.
“Where is Uncle Ramon to-day?” inquired Luis, dropping his music.