“Don’t you remember?”
“I don’t remember child’s tricks.”
“Luis, I have come to a conclusion. You are still young enough for me to kiss quite safely. Every time you fight with me—I shall kiss you. Won’t you get me some fresh water now?”
He lounged, sulky, against his barrel.
“Come, querido! Must I go all that way myself? Well, then, if you intend to stand and glare at me till the moon rises—Ah! he moves!”
Luis laid the guitar gradually down, and gradually lifting a pail in which the dipper rattled with emptiness, he proceeded to crawl on his journey.
“You know that is not the one we use, muchacho,” (little boy), remarked Lolita.
“Keep your kisses for your gringo,” the water-carrier growled, with his back to her.
“I shall always save some for my little cousin.”
The pail clattered on the stones, and the child stopped crawling. She on the roof stared at this performance for an open-mouthed moment, gloves idle among the spicy peppers. Then, laughing, she sprang to her feet, descended, and, catching up the water-jar (the olla de agua), overtook him, and shook it in his face with the sweetest derision. “Now we’ll go together,” said she, and started gayly through the green trees and the garden. He followed her, two paces behind, half ashamed, and gazing at her red handkerchief, and the black hair blowing a little; thus did they cross the tiny cool home acre through the twinkling pleasantness of the leaves, and pass at once outside the magic circle of irrigation into Arizona’s domain, among a prone herd of carcasses upon the ground—dead cattle, two seasons dead now, hunted to this sanctuary by the drought, killed in the sanctuary by cold water.