“Now, if you want me to, I’ll just fill up the kitchen stove and the one in the hall. It’s really too cold here for any one,” he ended, apologetically.
The woman accepted his offer, mutely grateful; and when both stoves had finally responded to his coaxings and were cheerfully crackling and sending out the much-needed heat, David came back to the open fire and drew up one of the rockers.
“It is a good niño, eh, Alfredito?” said the woman, softly.
David wriggled uncomfortably.
“Say—I’ll tell you about the flagman, and Uncle Joab at the lumber-camp. Want me to?”
The offer was made as a cloak to his embarrassment; but the next moment, as he launched into his narrative of the two previous days, he had forgotten everything but the tales he had to tell and the interest of his listeners.
When he had finished, David was surprised to see the change in the faces of the two. For the first time they seemed really alive and warm, inside and out. Moreover, they looked happy, strangely happy.
“We had almost forgot, chico mio,” the mother said, stroking one of the thin, white hands, “that comes now the Natividad. Ah, who would think to find it here in this freeze country!”
“We are South-Americans,” the boy explained. “And down there it is summer now, with the oranges ripe, and the piña growing and the air full of the sweetness from the coffee-fields in bloom and the jasmine and mariposa. We did not know such cold could be—or so much snow. Eh, madre?” And the boy smiled wanly.
“But how did you come way up here from your country? Was it the—” David left the question unfinished.