The boy nodded.
“I came first, to be in one of your fine universities. Many South-Americans come here for their education. But before many months I take the cough, and it is then no use to go back to our country. We blow out there like a candle in the wind.”
The mother went on.
“But the great American doctor say here there is a chance in the mountains, if he can stand the winter. And oh, at first he grow much better! We see the good health coming. But now, the great cold, the heart-hunger, the alone being, it seem to take his strength. I fear—”
“Hush, madre! This is not good cheer for a guest.”
David felt his cheeks burn with the sudden tenderness in the boy’s look.
“Come, madre,” he went on, “have we not also a tale of Christmas, of the Natividad, to give away?”
“There is that one I have told you a thousand times—the one my mother told me when I was a niña, home in Spain. The tale of the Tres Reys and the Christmas promise.”
The boy sighed happily.
“There is no better tale in all Spain. Tell it, madre, to our friend here.”