Minnie looked at the pie and at Josefa, speaking swiftly.
The old woman nodded.
“If the mountain-stream wants to waste itself on the greedy sands,” she said, “who am I to counsel otherwise? Yonder is the pie.”
Minnie crossed the clean white floor and taking the pie from the window ledge where it sat cooling, divided it neatly. She fixed the two quarters on a plate from the cupboard and adding a fork, carried the whole to the boy.
She was the embodiment of the spirit of womanhood since the world was—selling her service to man for love.
“Take it, Rod Stone,” she said.
It was indicative of her race that she did not exact her payment first. It was sufficient that she serve. If the white man chose to pay, to keep his word, so much the better.
Stone took the plate and put one arm about the splendid broad shoulders.
Bending down he kissed the half-breed full on the lips—and for a second the black eyes glowed. Minnie Pine put a hand on his cheek with a caress infinitely soft.
“Humph,” said Josefa, in English this time and pointedly, “I, too, have stood in the bend of a man’s arm—but mine was a full-blood pomo. I did not live to cover my head and weep.”