"That's one of the real old ones. I know, for I got it out myself. I don't know just how old, but there's piñon trees three hundred years old by their rings, growing up in the stone trail that leads to the ruins where I got it."
"Stone trail . . . piñons?" she asked.
"Yes, deep, narrow trails in white rock, worn by their moccasin feet coming and going for generations. And these old piñon trees have come up in the trails since the race died off. You can tell something about how long ago it was by them." He showed her a coating of black on the under side of the jar.
"That's not from the firing. See, I can scratch it off. It's soot, from when it was on the cook-fire last—and that was before Columbus landed, I guess. Nothing makes those people seem so real to me as their old pots, with the fire-black on them." As she gave it back to him, he shook his head. "That one's for you, Ma'am, if you like it."
"Oh, I couldn't think of letting you give it to me! You must keep it for yourself, or put it in a museum." But that seemed to touch a sore spot.
"Museums," he said bitterly, "they don't care about our things. They want something that came from Crete or Egypt. I'd break my jars sooner than they should get them. But I'd like this one to have a good home, among your nice things"—he looked about appreciatively. "I've no place to keep them. They're in my way, especially that big one. My trunk is at the station, but I was afraid to leave the pottery. You don't get them out whole like that very often."
"But get them out of what, from where? I want to know all about it."
"Maybe some day, Ma'am, I can tell you," he said, wiping his sooty fingers on his handkerchief. His reply was courteous but final. He strapped his bag and picked up his hat, then hesitated and smiled. Taking a buckskin bag from his pocket, he walked over to the window-seat where the children were, and held out his hand to them, saying: "These I would like to give to the little girls." In his palm lay two lumps of soft blue stone, the colour of robins' eggs, or of the sea on halcyon days of summer.
The children marvelled. "Oh, what are they?"
"Turquoises, just the way they come out of the mine, before the jewellers have tampered with them and made them look green. The Indians like them this way."