“Both. People are pretty much the same everywhere.”
“Oh, no, they’re not. The people who go through in the dining-car aren’t like us.”
“What makes you think they aren’t, my girl? Their clothes?”
Thea shook her head. “No, it’s something else. I don’t know.” Her eyes shifted under the doctor’s searching gaze and she glanced up at the row of books. “How soon will I be old enough to read them?”
“Soon enough, soon enough, little girl.” The doctor patted her hand and looked at her index finger. “The nail’s coming all right, isn’t it? But I think that man makes you practice too much. You have it on your mind all the time.” He had noticed that when she talked to him she was always opening and shutting her hands. “It makes you nervous.”
“No, he don’t,” Thea replied stubbornly, watching Dr. Archie return the book to its niche.
He took up a black leather case, put on his hat, and they went down the dark stairs into the street. The summer moon hung full in the sky. For the time being, it was the great fact in the world. Beyond the edge of the town the plain was so white that every clump of sage stood out distinct from the sand, and the dunes looked like a shining lake. The doctor took off his straw hat and carried it in his hand as they walked toward Mexican Town, across the sand.
North of Pueblo, Mexican settlements were rare in Colorado then. This one had come about accidentally. Spanish Johnny was the first Mexican who came to Moonstone. He was a painter and decorator, and had been working in Trinidad, when Ray Kennedy told him there was a “boom” on in Moonstone, and a good many new buildings were going up. A year after Johnny settled in Moonstone, his cousin, Famos Serreños, came to work in the brickyard; then Serreños’ cousins came to help him. During the strike, the master mechanic put a gang of Mexicans to work in the roundhouse. The Mexicans had arrived so quietly, with their blankets and musical instruments, that before Moonstone was awake to the fact, there was a Mexican quarter; a dozen families or more.
As Thea and the doctor approached the ’dobe houses, they heard a guitar, and a rich barytone voice—that of Famos Serreños—singing “La Golandrina.” All the Mexican houses had neat little yards, with tamarisk hedges and flowers, and walks bordered with shells or whitewashed stones. Johnny’s house was dark. His wife, Mrs. Tellamantez, was sitting on the doorstep, combing her long, blue-black hair. (Mexican women are like the Spartans; when they are in trouble, in love, under stress of any kind, they comb and comb their hair.) She rose without embarrassment or apology, comb in hand, and greeted the doctor.
“Good-evening; will you go in?” she asked in a low, musical voice. “He is in the back room. I will make a light.” She followed them indoors, lit a candle and handed it to the doctor, pointing toward the bedroom. Then she went back and sat down on her doorstep.