It was in a strange group she found herself. On a
mattress, in the corner of the hut, lay a young man apparently
about twenty-five, whose bright eyes and flushed cheeks told but
too plainly the story of his disease. The woman, tall, ungainly, her
face gaunt, her hands hardened and wrinkled, gown ragged, shoes
ragged, her dry and broken light hair wound in a careless,
straggling knot in her neck, wisps of it flying over her forehead,
was certainly not a prepossessing figure. Yet spite of her careless,
unkempt condition, there was a certain gentle dignity in her
bearing, and a kindliness in her glance, which won trust and
warmed hearts at once. Her pale blue eyes were still keen-sighted;
and as she fixed them on Ramona, she thought to herself, "This
ain't no common Mexican, no how." "Be ye movers?" she said.
Ramona stared. In the little English she knew, that word was not
included. "Ah, Senora," she said regretfully, "I cannot talk in the
English speech; only in Spanish."
"Spanish, eh? Yer mean Mexican? Jos, hyar, he kin talk thet. He
can't talk much, though; 'tain't good fur him; his lungs is out er
kilter.
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