“Make up your mind, then, Salome, that there is no way of getting over your trouble.”
“Oh dear!” she exclaimed, beginning to cry.
“Come, don’t be a coward,” I said, taking her hands away from her face. “Tears from your eyes are worth too much for you to shed them so copiously.”
“If Tiburcio thought so, I would not spend the nights weeping till I fall asleep, to see him so unkind, and to think that on his account my papa is angry with me.”
“What will you bet that Tiburcio will not come to see you tomorrow, and make it all up?”
“Oh, I admit that I should never be able to pay you,” she replied, taking my hand in hers and pressing it to her cheek. “Do you promise it to me?”
“I will bring it about unless I am very stupid or unfortunate.”
“Mind, I depend upon your word. But, on your life, don’t tell Tiburcio that we have been here so entirely alone and—for then he would go back to the other thing, and that would be to spoil everything. Now.” She added, beginning to climb the fence, “leap over so as not to see me jump—or we will jump together.”
“You are very particular. You were not so much so formerly.”
“I am getting more bashful every day. Climb up, then.”
But Salome found more difficulty in getting to the other side than I did, and remained seated upon the fence, while she said to me, “I can’t get down without leaping.”
“Let me help you. See, it’s getting late, and my comadre …”
“Do you think she is like him? Even if she is, how do you expect me to get down? Don’t you see that if I trip …”
“Stop your monkey tricks and lean on me,” I said, offering her my shoulder.
“Straighten up, then, for I weigh as much as—a feather,” she added, leaping down lightly. “I ought to have great glory for that, for I know many ladies who would like to be able to leap a fence like that.”
“You are a very artless creature.”
“Is that the same thing as spiteful? Because, if it is, I am going to pick a bone with you.”
“Going to what?”
“Don’t you understand that? Why, be angry with you. What can I do to find out how you appear when you are very angry? I’d like to know.”
“Suppose you were not able, afterwards, to mollify me?”
“Let me alone for that! Haven’t I seen how your heart is soft as butter if you see me crying?”
“But that is only when I see that you are not doing it out of coquetry.”
“Don’t do it out of what? What’s that word?”
“ ‘Co‑quet‑ry.’ ”
“What does it mean? Tell me, I really don’t know—only I suppose it must be something bad. In that case I’ll be on my guard against it, do you hear?”
“Excellent! But you are throwing it away.”
“Tell me, tell me! I won’t stir if you don’t.”
“I will go on alone,” I replied, taking a few steps.
“Goodness! I am capable of spoiling the water for you. And what sheet will you dry yourself on, I’d like to know? I don’t mean it; do tell me what I am throwing away. I am beginning to think it is …”
“Well?”
“Is it, can it be, love?”
“Exactly so.”
“But how am I to help it? Why do I love that stuck-up fellow? If I were white, now, very white; and rich, oh, very rich, why—then I would love you, wouldn’t I?”
“Do you think so? What should we do with Tiburcio?”
“With Tiburcio? Oh, out of friendliness, and in order to give a lift to everybody, we would make him overseer, and keep him like this,” she said, doubling up her hand.
“I shouldn’t like the plan.”
“Why not? Wouldn’t you like to have me love you?”
“It isn’t that; but fate has reserved you for Tiburcio.”
Salome laughed in perfect good-humor. We had reached the little stream. She spread out the sheet upon the turf, and then kneeled down upon a stone to wash her face. When she was done, she took a handkerchief from her belt to dry herself. I offered her the sheet, saying, “That will do you harm, unless you take a bath.”
“Perhaps I’ll come back to bathe; the water is so warm. But do you refresh yourself a while. As soon as Fermín comes, and when you are done, I’ll give myself a ducking in the pool below.”
Standing up now, she continued to look at me, smiling mischievously as she passed her moist hands over her hair. At last she said, “Will you believe me when I say that I have dreamed that what I said just now was true?”
“What, that Tiburcio didn’t love you any more?”
“Contrary! That I was white. When I awoke, it was an awful disappointment—a disappointment so great that the other Sunday, in the parish church, I could think of nothing but my dream all through mass. And the whole week, sitting where you are now, doing my washing, I complained about it.”
Her simple confidences were broken in upon by shouts of “chi‑ino, chi‑i‑ino” uttered by her father, off by the cacao-plantation, as he was calling the pigs. Salome was startled a little, and said, looking around: “That Fermín has turned into smoke. Well, have your bath, quick. I will go up the river to look for him. Perhaps he went off without waiting for us.”
“Wait for him here; he will come to look for you. This is all because you heard your father. Do you suppose that he doesn’t like us to talk together.”
“Talk together, yes, but … that depends.”
Leaping over the large stones on the bank with the greatest agility, she disappeared behind the leafy carboneros.
Her father’s cries continued, and made me think that his confidence in me had its limits. Doubtless he had followed us from afar, and only when he lost sight of us determined to call the swine. Custodio
