“So?” The old woman looked incredulous. Then she hitched a shoulder. “Ah, well, no matter. You have chickens and pigs, and you are but nineteen. You have only one baby, too, and he is not much trouble. Soon he will be old enough to look out for himself. Why”--in a burst of generosity--“I will take him off your hands myself for a while. Get up.” In her eagerness, she put out a claw of a hand to pull at her daughter’s sleeve. “Ah! mamma! mamma!” Manuelita’s voice was deeper now, almost a groan. “You forget, mamma,--Felipe is not Ricardo.” “Bah! Ricardo! He is gone. Look you--look you, there is Felipe now!” “No--no,” Manuelita protested, raising a tear-stained face. Felipe was indeed coming up the street. He looked angry too, and was rubbing his kinky hair at every step. “Where is Ricardo?” he demanded as soon as he was within hearing. “Where is he, I say? Why should I work if he does not?” And now such a mingling of voices--Felipe repeating questions to which he received no answer; the old woman boldly stating Manuelita’s new domestic status; the girl crying out against her mother’s hasty planning. But after a time, when matters became clear to Felipe, he fell silent to ponder, and the old woman quieted to await his reply. As for Manuelita, she was sobbing a determination. “I shall follow, I shall follow,” she declared. “And when I find them, I shall kill!” “Felipe can go along,” suggested her mother, “and help you.” Manuelita glanced at Felipe, and recoiled. “Where have they gone?” he asked her. “Do you know?” “He took our _cubierta_, the new _machete_, and a flask. Yesterday he threatened to join the Revolutionists.” “He will go either to Tacarigua or to Rio Chico, in that case,” Felipe declared. He began to look dubious. Laying an index finger in the palm of a hand, he did some calculating. It would take not less than so many days, perhaps. At four _reales_ each day--he counted on his fingers. “Out so much for just a woman!” he concluded. “I will not do it.” But Manuelita did not hear. She was on her feet and getting ready to leave. The baby, awake and hungry, seemed to know her purpose. He began a lusty howling. “Take, mamma.” She pushed him toward her mother. The old woman caught the squalling child between her knees, hastily lit a _tabaco_, put it between her toothless gums to make it burn, and gave it to him. He grew still at once, seized the long cigar in both little hands, and fell to smoking industriously. “Foolish! foolish!” she scolded. “And you will have your trouble for naught. Can you hold a man who does not want you? No woman can do that. You had better stay.”