And now the field which she had helped to "avita"--for one gives in when the tide of circumstances flows too strong--the waste whose seed-graves she had seen dug, whose bulbs she had seen buried from sight, had suddenly become a field of life once more. Pale green spears were springing up in every direction--a light, wonderful green with a tinge of yellow. The spatulated leaves were handsomest, Agueda thought, when spotted or marked with brown, or a rich chocolate shade. In their tender infancy they were the loveliest things on earth, she thought, as she ran about the damp, hot hillside, comparing one with another; and as she again returned to the path, she nearly stumbled against the ebony giant, who, standing just at the edge of the field, was watching her.
"It is wonderful, Natalio," she said, "how quickly they have sprouted." She smiled upward.
"Si, Señorit'," said Natalio, smiling down. "It is the early rains that bring the life. Perhaps the good God may be thanked a little, too, but it is the good soil, and the rains most of all."
He stooped his great height, and took some of the earth in his fingers. "It is the caliche so the Señor says." He rubbed the disintegrated gravelly mass between his fingers. Some of it powdered away. The fine bits of stone that it contained dropped in a faint patter upon his feet.
"I never heard the Señor say that," said Agueda, with the air of one who would know what were the Señor's favourite convictions, "but of course he knows, the Señor."
"Bieng," said Natalio. "It is certain that the Señor knows."
Agueda moved on up the hill. She felt, crunching beneath her feet, the shells of the circular grub which had lost life and home in this terrific holocaust.
"It seems hard," mused Agueda, "that some things must die that other things may be created." She smiled as she said this. She need not die that other things might live. It had no personal application for her. At least it would not have for sixty or eighty years, and that was a whole lifetime. She might not be glad to die even then! Agueda had reached the summit of the hill. She turned to look back at Natalio. He was standing gazing after her. When he saw her turn he expanded his handsome lips into a smile, showing his white teeth. Then he uncovered his head, and swept the ground with his ragged Panama hat. He called; Agueda could not hear at first what he said.