She sat down,
crosslegged, before the fire, and stirred the embers, and strove to
think.
But she was not equipped for thinking, all her life had been merely
action, action, action, and now, as she strove to build out some logical
sequence and find her destiny in it, she failed miserably, and fell back
upon herself. She was one of those single-minded people who give
themselves up to emotion rarely, but when they do their whole body,
their whole soul burns in the flame.
Into her mind came a phrase she had heard in her childhood. On the
outskirts of Eldara there was a little shack owned by a Mexican--Jose,
he was called, and nothing else, "Greaser" Jose. One night an alarm of
fire was given in Eldara, and the whole populace turned out to enjoy the
sight; it was a festival occasion, in a way. It was the house of Greaser
Jose.
The cowpunchers manned a bucket line, but the source of water was far
away, the line too long, and the flames gained faster than they could be
quenched. All through the work of fire-fighting Greaser Jose was
everywhere about the house, flinging buckets of water through the
windows into the red furnace within; his wife and the two children stood
stupidly, staring, dumb.
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