FRIENDS OF CHILDHOOD
ravine, she noticed a woman sitting at the bottom of the gulch, under the railroad trestle. She turned from her path and saw that it was Mrs. Tellamantez, and she seemed to be doing drawn-work. Then Thea noticed that there was something beside her, covered up with a purple and yellow Mexican blanket. She ran up the gulch and called to Mrs. Tellamantez. The Mexican woman held up a warning finger. Thea glanced at the blanket and recognized a square red hand which protruded. The middle finger twitched slightly.
"Is he hurt?" she gasped.
Mrs. Tellamantez shook her head. "No; very sick. He knows nothing," she said quietly, folding her hands over her drawn-work.
Thea learned that Wunsch had been out all night, that this morning Mrs. Kohler had gone to look for him and found him under the trestle covered with dirt and cinders. Probably he had been trying to get home and had lost his way. Mrs. Tellamantez was watching beside the unconscious man while Mrs. Kohler and Johnny went to get help.
"You better go home now, I think," said Mrs. Tellamantez, in closing her narration.
Thea hung her head and looked wistfully toward the blanket.
"Could n't I just stay till they come?" she asked. "I 'd like to know if he 's very bad."
"Bad enough," sighed Mrs. Tellamantez, taking up her work again.
Thea sat down under the narrow shade of one of the trestle posts and listened to the locusts rasping in the hot sand while she watched Mrs. Tellamantez evenly draw her threads. The blanket looked as if it were over a heap of bricks.
"I don't see him breathing any," she said anxiously.
"Yes, he breathes," said Mrs. Tellamantez, not lifting her eyes.
It seemed to Thea that they waited for hours. At last
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