"Are you the one they call
Rose-Ellen?"
"Yes, ma'am," said Rose-Ellen, burying her nose in the flowers.
"I had a little sister named Rose-Ellen," the woman said gently.
"You come play on the grass sometime, and we'll pick flowers for
your mother."
"And can Nico and Vicente come, too?" Rose-Ellen asked. "They're
my best friends."
The woman looked at Nico and Vicente with cold eyes. "I can't ask
_all_ the children," she answered.
"Thank you, ma'am," Rose-Ellen stammered. When they were out of
sight down the road, she threw the roses into the dust. Nico
snatched them up again.
"I wouldn't go there--I wouldn't go there for ten dollars,"
Rose-Ellen declared. Vicente looked at her with wise deep eyes.
"I could 'a' told you," she said, shrugging. "American ladies,
they mostly don't like Mexican kids. I don't know why."
October came. It was the time for the topping of the beets. The
Martinez family went back to Denver for school. The Garcias
stayed; their children would go into the special room when they
returned, to have English lessons and to catch up in other
studies--or rather, to try to catch up.
"But me, always I am two years in back of myself," Vicente
regretted one day, "even with specials room. Early out of school
and late into it, for me that makes too hard.
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