At luncheon the boy was very silent at first. He sat looking admiringly at Mrs. St. Peter and the little girls. The day had grown warm, and the Professor thought this was the hottest boy he had ever seen. His stiff white collar began to melt, and his handkerchief, as he kept wiping his face with it, became a rag. “I didn’t know it would be so warm up here, or I’d have picked a lighter suit,” he said, embarrassed by the activity of his skin.
“We would like to hear more about your life in the Southwest,” said his host. “How long were you a call boy?”
“Two years. Then I had pneumonia, and the doctor said I ought to go on the range, so I went to work for a big cattle firm.”
Mrs. St. Peter began to question him about the Indian pueblos. He was reticent at first, but he presently warmed up in defence of Indian housewifery. He forgot his shyness so far, indeed, that having made a neat heap of mashed potato beside his chop, he conveyed it to his mouth on the blade of his knife, at which sight the little girls were not able to conceal their astonishment. Mrs. St. Peter went on quietly talking about Indian pottery and asking him where they made the best.
“I think the very best is the old—the cliff-dweller pottery,” he said. “Do you take an interest in pottery, Ma’am? Maybe you’d like to see some I have brought along.” As they rose from the table he went to his telescope underneath the hat-rack, knelt beside it, and undid the straps. When he lifted the cover, it seemed full of bulky objects wrapped in newspapers. After feeling among them, he unwrapped one and displayed an earthen water jar, shaped like those common in Greek sculpture, and ornamented with a geometrical pattern in black and white.
“That’s one of the real old ones. I know, for I got it out myself. I don’t know just how old, but there’s piñon trees three hundred years old by their rings, growing up in the stone trail that leads to the ruins where I got it.”