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A town is a thing like a colonial animal. A town has a nervous system
and a head and shoulders and feet. A town is a thing separate from all
other towns, so that there are no two towns alike. And a town has a
whole emotion. How news travels through a town is a mystery not easily
to be solved. News seems to move faster than small boys can scramble
and dart to tell it, faster than women can call it over the fences.
Before Kino and Juana and the other fishers had come to Kino's brush
house, the nerves of the town were pulsing and vibrating with the news-
Kino had found the Pearl of the World. Before panting little boys could
strangle out the words, their mothers knew it. The news swept on past
the brush houses, and it washed in a foaming wave into the town of
stone and plaster. It came to the priest walking in his garden, and it
put a thoughtful look in his eyes and a memory of certain repairs
necessary to the church. He wondered what the pearl would be worth. And
he wondered whether he had baptized Kino's baby, or married him for
that matter. The news came to the shopkeepers, and they looked at men's
clothes that had not sold so well.
The news came to the doctor where he sat with a woman whose illness was
age, though neither she nor the doctor would admit it. And when it was
made plain who Kino was, the doctor grew stern and judicious at the
same time. "He is a client of mine," the doctor said. "I am treating
his child for a scorpion sting." And the doctor's eyes rolled up a
little in their fat hammocks and he thought of Paris. He remembered the
room he had lived in there as a great and luxurious place, and he
remembered the hard-faced woman who had lived with him as a beautiful
and kind girl, although she had been none of these three. The doctor
looked past his aged patient and saw himself sitting in a restaurant in
Paris and a waiter was just opening a bottle of wine.
The news came early to the beggars in front of the church, and it made
them giggle a little with pleasure, for they knew that there is no
almsgiver in the world like a poor man who is suddenly lucky.
Kino has found the Pearl of the World. In the town, in little offices,
sat the men who bought pearls from the fishers. They waited in their
chairs until the pearls came in, and then they cackled and fought and
shouted and threatened until they reached the lowest price the
fisherman would stand. But there was a price below which they dared not
go, for it had happened that a fisherman in despair had given his
pearls to the church. And when the buying was over, these buyers sat
alone and their fingers played restlessly with the pearls, and they
wished they owned the pearls. For there were not many buyers really-
there was only one, and he kept these agents in separate offices to
give a semblance of competition. The news came to these men, and their
eyes squinted and their fingertips burned a little, and each one
thought how the patron could not live forever and someone had to take
his place. And each one thought how with some capital he could get a
new start.
All manner of people grew interested in Kino- people with things to
sell and people with favors to ask. Kino had found the Pearl of the
World. The essence of pearl mixed with essence of men and a curious
dark residue was precipitated. Every man suddenly became related to
Kino's pearl, and Kino's pearl went into the dreams, the speculations,
the schemes, the plans, the futures, the wishes, the needs, the lusts,
the hungers, of everyone, and only one person stood in the way and that
was Kino, so that he became curiously every man's enemy. The news
stirred up something infinitely black and evil in the town; the black
distillate was like the scorpion, or like hunger in the smell of food,
or like loneliness when love is withheld. The poison sacs of the town
began to manufacture venom, and the town swelled and puffed with the
pressure of it.
But Kino and Juana did not know these things. Because they were happy
and excited they thought everyone shared their joy. Juan Tomas and
Apolonia did, and they were the world too. In the afternoon, when the
sun had gone over the mountains of the Peninsula to sink in the outward
sea, Kino squatted in his house with Juana beside him. And the brush
house was crowded with neighbors. Kino held the great pearl in his
hand, and it was warm and alive in his hand. And the music of the pearl
had merged with the music of the family so that one beautified the
other. The neighbors looked at the pearl in Kino's hand and they
wondered how such luck could come to any man.
And Juan Tomas, who squatted on Kino's right hand because he was his
brother, asked, "What will you do now that you have become a rich man?"
Kino looked into his pearl, and Juana cast her eyelashes down and
arranged her shawl to cover her face so that her excitement could not
be seen. And in the incandescence of the pearl the pictures formed of
the things Kino's mind had considered in the past and had given up as
impossible. In the pearl he saw Juana and Coyotito and himself standing
and kneeling at the high altar, and they were being married now that
they could pay. He spoke softly, "We will be married- in the church."
In the pearl he saw how they were dressed- Juana in a shawl stiff with
newness and a new skirt, and from under the long skirt Kino could see
that she wore shoes. It was in the pearl- the picture glowing there. He
himself was dressed in new white clothes, and he carried a new hat- not
of straw but of fine black felt- and he too wore shoes- not sandals but
shoes that laced. But Coyotito- he was the one- he wore a blue sailor
suit from the United States and a little yachting cap such as Kino had
seen once when a pleasure boat put into the estuary. All of these
things Kino saw in the lucent pearl and he said, "We will have new
clothes."
And the music of the pearl rose like a chorus of trumpets in his ears.
Then to the lovely gray surface of the pearl came the little things
Kino wanted: a harpoon to take the place of one lost a year ago, a new
harpoon of iron with a ring in the end of the shaft; and- his mind
could hardly make the leap- a rifle- but why not, since he was so rich.
And Kino saw Kino in the pearl, Kino holding a Winchester carbine. It
was the wildest daydreaming and very pleasant. His lips moved
hesitantly over this- "A rifle," he said. "Perhaps a rifle."
It was the rifle that broke down the barriers. This was an
impossibility, and if he could think of having a rifle whole horizons
were burst and he could rush on. For it is said that humans are never
satisfied, that you give them one thing and they want something more.
And this is said in disparagement, whereas it is one of the greatest
talents the species has and one that has made it superior to animals -
that are satisfied with what they have.
The neighbors, close pressed and silent in the house, nodded their
heads at his wild imaginings. And a man in the rear murmured, "A rifle.
He will have a rifle."
But the music of the pearl was shrilling with triumph in Kino. Juana
looked up, and her eyes were wide at Kino's courage and at his
imagination. And electric strength had come to him now the horizons
were kicked out. In the pearl he saw Coyotito sitting at a little desk
in a school, just as Kino had once seen it through an open door. And
Coyotito was dressed in a jacket, and he had on a white collar, and a
broad silken tie. Moreover, Coyotito was writing on a big piece of
paper. Kino looked at his neighbors fiercely. "My son will go to
school," he said, and the neighbors were hushed. Juana caught her
breath sharply. Her eyes were bright as she watched him, and she looked
quickly down at Coyotito in her arms to see whether this might be
possible.
But Kino's face shone with prophecy. "My son will read and open the
books, and my son will write and will know writing. And my son will
make numbers, and these things will make us free because he will know-
he will know and through him we will know." And in the pearl Kino saw
himself and Juana squatting by the little fire in the brush hut while
Coyotito read from a great book. "This is what the pearl will do," said
Kino. And he had never said so many words together in his life. And
suddenly he was afraid of his talking. His hand closed down over the
pearl and cut the light away from it. Kino was afraid as a man is
afraid who says, "I will," without knowing.
Now the neighbors knew they had witnessed a great marvel. They knew
that time would now date from Kino's pearl, and that they would discuss
this moment for many years to come. If these things came to pass, they
would recount how Kino looked and what he said and how his eyes shone,
and they would say, "He was a man transfigured. Some power was given to
him, and there it started. You see what a great man he has become,
starting from that moment. And I myself saw it."
And if Kino's planning came to nothing, those same neighbors would say,
"There it started. A foolish madness came over him so that he spoke
foolish words. God keep us from such things. Yes, God punished Kino
because he rebelled against the way things are. You see what has become
of him. And I myself saw the moment when his reason left him."
Kino looked down at his closed hand and the knuckles were scabbed over
and tight where he had struck the gate.
Now the dusk was coming. And Juana looped her shawl under the baby so
that he hung against her hip, and she went to the fire hole and dug a
coal from the ashes and broke a few twigs over it and fanned a flame
alive. The little flames danced on the faces of the neighbors. They
knew they should go to their own dinners, but they were reluctant to
leave.
The dark was almost in, and Juana's fire threw shadows on the brush
walls when the whisper came in, passed from mouth to mouth. "The Father
is coming- the priest is coming." The men uncovered their heads and
stepped back from the door, and the women gathered their shawls about
their faces and cast down their eyes. Kino and Juan Tomas, his brother,
stood up. The priest came in- a graying, aging man with an old skin and
a young sharp eye. Children, he considered these people, and he treated
them like children.
"Kino," he said softly, "thou art named after a great man- and a great
Father of the Church." He made it sound like a benediction. "Thy
namesake tamed the desert and sweetened the minds of thy people, didst
thou know that? It is in the books."
Kino looked quickly down at Coyotito's head, where he hung on Juana's
hip. Some day, his mind said, that boy would know what things were in
the books and what things were not. The music had gone out of Kino's
head, but now, thinly, slowly, the melody of the morning, the music of
evil, of the enemy, sounded, but it was faint and weak. And Kino looked
at his neighbors to see who might have brought this song in.
But the priest was speaking again. "It has come to me that thou hast
found a great fortune, a great pearl."
Kino opened his hand and held it out, and the priest gasped a little at
the size and beauty of the pearl. And then he said, "I hope thou wilt
remember to give thanks, my son, to Him who has given thee this
treasure, and to pray for guidance in the future."
Kino nodded dumbly, and it was Juana who spoke softly. "We will,
Father. And we will be married now. Kino has said so." She looked at
the neighbors for confirmation, and they nodded their heads solemnly.
The priest said, "It is pleasant to see that your first thoughts are
good thoughts. God bless you, my children." He turned and left quietly,
and the people let him through.
But Kino's hand had closed tightly on the pearl again, and he was
glancing about suspiciously, for the evil song was in his ears,
shrilling against the music of the pearl.
The neighbors slipped away to go to their houses, and Juana squatted by
the fire and set her clay pot of boiled beans over the little flame.
Kino stepped to the doorway and looked out. As always, he could smell
the smoke from many fires, and he could see the hazy stars and feel the
damp of the night air so that he covered his nose from it. The thin dog
came to him and threshed itself in greeting like a windblown flag, and
Kino looked down at it and didn't see it. He had broken through the
horizons into a cold and lonely outside. He felt alone and unprotected,
and scraping crickets and shrilling tree frogs and croaking toads
seemed to be carrying the melody of evil. Kino shivered a little and
drew his blanket more tightly against his nose. He carried the pearl
still in his hand, tightly closed in his palm, and it was warm and
smooth against his skin.
Behind him he heard Juana patting the cakes before she put them down on
the clay cooking sheet. Kino felt all the warmth and security of his
family behind him, and the Song of the Family came from behind him like
the purring of a kitten. But now, by saying what his future was going
to be like, he had created it. A plan is a real thing, and things
projected are experienced. A plan once made and visualized becomes a
reality along with other realities- never to be destroyed but easily to
be attacked. Thus Kino's future was real, but having set it up, other
forces were set up to destroy it, and this he knew, so that he had to
prepare to meet the attack. And this Kino knew also- that the gods do
not love men's plans, and the gods do not love success unless it comes
by accident. He knew that the gods take their revenge on a man if he be
successful through his own efforts. Consequently Kino was afraid of
plans, but having made one, he could never destroy it. And to meet the
attack, Kino was already making a hard skin for himself against the
world. His eyes and his mind probed for danger before it appeared.
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Standing in the door, he saw two men approach; and one of them carried
a lantern which lighted the ground and the legs of the men. They turned
in through the opening of Kino's brush fence and came to his door. And
Kino saw that one was the doctor and the other the servant who had
opened the gate in the morning. The split knuckles on Kino's right hand
burned when he saw who they were.
The doctor said, "I was not in when you came this morning. But now, at
the first chance, I have come to see the baby."
Kino stood in the door, filling it, and hatred raged and flamed in back
of his eyes, and fear too, for the hundreds of years of subjugation
were cut deep in him.
"The baby is nearly well now," he said curtly.
The doctor smiled, but his eyes in their little lymph-lined hammocks
did not smile.
He said, "Sometimes, my friend, the scorpion sting has a curious
effect. There will be apparent improvement, and then without warning-
pouf!" He pursed his lips and made a little explosion to show how quick
it could be, and he shifted his small black doctor's bag about so that
the light of the lamp fell upon it, for he knew that Kino's race love
the tools of any craft and trust them. "Sometimes," the doctor went on
in a liquid tone, "sometimes there will be a withered leg or a blind
eye or a crumpled back. Oh, I know the sting of the scorpion, my
friend, and I can cure it."
Kino felt the rage and hatred melting toward fear. He did not know, and
perhaps this doctor did. And he could not take the chance of putting
his certain ignorance against this man's possible knowledge. He was
trapped as his people were always trapped, and would be until, as he
had said, they could be sure that the things in the books were really
in the books. He could not take a chance- not with the life or with the
straightness of Coyotito. He stood aside and let the doctor and his man
enter the brush hut.
Juana stood up from the fire and backed away as he entered, and she
covered the baby's face with the fringe of her shawl. And when the
doctor went to her and held out his hand, she clutched the baby tight
and looked at Kino where he stood with the fire shadows leaping on his
face.
Kino nodded, and only then did she let the doctor take the baby.
"Hold the light," the doctor said, and when the servant held the
lantern high, the doctor looked for a moment at the wound on the baby's
shoulder. He was thoughtful for a moment and then he rolled back the
baby's eyelid and looked at the eyeball. He nodded his head while
Coyotito struggled against him.
"It is as I thought," he said. "The poison has gone inward and it will
strike soon. Come look!" He held the eyelid down. "See- it is blue."
And Kino, looking anxiously, saw that indeed it was a little blue. And
he didn't know whether or not it was always a little blue. But the trap
was set. He couldn't take the chance.
The doctor's eyes watered in their little hammocks. "I will give him
something to try to turn the poison aside," he said. And he handed the
baby to Kino.
Then from his bag he took a little bottle of white powder and a capsule
of gelatine. He filled the capsule with the powder and closed it, and
then around the first capsule he fitted a second capsule and closed it.
Then he worked very deftly. He took the baby and pinched its lower lip
until it opened its mouth. His fat fingers placed the capsule far back
on the baby's tongue, back of the point where he could spit it out, and
then from the floor he picked up the little pitcher of pulque and gave
Coyotito a drink, and it was done. He looked again at the baby's
eyeball and he pursed his lips and seemed to think.
At last he handed the baby back to Juana, and he turned to Kino. "I
think the poison will attack within the hour," he said. "The medicine
may save the baby from hurt, but I will come back in an hour. Perhaps I
am in time to save him." He took a deep breath and went out of the hut,
and his servant followed him with the lantern.
Now Juana had the baby under her shawl, and she stared at it with
anxiety and fear. Kino came to her, and he lifted the shawl and stared
at the baby. He moved his hand to look under the eyelid, and only then
saw that the pearl was still in his hand. Then he went to a box by the
wall, and from it he brought a piece of rag. He wrapped the pearl in
the rag, then went to the corner of the brush house and dug a little
hole with his fingers in the dirt floor, and he put the pearl in the
hole and covered it up and concealed the place. And then he went to the
fire where Juana was squatting, watching the baby's face.
The doctor, back in his house, settled into his chair and looked at his
watch. His people brought him a little supper of chocolate and sweet
cakes and fruit, and he stared at the food discontentedly.
In the houses of the neighbors the subject that would lead all
conversations for a long time to come was aired for the first time to
see how it would go. The neighbors showed one another with their thumbs
how big the pearl was, and they made little caressing gestures to show
how lovely it was. From now on they would watch Kino and Juana very
closely to see whether riches turned their heads, as riches turn all
people's heads. Everyone knew why the doctor had come. He was not good
at dissembling and he was very well understood.
Out in the estuary a tight-woven school of small fishes glittered and
broke water to escape a school of great fishes that drove in to eat
them. And in the houses the people could hear the swish of the small
ones and the bouncing splash of the great ones as the slaughter went
on. The dampness arose out of the Gulf and was deposited on bushes and
cacti and on little trees in salty drops. And the night mice crept
about on the ground and the little night hawks hunted them silently.
The skinny black puppy with flame spots over his eyes came to Kino's
door and looked in. He nearly shook his hind quarters loose when Kino
glanced up at him, and he subsided when Kino looked away. The puppy did
not enter the house, but he watched with frantic interest while Kino
ate his beans from the little pottery dish and wiped it clean with a
corncake and ate the cake and washed the whole down with a drink of
pulque.
Kino was finished and was rolling a cigarette when Juana spoke sharply.
"Kino." He glanced at her and then got up and went quickly to her for
he saw fright in her eyes. He stood over her, looking down, but the
light was very dim. He kicked a pile of twigs into the fire hole to
make a blaze, and then he could see the face of Coyotito.
The baby's face was flushed and his throat was working and a little
thick drool of saliva issued from his lips. The spasm of the stomach
muscles began, and the baby was very sick.
Kino knelt beside his wife. "So the doctor knew," he said, but he said
it for himself as well as for his wife, for his mind was hard and
suspicious and he was remembering the white powder. Juana rocked from
side to side and moaned out the little Song of the Family as though it
could ward off the danger, and the baby vomited and writhed in her
arms. Now uncertainty was in Kino, and the music of evil throbbed in
his head and nearly drove out Juana's song.
The doctor finished his chocolate and nibbled the little fallen pieces
of sweet cake. He brushed his fingers on a napkin, looked at his watch,
arose, and took up his little bag.
The news of the baby's illness traveled quickly among the brush houses,
for sickness is second only to hunger as the enemy of poor people. And
some said softly, "Luck, you see, brings bitter friends." And they
nodded and got up to go to Kino's house. The neighbors scuttled with
covered noses through the dark until they crowded into Kino's house
again. They stood and gazed, and they made little comments on the
sadness that this should happen at a time of joy, and they said, "All
things are in God's hands." The old women squatted down beside Juana to
try to give her aid if they could and comfort if they could not.
Then the doctor hurried in, followed by his man. He scattered the old
women like chickens. He took the baby and examined it and felt its
head. "The poison it has worked," he said. "I think I can defeat it. I
will try my best." He asked for water, and in the cup of it he put
three drops of ammonia, and he pried open the baby's mouth and poured
it down. The baby spluttered and screeched under the treatment, and
Juana watched him with haunted eyes. The doctor spoke a little as he
worked. "It is lucky that I know about the poison of the scorpion,
otherwise-" and he shrugged to show what could have happened.
But Kino was suspicious, and he could not take his eyes from the
doctor's open bag, and from the bottle of white powder there. Gradually
the spasms subsided and the baby relaxed under the doctor's hands. And
then Coyotito sighed deeply and went to sleep, for he was very tired
with vomiting.
The doctor put the baby in Juana's arms. "He will get well now," he
said. "I have won the fight." And Juana looked at him with adoration.
The doctor was closing his bag now. He said, "When do you think you can
pay this bill?" He said it even kindly.
"When I have sold my pearl I will pay you," Kino said.
"You have a pearl? A good pearl?" the doctor asked with interest.
And then the chorus of the neighbors broke in. "He has found the Pearl
of the World," they cried, and they joined forefinger with thumb to
show how great the pearl was.
"Kino will be a rich man," they clamored. "It is a pearl such as one
has never seen."
The doctor looked surprised. "I had not heard of it. Do you keep this
pearl in a safe place? Perhaps you would like me to put it in my safe?"
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Kino's eyes were hooded now, his cheeks were drawn taut. "I have it
secure," he said. "Tomorrow I will sell it and then I will pay you."
The doctor shrugged, and his wet eyes never left Kino's eyes. He knew
the pearl would be buried in the house, and he thought Kino might look
toward the place where it was buried. "It would be a shame to have it
stolen before you could sell it," the doctor said, and he saw Kino's
eyes flick involuntarily to the floor near the side post of the brush
house.
When the doctor had gone and all the neighbors had reluctantly returned
to their houses, Kino squatted beside the little glowing coals in the
fire hole and listened to the night sound, the soft sweep of the little
waves on the shore and the distant barking of dogs, the creeping of the
breeze through the brush house roof and the soft speech of his
neighbors in their houses in the village. For these people do not sleep
soundly all night; they awaken at intervals and talk a little and then
go to sleep again. And after a while Kino got up and went to the door
of his house.
He smelled the breeze and he listened for any foreign sound of secrecy
or creeping, and his eyes searched the darkness, for the music of evil
was sounding in his head and he was fierce and afraid. After he had
probed the night with his senses he went to the place by the side post
where the pearl was buried, and he dug it up and brought it to his
sleeping mat, and under his sleeping mat he dug another little hole in
the dirt floor and buried his pearl and covered it up again.
And Juana, sitting by the fire hole, watched him with questioning eyes,
and when he had buried his pearl she asked, "Who do you fear?"
Kino searched for a true answer, and at last he said, "Everyone." And
he could feel a shell of hardness drawing over him.
After a while they lay down together on the sleeping mat, and Juana did
not put the baby in his box tonight, but cradled him on her arms and
covered his face with her head shawl. And the last light went out of
the embers in the fire hole.
But Kino's brain burned, even during his sleep, and he dreamed that
Coyotito could read, that one of his own people could tell him the
truth of things. And in his dream, Coyotito was reading from a book as
large as a house, with letters as big as dogs, and the words galloped
and played on the book. And then darkness spread over the page, and
with the darkness came the music of evil again, and Kino stirred in his
sleep; and when he stirred, Juana's eyes opened in the darkness. And
then Kino awakened, with the evil music pulsing in him, and he lay in
the darkness with his ears alert.
Then from the corner of the house came a sound so soft that it might
have been simply a thought, a little furtive movement, a touch of a
foot on earth, the almost inaudible purr of controlled breathing. Kino
held his breath to listen, and he knew that whatever dark thing was in
his house was holding its breath too, to listen. For a time no sound at
all came from the corner of the brush house. Then Kino might have
thought he had imagined the sound. But Juana's hand came creeping over
to him in warning, and then the sound came again! the whisper of a foot
on dry earth and the scratch of fingers in the soil.
And now a wild fear surged in Kino's breast, and on the fear came rage,
as it always did. Kino's hand crept into his breast where his knife
hung on a string, and then he sprang like an angry cat, leaped striking
and spitting for the dark thing he knew was in the corner of the house.
He felt cloth, struck at it with his knife and missed, and struck again
and felt his knife go through cloth, and then his head crashed with
lightning and exploded with pain. There was a soft scurry in the
doorway, and running steps for a moment, and then silence.
Kino could feel warm blood running down from his forehead, and he could
hear Juana calling to him. "Kino! Kino!" And there was terror in her
voice. Then coldness came over him as quickly as the rage had, and he
said, "I am all right. The thing has gone."
He groped his way back to the sleeping mat. Already Juana was working
at the fire. She uncovered an ember from the ashes and shredded little
pieces of cornhusk over it and blew a little flame into the cornhusks
so that a tiny light danced through the hut. And then from a secret
place Juana brought a little piece of consecrated candle and lighted it
at the flame and set it upright on a fireplace stone. She worked
quickly, crooning as she moved about. She dipped the end of her head
shawl in water and swabbed the blood from Kino's bruised forehead. "It
is nothing," Kino said, but his eyes and his voice were hard and cold
and a brooding hate was growing in him.
Now the tension which had been growing in Juana boiled up to the
surface and her lips were thin. "This thing is evil," she cried
harshly. "This pearl is like a sin! It will destroy us," and her voice
rose shrilly. "Throw it away, Kino. Let us break it between stones. Let
us bury it and forget the place. Let us throw it back into the sea. It
has brought evil. Kino, my husband, it will destroy us." And in the
firelight her lips and her eyes were alive with her fear.
But Kino's face was set, and his mind and his will were set. "This is
our one chance," he said. "Our son must go to school. He must break out
of the pot that holds us in."
"It will destroy us all," Juana cried. "Even our son."
"Hush," said Kino. "Do not speak any more. In the morning we will sell
the pearl, and then the evil will be gone, and only the good remain.
Now hush, my wife." His dark eyes scowled into the little fire, and for
the first time he knew that his knife was still in his hands, and he
raised the blade and looked at it and saw a little line of blood on the
steel. For a moment he seemed about to wipe the blade on his trousers
but then he plunged the knife into the earth and so cleansed it.
The distant roosters began to crow and the air changed and the dawn was
coming. The wind of the morning ruffled the water of the estuary and
whispered through the mangroves, and the little waves beat on the
rubbly beach with an increased tempo. Kino raised the sleeping mat and
dug up his pearl and put it in front of him and stared at it.
And the beauty of the pearl, winking and glimmering in the light of the
little candle, cozened his brain with its beauty. So lovely it was, so
soft, and its own music came from it- its music of promise and delight,
its guarantee of the future, of comfort, of security. Its warm lucence
promised a poultice against illness and a wall against insult. It
closed a door on hunger. And as he stared at it Kino's eyes softened
and his face relaxed. He could see the little image of the consecrated
candle reflected in the soft surface of the pearl, and he heard again
in his ears the lovely music of the undersea, the tone of the diffused
green light of the sea bottom. Juana, glancing secretly at him, saw him
smile. And because they were in some way one thing and one purpose, she
smiled with him.
And they began this day with hope.
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