Explore "The Travelling Thirds" by Gertrude Atherton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
"Quien quiere agua? Quien quiere agua?"
The shrill cries of the water-carriers smote upon grateful ears as the dusty, sun-baked train paused at Fuente, a little station on the zigzag between Valencia and Albacete. They were young, misshapen girls, the hip that supported the gourd at least three inches higher than the other, with a corresponding elevation of shoulder. All along the train, hands were waving encouragingly, accompanied by cries of "Aqui! Aqui! " and the glasses were rapidly filled and emptied. But few ran over to the _cantina_ where the wine of the country was sold; and the amount of water that is dispensed at every station in Spain should encourage those whose war-cry is temperance and who are prone to believe that the southern races are lost. But water is precious in Spain, and must be paid for. At every station old women are waiting with buckets to catch the discharge from the engine-not, it is to be hoped, for traffic.