When did it get so hot, she asked herself, removing an old red rag she kept tucked in the waistband of her ankle-length denim skirt and swiping it across her forehead. Sweat and dirt had pasted her sleeveless white cotton blouse to her body, and clammy wetness ran in cold streams down her back. Her silver hair lay hot and damp around her face and neck. She pushed up the brim of the straw hat she wore on her head, and peered up at the cloudless blue sky. More...