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Usually when I pull a book on gardening down from a shelf, I would like to know why peas did not come up well this year and what to do about the worms that eat holes in carrots. The authors of these books are not out to solve my gardening problems.

Adela and I were hauling water for the first spring crops—peas, potatoes, spinach and lettuce. With five-gallon buckets in each hand we headed down to the creek, dipped our buckets, hauled them back up the hill, then handed them off to another crew.

Adela handed off her buckets with a smile, and we talked—she in rapid Mexican Spanish, me in halting gringo Spanglish. She told me about the years she worked in the tobacco fields. We rested. Then we went back to work.