“Very happy, he would jog home, the heavy silver pieces in his leather pockets making a discreet and dulcet ‘trink-trak’ between his jugs and his body.”

“He learned that the city aguador may not blow his whistle to halt the traffic while he gravely crosses the street, but must wait for the passing of many vehicles, some with horses and some outlandishly without.”

“From early morn to the fall of the afternoon he would go from fountain to fountain and from portal to portal, his lean body so accustomed to bending that he never thought of straightening it, his head bowed as if in prayer.”

“When his first jugs had worn out—the sweet-scented, porous red clay becomes perforated in time—he had buried them to their necks in the corner where he slept, and they were now his treasury.”