So José watched his busy mother and wondered why she took no time to play with him. Several times a day she took the great water jar on her shoulder and walked slowly with him down the long, winding trail to the little brook which supplied the household—yes, several households—with water. Occasionally, too, they bathed in the clear waters—in the summer. But even then the water was cool and soap expensive, so baths were infrequent. And then the water was full of wonderful animals known as chanes. No one could see them, of course, except in rainy weather, when they appeared as great arcs or bows in the sky, striped with colors, head in one spring and tail in another, as they visited. But ordinarily they were invisible, though their forms were well known. They had the bodies of serpents with horns like cattle. They were to be treated reverently, as they had the power of sickening all who disregarded them.