From behind his palms came muffled _who-who-who-oo-oos_ of laughter.
He believed that he was laughing at the trick he had played on Tomaso's brother.

He was doing more than that: he was making up for all the sober longing, for all the fears and the discouragements of his barren life.
There had been so much hoping and sighing and futile wishing--it had been so long since Johnny Jewel had really laughed--and he was young, and youth is the time of carefree laughter.

Now nature was striking a balance for him.
Tomaso's brother went up over the rim of the basin, disappeared, and then came plodding back through the heat.

Johnny had laughed all that while; laughed until his sides were sore; until his eyes were red with the tears he had shed; until he was so weak he staggered when he first crawled out from under the plane and stood up.

But it did him good, for all that, to have laughed so hard and so long over an impish trick that came from the boy in him.
"Me, I don't find him that damn fuz'lawge," said the brother of Tomaso, wiping his swarthy countenance that was beaded with sweat.