Christian fiction; Clergy -- Fiction; Historical fiction; New Mexico -- Fiction
In answer to the Bishop's questions, they told him the simple story of
their lives. They had here all they needed to make them happy. They spun
and wove from the fleece of their flocks, raised their own corn and
wheat and tobacco, dried their plums and apricots for winter. Once a
year the boys took the grain up to Albuquerque to have it ground, and
bought such luxuries as sugar and coffee. They had bees, and when sugar
was high they sweetened with honey. Benito did not know in what year his
grandfather had settled here, coming from Chihuahua with all his goods
in ox-carts. "But it was soon after the time when the French killed
their king. My grandfather had heard talk of that before he left home,
and used to tell us boys about it when he was an old man."
"Perhaps you have guessed that I am a Frenchman," said Father Latour.
No, they had not, but they felt sure he was not an American. José, the
elder grandson, had been watching the visitor uncertainly. He was a
handsome boy, with a triangle of black hair hanging over his rather
sullen eyes. He now spoke for the first time.
"They say at Albuquerque that now we are all Americans, but that is not
true, Padre. I will never be an American. They are infidels."
"Not all, my son. I have lived among Americans in the north for ten
years, and I found many devout Catholics."
The young man shook his head. "They destroyed our churches when they
were fighting us, and stabled their horses in them. And now they will
take our religion away from us. We want our own ways and our own
religion."
Father Latour began to tell them about his friendly relations with
Protestants in Ohio, but they had not room in their minds for two ideas;
there was one Church, and the rest of the world was infidel. One thing
they could understand; that he had here in his saddle-bags his
vestments, the altar stone, and all the equipment for celebrating the
Mass; and that to-morrow morning, after Mass, he would hear confessions,
baptize, and sanctify marriages.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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