Tales of Aztlan; The Romance of a Hero of Our Late Spanish-American War, Incidents of Interest from the Life of a Western Pioneer and Other Tales — John Shaqi
Tales of Aztlan; The Romance of a Hero of Our Late Spanish-American War, Incidents of Interest from the Life of a Western Pioneer and Other TalesHartmann, George
General
Tales of Aztlan; The Romance of a Hero of Our Late Spanish-American War, Incidents of Interest from the Life of a Western Pioneer and Other Tales
Hartmann, George
Short stories, American; Spanish-American War, 1898 -- Fiction; Western stories
Others said that Don Jose Lopez had set up a shrine for the image of
his renowned patron saint, San Miguel, in his provision wagon, which
was being driven by the American boy, and the boy took the bullet which
wounded the coyote so sorely out of the saint's mouth, who had bitten
the sign of the cross thereon. And the evil one, in the likeness of the
coyote, rolled in his agony on the grass when he was hit by the
cross-marked bullet. Of course, the grass took fire and very nearly
burned up the whole caravan.
Other people said they were not surprised to hear of miracles emanating
from the shrine of the patron saint of Don Jose. His grandfather had
whittled this famous image out of a cottonwood tree, whereon a saintly
Penitente had been crucified after the custom of the order of
Flagellants. This Penitente resembled the penitent thief who died on
the cross and entered Paradise with the Saviour in this, that he was
known to be a good horse thief, and as he had died on the cross on a
night of Good Friday, he surely went to Glory Everlasting. Don Jose's
grandfather made a pilgrimage with this image he had made to the City
of Mexico, to have the Archbishop bless it in the cathedral before
Santa Guadalupe. During the ceremony, it was said, there grew a fine
head of flaxen hair on the image and it received beautiful blue eyes.
And it had the miraculous propensity to ever after wink its eye in the
presence of a priest and at the approach of a Christ-hating Jew, it
would spit. This virtue saved much wealth for the family of Don Jose,
as they were ever put on their guard against Jewish peddlers.
The rumor that Don Jose Lopez had carried the household saint with him
in his wagon was at once contradicted and disproved by his wife, Dona
Mercedes. The lady declared that San Miguel had never left his shrine
in the patio of their residence except for the avowed purpose of making
rain. In seasons of protracted drouth, when crops and live stock suffer
for want of water, crowds of Mexican people, mostly farmers' wives and
their children, form processions and carry the images of saints round
about the parched fields, chanting hymns and praying for rain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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