“And I suppose He tells you when to sing, too, as He does Cantar-las-horas?” said Josè, smiling in amusement.
“No, Padre,” was the unaffected answer. “He just sings Himself in me.”
The man felt rebuked for his light remark; and a lump rose 33 in his throat. He looked again into her fair face with a deep yearning.
Oh, ye of little faith! Did you but know––could you but realize––that the kingdom of heaven is within you, would not celestial melody flow from your lips, too?
Throughout the afternoon, while he labored with his willing helpers in the church building and his homely cottage, the child’s song lingered in his brain, like the memory of a sweet perfume. His eyes followed her lithe, graceful form as she flitted about, and his mind was busy devising pretexts for keeping her near him. At times she would steal up close to him and put her little hand lovingly and confidingly into his own. Then as he looked down into her upturned face, wreathed with smiles of happiness, his breath would catch, and he would turn hurriedly away, that she might not see the tears which suffused his eyes.
When night crept down, unheralded, from the Sierras, the priest’s house stood ready for its occupant. Cantar-las-horas had dedicated it by singing the Angelus at the front door, for the hour of six had overtaken him as he stood, with cocked head, peering curiously within. The dwelling, though pitifully bare, was nevertheless as clean as these humble folk with the primitive means at their command could render it. Instead of the customary hard macana palm strips for the bed, Rosendo had thoughtfully substituted a large piece of tough white canvas, fastened to a rectangular frame, which rested on posts well above the damp floor. On this lay a white sheet and a light blanket of red flannel. Rosendo had insisted that, for the present, Josè should take his meals with him. The priest’s domestic arrangements, therefore, would be simple in the extreme; and Doña Maria quietly announced that these were in her charge. The church edifice would not be in order for some days yet, perhaps a week. But of this Josè was secretly glad, for he regarded with dread the necessity of discharging the priestly functions. And yet, upon that hinged his stay in Simití.
“Simití has two churches, you know, Padre,” remarked Rosendo during the evening meal. “There is another old one near the eastern edge of town. If you wish, we can visit it while there is yet light.”
Josè expressed his pleasure; and a few minutes later the two men, with Carmen dancing along happily beside them, were climbing the shaly eminence upon the summit of which stood the second church. On the way they passed the town cemetery.
“The Spanish cemetery never grows,” commented Josè, stopping at the crumbling gateway and peering in. The place 34 of sepulture was the epitome of utter desolation. A tumbled brick wall surrounded it, and there were a few broken brick vaults, in some of which whitening bones were visible. In a far corner was a heap of human bones and bits of decayed coffins.
“Their rent fell due, Padre,” said Rosendo with a little laugh, indicating the bones. “The Church rents this ground to the people––it is consecrated, you know. And if the payments are not made, why, the bones come up and are thrown over there.”