“I have no doubt of it, Rosendo,” replied Josè, with a smile. “And in days past stranger remedies than that were used by supposedly wise people. When the eyesight was poor, they rubbed wax from the human ear upon the eyes, and I doubt not marvelous restorations of sight were made. So also dogs’ teeth were ground into powder and taken to alleviate certain bodily pains. Almost everything that could be swallowed has been taken by mankind to cure their aches and torments. But they still ache to-day; and will continue to do so, I believe, until their present state of mind greatly changes.”
When the simple midday meal of corn arepa and black coffee was finished, Josè descended into the quiet town. “It is absurd that we should be kept on the hill,” he had said to Rosendo, “but these dull, simple minds believe that, having handled those dead of the plague, we have become agents of infection. They forget that they themselves are living either in the same house with it, or closely adjacent. But it humors them, poor children, and we will stay here for their sakes.”
“Caramba! and they have made us their sextons!” muttered Rosendo.
Josè shuddered. The clammy hand of fear again reached for his heart. He turned to Carmen, who was busily occupied in the shade of the old church.
“Your lessons, chiquita?” he queried, going to her for a moment’s abstraction.
“No, Padre dear,” she replied, smiling up at him, while she quickly concealed the bit of paper on which she had been writing.
“Then what are you doing, little one?” he insisted.
“Padre dear––don’t––don’t always make me tell you everything,” she pleaded, but only half in earnest, as she cast an enigmatical glance at him.
“But this time I insist on knowing; so you might as well tell me.”
“Well then, if you must know,” she replied, her face beaming with a happiness which seemed to Josè strangely out of 180 place in that tense atmosphere, “I have been writing a question to God.” She held out the paper.