“Well, you know, Padre dear,” she replied seriously, “we can’t ask for too much––for we already have everything, haven’t we? After all, we can only ask to see what we really already have.
“Say ‘yes,’ Padre dear,” she pleaded, looking up appealingly at him staring silently at her. Oh, if she could only impart to him even a little of her abundant faith! She had enough, and to spare!
“Well, here it is,” she said, holding out the paper.
He took it and read––“Dear, dear God: Padre Josè needs pesos––lots of them. What shall he do?”
“And now,” she continued, “shall we put it under the altar of the old church?”
He smiled; but immediately assumed an expression of great seriousness. “Why not in the church here, the one we are using? The other is so far away?” he suggested. “And it is getting dark now.”
“But––no, we will go where we went before,” she concluded firmly.
Again he yielded. Taking matches and a piece of candle, he set off with the girl in a circuitous route for the hill, which they gained unobserved. Within the musty old church he struck a light, and they climbed over the débris and to the rear of the crumbling altar.
“See!” she cried joyously. “Here is my other question that He answered! Doesn’t He answer them quick though! Why, it took only a day!”
She drew the old paper from beneath the adobe brick. Then she hesitated. “Let us put this question in a new place,” she said. “Look, up there, where the bricks have fallen out,” pointing to the part of the altar that had crumbled away.