Returning from the mass, the padre refreshed himself with a small glass of gin-and-water, as his custom was; nor could the appeal of any one persuade him to take more than a single glass or to take that at an earlier or later hour. The ancient maestra had arrived—a wrinkled old body in a black dress and black carpet-slippers—and she knelt down to touch the padre’s outstretched hand with her thin, withered lips. The little children, who were waiting for their classes to be called, all followed her example, and before long, the monotonous drone of the recitations left no doubt that school had actually begun. Benches had filled up, and the dusky feet were swinging under them as the small backs bent over knotty problems on the slates.
The padre, passing among the pupils, made the necessary erasures and corrections, and occasionally gave unasked to some recalcitrant a smart snap on the head. The morning session ended by the pupils lining up in a half circle around the battered figure of a saint—the altar decorated with red paper flowers, or colored grasses in a number of empty beer-bottles—and, while the padre played the wheezy harmonium, singing their repertoire of sacred songs. Then, as the children departed with the “Buenos dias, señor,” visitors, who had been waiting on the stairway with their presents of eggs, chickens, and bananas, were received.
“Thees man,” the padre explained to me, as a grotesque old fellow humbled himself before us, “leeves in one house near from ze shore. He has presented me with some goud rope to tie my horses with (buen piece, hombre), and he says that there are no more fishes in ze sea.”
“See, they have brought so many breads and fruits! They know well that eet ees my fast-day, and that my custom ees to eat no meat. I can eat fish or cheecken, but not fish and cheecken; eet ees difficult here to find enough food to sustain ze life on days of fast.”
“Thees girl,” he said, “loves me too much. She is my orphan, she and her two brothers. I have bought one house for them near from ze church, and, for the girl, one sewing-machine. Their mother had been stealed [robbed] of everything, and she had died a month ago. Ze cheeldren now have nobody but me.”
She was a bright young girl, well-dressed and plump, although, when Padre Pedro had received her, she was wasted by the fever, and near starved to death. But this was only one of his many charities. He used to loan out money to the people, knowing well that they would never be able to return it. He had cured the sick, and had distributed quinine among families that could not have secured it otherwise. He went to visit his parishioners, although they had no means of entertaining him. Most of them even had no chairs for him to sit on when he came, and they would stand around in such embarrassed silence that the padre could not have derived much pleasure from their company.
At the padre’s “áver, bata!” after the last visitor has gone, the house-boys run in with the noon meal. The padre had a good cook, who understood the art of fixing the provisions in the Spanish style. I was surprised at the resources of the parish; for a meal of ten or fifteen courses was the usual thing. A phalanx of barefooted waiters stood in line to take the plates when we had finished the respective courses, broth, mutton stew, and chicken, and bananas for dessert. The padre, I am sorry to say, ate with his knife, and was inclined to gobble. Two yellow dogs and a lean cat stood by to gulp the morsels that were thrown them from the table. When the dinner was completed, a large tumbler of water and a toothpick were brought on. After a smoke the padre took his customary nap, retiring to the low, cane-bottomed bed, where he intrenched himself behind mosquito-bars.
The convent was a rambling building, with adobe walls. It was raised up on pillars as long as telegraph poles, and the ground floor was divided into various apartments. There was the “calaboos,” where Padre Pedro’s chickens were encouraged to “put” eggs. There were the stables for the padre’s ponies, and a large bamboo stockade for pigs and chickens. The little friar took a lively interest in this corral, and he would feed his stock with his own hand from the convent window. “Ze leetle goat,” he said, “eet ees my mind to send to Father Cipriano for a geeft.” The sucking pig was being saved for Easter-time, when it should be well roasted on a spit, with a banana in its mouth. There were just sixty-seven chickens, and the padre used to count them every day and notice their peculiarities.
During the afternoon the padre’s time was taken up by various religious duties, and the school was left in charge of the old maestra. There would be a funeral service at the church, or a baptism, or confession. Some days he would be called away to other barrios to hear a last confession; but the distance or the weather never daunted him, and he would tuck his gown well up, and, followed by a sacristan, ride merrily away. On his return a cup of pasty chocolate would await him. Padre Pedro used to make a certain egg-fizz which was a refreshing drink of a long afternoon. The eggs were lashed into a froth by means of a bamboo brush twisted or rolled between the palms. The beauty of this beverage was that you could drain the cup, and, like the miracle of loaves and fishes, stir the batter up again, and have another drink of the same quality. “When Padre Cipriano comes here,” said the friar, “eet ees very gay. Ah! Cipriano, he can make the foam come up three times. He knows well how to make thees drink.”
When he would take his ebony cane and go out walking about sunset, followed by his yellow dog, the village people, young and old, would tumble over each other in their eagerness to kiss the father’s hand. He would mischievously tweak the noses of the little ones, or pat the tiny girls upon the head. The friend of the lowly, he had somehow incensed the upper ten. But he had shown his nerve one Sunday morning when he had talked down one of these braggadocios who had leveled a revolver at him in the church.