e and
tomatoes, onion, grated cheese, and olives, and for a relish chile
_tepines_ passed about in a dish, all of which is comfortable and
corrective to the stomach. You will have wine which every man makes for
himself, of good body and inimitable bouquet, and sweets that are not
nearly so nice as they look.

There are two occasions when you may count on that kind of a meal;
always on the Sixteenth of September, and on the two-yearly visits of
Father Shannon. It is absurd, of course, that El Pueblo de Las Uvas
should have an Irish priest, but Black Rock, Minton, Jimville, and all
that country round do not find it so. Father Shannon visits them all,
waits by the Red Butte to confess the shepherds who go through with
their flocks, carries blessing to small and isolated mines, and so in
the course of a year or so works around to Las Uvas to bury and marry
and christen. Then all the little graves in the _Campo Santo_ are brave
with tapers, the brown pine headboards blossom like Aaron's rod with
paper roses and bright cheap prints of Our Lady of Sorrows. Then the
Senora Sevadra, who thinks herself elect of heaven for that office,
gathers up the original sinners, the little Elijias, Lolas, Manuelitas,
Jose, and Felipes, by dint of adjurations and sweets smuggled into small
perspiring palms, to fit them for the Sacrament.

I used to peek in at them, never so softly, in Dona Ina's living-room;
Raphael-eyed little imps, going sidewise on their knees to rest them
from the bare floor, candles lit on the mantel to give a religious air,
and a great sheaf of wild bloom before the Holy Family. Come Sunday they
set out the altar in the schoolhouse, with the fine-drawn altar cloths,
the beaten silver candlesticks, and the wax images, chief glory of Las
Uvas, brought up mule-back from Old Mexico forty years ago. All in white
the communicants go up two and two in a hushed, sweet awe to take the
body of their Lord, and Tomaso, who is priest's boy, tries not to look
unduly puffed up by his office. After that you have dinner and a bottle
of wine that ripened on the sunny slope of Escondito. All the week
Father Shannon has shriven his people, who bring clean conscience to the
betterment of appetite, and the Father sets them an example. Father
Shannon is rather big about the middle to accommodate the large laugh
that lives in him, but a most shrewd searcher of hearts. It is reported
that one derives comfort from his confessional, and I for my