After he had gone, she went to the spot and
putting her hand into the water felt the current that ran through a
gate he had opened.

"Then I know!" tearfully declared the woman to Rosa's grandmother.
"I follow my husband. I tell him the Zanjero is the friend of the
good panaderia that gives the bread! I tell him he shall not open
the other gates! I snatch the key! I tell him `No! No! The panaderia
is my friend! The Zanjero is the panaderia's friend!' He shall not
cheat the Zanjero! My husband say if he open other gates he get
money for mescal. I say 'No!' I run away with key. My husband say,
'Don't tell anybody! I will not open the gates again! Let other men
do it.' But I say, 'I must tell, because the Zanjero is the best
friend of the panaderia. No one shall cheat the best friend of the
panaderia, that feeds our babies so long--all winter and now."

Evidently the woman supposed that the Zanjero was still the
principal regular customer of the panaderia. Rosa and her
grandmother had never told about his ceasing to buy bread, and the
neighbor thought that he was still considered their very chief
customer.

That evening Rosa and Joseph took the long-unused path to the
Zanjero's house. His wife came to the door.

"Oh," she said, "it's the two little bread-bringers! No, I don't
want any bread. Are you trying to get orders?"

"May I see the Zanjero?" asked Rosa gravely.

The Zanjero's wife, whose name in plain English was Mrs. Craig, led
the two children into her husband's presence. Rosa, very pale with
the thought of being in the presence of so great a man, told her
story in trembling tones, and held out the key.

The Zanjero took it, and looked at it curiously.

"Will you forgive?" asked Rosa timorously. "The poor, sick woman
asks you to forgive. She says it was the mescal that made her
husband do it."

"I presume so," returned the man grimly. "They're all thieves."

But the Zanjero's wife was wiser than her husband. She dropped into
a chair and put an arm around Rosa.

"You have not told all the story yet, or else I do not understand,"
she said gently. "What makes this woman so much your friend that she
comes and tells your grandmother about the key?"

So the whole story came out at last--about the long, sad winter at
the panaderia; the grandmother's attempts at sewing; her failing
eyes; the lack of customers, yet the daily giving of bread to the
poor neighbor and her three children; the trust that the Lord