hurch is ..."

Then perhaps you would clap your hands on your ears and think the whole
school had gone crazy, but it would only mean that in Mexico the
children all study aloud. The sixth grade is as high as any one ever
goes, and most of them stop at the fourth.

Senor Fernandez thinks that is learning enough for any peon, and as it
is his school, and his teacher, and his land, of course things have to
be as he says.

Pancho asked the priest about it one day. He said: "I should like to
have Tonio get as much learning as he can. Learning must be a great
thing. All the rich and powerful people seem to have it. Perhaps that is
what makes them rich and powerful."

But the priest shook his head and said, "Tonio needs only to know how to
be good, and obey the Church, and to read and write and count a little.
More knowledge than that would make him unhappy and discontented with
his lot. You do not wish to make him unhappy. Contentment with godliness
is great gain. Is it not so, my son?"

The priest called everybody, even Senor Fernandez himself, "my son,"
unless he was speaking to a girl or a woman, and then he said, "my
daughter."

Pancho scratched his head as if he were very much puzzled by a good many
things in this world, but he only said, "Yes, little father," very
humbly, and went away to mend the gate of the calves' corral.

II

I am not going to tell you very much about the Twins' school, because
the Twins didn't care so very much about it themselves.

But I am going to tell you about one particular day, because that day a
great deal happened to Tonio. Some of it wasn't at all pleasant, but you
will not be surprised at that when I explain the reason why.

A good many months had passed by since San Ramon's Day, and it was a
bright beautiful spring morning, when the Twins left their little adobe
hut to go to school.

They had to be there at half past eight, and as the schoolhouse was some
distance down the road and there were a great many interesting things on
the way, they started rather early.

Dona Teresa gave them two tortillas apiece, rolled up with beans inside,
to eat at recess, and Tonio wrapped them in a cloth and carried them in
his hat just the way Pancho carried his lunch, only there was no chile
sauce, this time. Dona Teresa waved good-bye to them from the trough
where she was grinding her corn.

The air was full of the sweet odor of honeysuckle blossoms, and the
roadsides were gay with f