all figure of a saint. The holy
father smiled as he reflected how they spent their last cent for the
funeral ceremonies, while the doctor's fee would be about a dozen
eggs. And even now that death had come to one not quite so ignorant
and simple as the rest, the funeral celebrations would be but the more
elaborate. Not every one who could afford a coffin in Malingasag! And
as the padre crossed the _plaza_ he lighted a cigarette.

It was with feelings of annoyance that he saw before the side door
of the church a tiny litter cheaply decorated with bright paper and
red cloth. The yellow candles threw a fitful light over the little
image on the bier. It was the image of a child, a thing of wax,
clothed in a white dress, with a tinsel crown upon its head. One
of the sacristans was drumming a tattoo upon the bells. The padre
motioned him to discontinue. He would have his gin-and-water first,
and then devotions, lasting twenty minutes. After devotions he could
easily dispose of the small child. So the two humble women waited in
patience at the door, and the cheap candles sputtered and went out
before the good priest could find time to hurry through the unimportant
funeral services that meant to him only a dollar or two at best in
the depreciated silver currency. Already night was overshadowing the
palm-groves as the pathetic little group filed out and trudged across
the rice-pads toward the cemetery.

The Filipinos regard the American doctors with suspicion. When a
snakebite can be cured by a burnt piece of carabao horn, or when the
leaves or bits of paper stuck upon the temple will relieve the fever
or the dysentery, what is the use of drugs and medicines and things
that people do not understand? Once, out of the kindness of his heart,
an army doctor that I knew, prescribed a valuable ointment for a child
afflicted by a running sore. The child was in a terrible condition,
as the sore had eaten away the flesh and bone, leaving a large hole
under the lower lip through which the roots of the teeth were all
exposed. The parents had not washed the child for weeks. They actually
believed that bathing was injurious when one was sick. The doctor,
giving them directions how to use the medicine, asked them, as an
experiment, what fee he might expect. He knew well that if the priest
had asked this question, they would eagerly have offered everything
they had. So he was not surprised when they replied that they were very
poor, and that