I stood up to read the service to a most attentive congregation, and when at last I had to stop short in the middle of a sentence I jogged the Niña Chica's arm according to arrangement, and the old lady put up her head and positively howled out a chant, which gave me a chance of escape from the stifling atmosphere of the overcrowded hut and of finishing my supper.
A few days later I had another conversation on religious subjects, this time with a girl about fifteen years old, a niece of the Niña Chica, whom I had been doctoring for troubles which seemed to me to come solely from want of good food and consequent poorness of blood. She was a bright-eyed and sharp girl, and I knew that she had been away for some time to a neighbouring town, and might probably have received some education. However, she knew no more than her aunt about the household saint, so I asked her if she knew who Christ was. "Yes," she replied, "He is Nuestro Señor."
"And who was His Mother?"
She answered promptly, "La Santissima Virgen."
At least, I said to myself, the rising generation have been taught something, so I went on with my catechism. "Who was his Father?"
"His Father? Oh! Nuestro Señor de Esquipulas."
"But," I said, "Our Lord of Esquipulas is the Christ too."
"Yes," she replied," there are numbers of them, Nuestro Señor de Esquipulas, and Nuestro Señor of this and that,—";and she rattled through all the names of the shrines for leagues around.
"Was He ever alive on earth?" I asked her.
" Quien sabe?" was the answer. "How should I know!"
The want of religious education did not prevent the villagers from celebrating Easter by idling for a week and getting very drunk. On the "tres dias grandes," from Good Friday until Monday, of course no one worked, but I had the greatest difficulty in getting anyone to work in Holy Week at all. Mr. Giuntini could not go on with his plaster moulding without some assistance, and I spent a weary hour in persuading the most intelligent of my workmen to limit his holiday to the three days. The only reason he adduced for not wishing to work was the fear of ill-luck—as he put it, "se puede machetearse," "one might cut oneself with a machete." However, he gave way on the promise of extra pay, and no ill effects followed.
Soon after Holy Week, I was hurriedly implored one morning to go and see an old man who was suffering from "goma." In my ignorance I asked what "goma" might be, and was given the satisfactory answer that it was "goma" of course, and my dullness at not understanding was met with open-mouthed astonishment. Then I looked the word out in the dictionary, but
