THE MASS AT ÁCOMA
poverty of materials had proved an incentive rather than a discouragement.
Certainly the visiting missionaries had never sat down to food like that which rejoiced them to-day in the cool refectory, the blinds open just enough to admit a streak of throbbing desert far below them. Their host was telling them pompously that he would have a fountain in the cloister close when they came again. He had to check his hungry guests in their zeal for the relishes and the soup, warning them to save their mettle for what was to come. The roast was to be a wild turkey, superbly done—but that, alas, was never tasted. The course which preceded it was the host’s especial care, and here he had trusted nothing to his cook; hare jardinière (his carrots and onions were tender and well flavoured), with a sauce which he had been perfecting for many years. This entrée was brought from the kitchen in a large earthen dish—but not large enough, for with its luxury of sauce and floating carrots it filled the platter to the brim. The stable-boy was serving to-day, as the cook could not leave his spits, and he had been neat, brisk, and efficient. The Friar was pleased with him, and was wondering whether he could not find some little medal of bronze or silver-gilt to reward him for his pains.
When the hare in its sauce came on, the priest from Isleta chanced to be telling a funny story at
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