THE VICAR APOSTOLIC
left home, and used to tell us boys about it when he was an old man.”
“Perhaps you have guessed that I am a Frenchman,” said Father Latour.
No, they had not, but they felt sure he was not an American. José, the elder grandson, had been watching the visitor uncertainly. He was a handsome boy, with a triangle of black hair hanging over his rather sullen eyes. He now spoke for the first time.
“They say at Albuquerque that now we are all Americans, but that is not true, Padre. I will never be an American. They are infidels.”
“Not all, my son. I have lived among Americans in the north for ten years, and I found many devout Catholics.”
The young man shook his head. “They destroyed our churches when they were fighting us, and stabled their horses in them. And now they will take our religion away from us. We want our own ways and our own religion.”
Father Latour began to tell them about his friendly relations with Protestants in Ohio, but they had not room in their minds for two ideas; there was one Church, and the rest of the world was infidel. One thing they could understand; that he had here in his saddle-bags his vestments, the altar stone, and all the equipment for celebrating the
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