THE VICAR APOSTOLIC
to eat dried beans and roots for the rest of our lives? Surely we must find time to make a garden. Ah, my garden at Sandusky! And you could snatch me away from it! You will admit that you never ate better lettuces in France. And my vineyard; a natural habitat for the vine, that. I tell you, the shores of Lake Erie will be covered with vineyards one day. I envy the man who is drinking my wine. Ah well, that is a missionary’s life; to plant where another shall reap.”
As this was Christmas Day, the two friends were speaking in their native tongue. For years they had made it a practice to speak English together, except upon very special occasions, and of late they conversed in Spanish, in which they both needed to gain fluency.
“And yet sometimes you used to chafe a little at your dear Sandusky and its comforts,” the Bishop reminded him—“to say that you would end a home-staying parish priest, after all.”
“Of course, one wants to eat one’s cake and have it, as they say in Ohio. But no farther, Jean. This is far enough. Do not drag me any farther.” Father Joseph began gently to coax the cork from a bottle of red wine with his fingers. ‘‘This I begged for your dinner at the hacienda where I went to baptize the baby on St. Thomas’s Day. It is not easy to separate these rich Mexicans from their French wine. They know
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