pitality they enjoyed. I've felt like pitching them out into the road more than once."
"I have seen it grow," Padre Mateo sighed, "fed on the false postulation that the missions are holding these forty thousand Indians in slavery. Our work is accomplished, they argue; the Indians have been redeemed from the state of heathens and lodged safely in the bosom of mother church. We should now lift our hands and let the full-fledged brood fly away, and to what, Juan Molinero? To debauchery, debasement, slavery of the bitterest, indeed. That is the desire of these men who have vast l-and-grants from the crown: Indian labor to turn their furrows, guard their herds, make them rich. It would be the same here as it was in the islands of the Spanish Main of old. Our poor simpletons would become slaves, indeed."
"It looks to me like they've got a pretty easy time of it," Juan declared. "I don't see any hardships in the lives of these Indians at San Fernando, granted that the lazy ones do get a little strap-oil now and then. Eight or nine hours a day"
"Seven, Juan. None of these Indians labors more than seven hours a day. Three hours we apportion for devbtional exercises, as you know, making ten hours in all that we require their duty to us and to God. In return we give them, in simply material comforts, good lodgment, good beds for their repose; good garments to clothe their nakedness, abundance of food such as they never knew in their
