barbarity in their zeal of building to the glory of Christ.
Many Indians, young and old, were at work in the big field where the two palms grew, some of them harvesting the onions, of which there were several acres, picturesque groups of them, their long hair about their ears, loading sheaves of grain upon carts. Others with hoes and spades were letting the water from the ditches in among the little fields of turnips, cabbages, beets and green things, the luxuriance of which proved the strength of the soil.
Close by the gate there grew a field of maize, green and flourishing this late November day as Juan ever had seen it in midsummer in his own clime. Young Indians were gathering the green ears, with a great amount of laughter and happy calling to each other from the jungle of tall stalks. An ox-cart was being heaped with the ears to be taken to the Indian village. That amount would make only one meal, and a scanty one as measured by the neophytes' desire for this delectable food.
Padre Ignacio had told Juan how the Indians had come to value maize after a patient and slow persuasion to induce them to accept it. Like all cultivated vegetables and grains, maize was strange to the California Indians when the padres brought it there. These Indians knew nothing about agriculture in their primitive state; they were roaming, homeless animals; their sustenance was gathered from the bounty of nature, the bitter acorns of the encina, or live oak, forming the principal item of
