"How you talk! We have all a soul; the padre says so."
"Oh, the padre! The soul of our padre is also like a grain of mustard seed--so small, and no soil to grow in! Never could I confess to him. I wait until Padre Sanchez comes; no one but a Franciscan priest do I believe in."
"Ai! and if you should get sick and die, and Padre Sanchez on some other side of the world? He is always travelling; never will he settle and gather 'dobe dollars like our padre. Suppose he should not come; you would die without confession?"
"No; I would hang on to the edge of life by some thread of prayer until he came."
"Padre Pedro of the north was here last month: that man makes me afraid. He tries to be a saint, and is so often under vows. This time it was a vow not to speak, and Padre Andros was glad when he took to the road. It was like a black ghost to see him walk the plaza with a black hood over his head, and never a word or look up from the ground. You would think the saints he prayed to lived somewhere in the roads. We thanked God and emptied some bottles with the padre when he was out of sight."
"Oh, he is a saint; but we can't feel easy with saints in San Juan. That is why your Raquel Estevan will always be outside."
"You mean above," retorted Ana. "The devil's face in the stone of the Mission dome fits better this place of the necklace of ears."
"It is bad luck to say things of that face," she warned. "Some think maybe it was an Indian god,--I heard an old Indio say so once. Never will I go under the dome of that old vestry since that day."
"How would an Indian god be put in a Christian church?"
"No one knows," and Teresa crossed herself. "The old Indios say it is bad luck to talk about it; so whatever the story is, it has been forgotten, and that is better. When I was a little child the old Indios told strange ghost and curse stories, and we were all much afraid; now the old Indios are mostly dead, and no one else remembers, only all are still afraid of the earthquake ruin at night."
"They are sheep; they are afraid of their shadows at night," retorted Ana; "that is why Raquel will always be, as you say, 'outside'!"
"Well, she goes against the padre, and that is always bad. It is bad luck to fight a padre; he can refuse absolution."