and shortly afterward he abruptly went out into the rain. From the door she could see him dimly, by the light of a distant street lamp, sitting motionless under the sky with his knees to his breast, his face upturned in submission and inquiry.

Hours passed before he returned, and then he was alight with resolve. Making a sign to Dolores that she should help him, he uncovered the buried jugs and removed by handfuls all his savings, which they packed in two leather bags. Soon afterward the three set forth into the dark and rain-swept night, Tiburcio traveling as a passenger on his brother's back, partly sustained by a leather band which passed across the other's forehead, and inadequately counterpoised by the two bags of silver pesos which alternately patted Juan de Dios's chest as he trotted. They traversed unfrequented streets until they reached the outskirts, and then struck the road along which a trolley-line runs to the Villa de Guadalupe, the Mecca of the Mexicans. Tiburcio suffered severely from the jolting and straining of sore muscles; but the knowledge of his destination so filled him with hope that he suppressed his groans.

The sun was rising when they reached the Villa de Guadalupe. Juan de Dios stretched his brother on one of the heavy iron benches in the plaza at the foot of the hill. Tiburcio seemed a little easier, which was not to be wondered at, for many miracles had been known to follow the mere arrival of the sufferer within the precincts of the sacred pueblo. To Juan de Dios the very air was sensibly impregnated with sanctity, and he breathed it with rapture. Faint incense instilled it, bells trembled in it, some as remote voices imploring faith, others strong and impatient mandates to repentance. Padres in long black cassocks flitted hither and thither from church to church and from chapel to chapel. Their houses loomed. somberly above gardens which seemed thronging congregations of flowers. Even the rag awnings fluttering here and there under the old trees of the plaza played their part in the enchantment, for beneath them were exposed for sale every imaginable aid to devotion-rosaries, images, ribbons of saints, and many other objects, even to little dark papers of blessed earth, the virtue of which is notorious all over

Mexico. Juan de Dios bought some of the earth and all three devoured it, as is the way of the faithful, Tiburcio receiving the largest share. It was a natural transition to blessed water. This they obtained from the sacred well at the foot of the hill in the center of a little ancient domed temple, by casting into its rocky depths a heavy, conical cup of iron attached to a chain. Tiburcio drank of the water as much as he could, its abominable flavor strengthening his faith in its miraculous powers. Also his brother poured a cup of it over him.

And now Juan de Dios was ready for the pilgrimage proper. Shading his eyes with his hand, he traced the course of the stone stairway mounting heavenward from his feet, flight after flight, at first shaded by great trees and at last almost lost amid wild creepers as it aspired in curves like those of a snail's shell to the lofty summit, with its coronet of churches and chapels now ethereal with the golden light of the young morning. With an eagle glance which seemed to perceive in that radiance an authentic sign from the Virgin of Guadalupe, whom he had adored from childhood, he exclaimed:

"If yonder thou art, Mother of mine, unto thee I bear a sinner. He is my brother. Make me the road hard, dangerous. Put me obstacles; all that may be necessary to make merit for my presentation before thee with Tiburcio-that is his name.'

He wiped the sweat from his forehead with one finger, and continued in a tone of exaltation which thrilled the others.

"I will carry him to thee on my knees, over all those steps, unto thine altar! This act of devotion, I offer it to thee for the health of my sinner brother, that thou wilt permit him to move the body again, if thou thinkest he merits it."

And, having signed himself, he dropped to his knees and with much difficulty, Dolores assisting, hoisted Tiburcio to his shoulders with feet hanging down in front and hands clasping his brother's brow. Juan de Dios held his body upright, balancing carefully, as he felt his way upward, one knee after another, slowly-always slowly. Dolores followed, marveling at his sanctity. It being the rainy season, there was no great throng of pilgrims, but the few

who were ascending to the shrine-some women carrying wax candles decorated with gold paper, others with plates of sprouting wheat of a delicate pallor from having been grown in the dark, and a few Inditos with bamboo cages containing fighting-cocks to be blessed in church that they might have fortune in battle-these remarked the superior zeal of Juan de Dios, and regarded him respectfully as a holy person, one whom it was fortunate to have seen. The same spirit was manifested by the sellers of blessed articles on the landings of the stair. While he rested, Juan de Dios caused Dolores to buy the largest and most beautiful candle obtainable, and thereafter she carried it, unlighted, in front of them. Also, for refreshment and edification of them all, they bought blessed fruit, blessed tortillas fried in chile sauce, and tortillas of the Virgin, which are made sweet and very small and dyed in different colors.

As he climbed, Juan de Dios prayed, and the more he suffered the more he thanked God. His white cotton trousers gave but the scantiest protection to his knees, and that not for long, yet he did not look for smooth places, and Tiburcio groaned more than he. Once he slipped on a rolling pebble, and after that he mounted every step with the same knee, lifting the hurt one after it. The time came when even his strength of aguador wore out, and he clawed the stone balustrade to raise himself and stopped on each step, his breath hissing between his locked teeth from which the lips were stiffly peeled; and still his eyes pleaded for martyrdom. Dolores at every opportunity would wipe Tiburcio's face where the thorns had scratched it.

When Juan de Dios reached the top he signed to Dolores to light the candle, and he held it at arm's-length as he continued his march into the ancient church of the hill, his knees leaving prints of red on the white marble pavement. Into the depth of the church, straight to the blazing

shrine he went, and Dolores saw his face working frightfully as he unlocked his teeth to proclaim that he had kept his word; but no sound came from his throat, and he suddenly fell forward in a swoon, spilling Tiburcio, who executed a series of instinctive movements, too quick for eye to follow, which landed him on his feet, supple and free from pain; and he and Dolores threw themselves on their knees beside the unconscious one at the shrine, to recite a multitude of "gracias" for the miracle.

DOLORES fully expected to become the little wife of Juan de Dios. He had come from the confessional when he said to them:

"I now comprehend that I do not serve for this world. The love of woman confounds me too much. God will free me from committing more barbarities. I will remain in this saintly place, for which it seemeth to me I was ordained before my mother bore me. Thou, Dolores, and thou, Tiburcio, serve for this earth. Go, and may the good God accompany you always. Take this bag of money, that it may help you to marry and live justly as good Christians. The other bag I have given to the good padre, who will manage it so that I shall have enough prayers and masses said for the guidance of my steps while I live."

Much more he said to them in the same peaceful strain, and laid an obligation upon them to make pilgrimage every year for the feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe in remembrance of the miracle she had performed for Tiburcio.

They left him, and he continued to be an aguador, carrying water from the sacred well to the top of the sacred hill with which to refresh pilgrims, especially the sick and crippled, after the ascent. himself was crippled, never recovering from a stiffness of one knee, which remained bent. And in this manner Juan de Dios became veritably John of God.

He

A

NEW generation has grown up since the campaign against the slum was begun on American soil by the TenementHouse Committee, of which Richard Watson Gilder was chairman. Its big battles have been fought in New York City, but they have been fought for the country; a hundred cities throughout the land now tread in the footsteps of the metropolis. Her problems are theirs in only a lesser degree. As the battle goes in the city on the Hudson, they take heart or lose it.

The Tenement-House Committee of 1894 did not merely lend its prestige to the destruction of a few baby-murdering tenements; its indictment was of the whole environment of the toilers, which five years later its successor that built boldly and well on the foundation it had laid characterized as still making "all for unrighteousness" and tending to the corruption of the young. Its demand was for better schools, for public baths, for pavements that could be washed, for parks and playgrounds and kindergartens, for rapid. transit, as well as for houses fit to live in. In all New York City there was not a playground, not even a school playground, for boards of education had not yet listed children's play, with their books and studyhours, as "educational" in the official sense. Mulberry Bend, now a playground

LXXXVII-7

and park, was a pigsty, for which the city, having acquired possession of its foul old rookeries, collected the rent. The condition of the streets was unspeakable; Colonel Waring, with his "White Wings" and his wise methods, was yet to come. Nowhere was there a winter bath for the people, and, if memory serves me right, the only kindergarten in New York that was not maintained by private funds was in the normal school. The death-rate of the city was the reproach of civilization. For ten years it had averaged more than twenty-four in a thousand of the population. In the year 1912 it reached the lowest point, so that in a low death-rate New York is now in the front rank of world cities-14.11. This means that if New York had maintained its old deathrate with its present population, every year fifty thousand more persons than actually do die would give up their lives in New York. New York, then, has become a place in which it is harder to die. Has it become a better place in which to live?

Well, there are our streets. Their bad condition helped largely in the overturn of the city government in 1894. If they are not so clean as they were under Colonel Waring, -he has had no like successor,-they can at least be washed, and they are washed-occasionally. The difference between their condition to-day and

49