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being his due; and he knew also that to try to explain the subtle qualities which composed his mood when-as he now perceived the devil had instigated him to address Susurro would be only to confuse with unavailing doubts the simple faith that was in his brother's soul. Therefore, as the smaller of two evils, he accepted silently the undeserved commendation that was bestowed upon him. That night-although Fray Inocencio heard it not, for his slumber was of the substantial sort that is the portion of little fat men whose consciences are at rest—there was a sound of scourging in Fray Antonio's cell.

So far as this was possible in one whose heart was full of love and charity, Fray Inocencio at times envied Fray Antonio because he was superior to the many temptations which made his own life burdensome; but he knew nothing of the temptations of the spirit which beset his finer-natured companion, which sometimes, as in the present yielding to a too whimsical humor, that yet was as much a part of his natural being as of Fray Inocencio's natural being were his stoutness and his ruddy cheeks,- begot evil results which caused him heart-bitterness and much distress of soul.

Doubtless, being more sublimate, the pains of conscience which attend upon waywardness of the spirit are more searching than those which attend upon waywardness of the flesh; yet because of their gross and tangible nature the fleshly sins are more instantly appalling. Thus Fray Inocencio probably would have reasoned, had he possessed a mind disposed towards such abstract considerations, together with a knowledge of the spiritual suffering which Fray Antonio at times endured; but as neither of these possessions was his, he simply bemoaned very heartily his own frequent lapses from grace. And greatly did he lament one especially great sin, the doing of which came about in this wise:

One day, while Fray Inocencio was gathering lettuces, and while Fray Antonio was tending lovingly his flowers, there came over the top of the garden wall the sound of angry words, and then of heavy blows, and then of a cry that was something like the bray of an ass, and-being a very great cry and terriblesomething like the shriek of a giant in pain. With the promptness that was customary with him Fray Inocencio unbarred the door and ran out upon the causeway to see what was the meaning of this commotion; and as beside the door stood a stout staff, that he carried with him for support when he walked to the great convent with a back-load of vegetables, he seized it that he might not affront the danger, if danger there were, unarmed. More deliberately came out also through the

doorway Fray Antonio. And very pitiable was the sight that met their eyes.

Upon the ground lay a poor ass, laden with great earthen pots, and the two Indians with him were beating him with their sticks to make him rise, the while shouting at him all manner of coarse abuse. The ass, with so agonized a look that a heart of stone would have been melted by it with pity, was crying aloud in pain; for one of his legs-as the brothers saw, though the Indians seemed to perceive it not-had broken under him as he fell beneath his too-heavy load. He was but a small ass, and his lading of pots would have been overheavy for a strong mule.

Then was the wrath of Fray Inocencio so kindled within him that every fiber of his litthe round person tingled with rage. Forgetting all the teachings of gentleness of the blessed saints, and the example of long-suffering set him by the good father St. Francis, and his own vow to a life of peace and holiness-forgetting all this, Fray Inocencio in an instant had gathered up and tucked into his girdle the skirts of his blue gown, that he might have the free use of his short stout legs, and most carnally had fallen afoul of the backs and shoulders of those cruel Indians with his staff.

As for the Indians, this visible outbreak of the wrath of God took them so sharply by surprise, while such pain penetrated their brown hides with the blows which Fray Inocencio rained down upon them, that without pausing for thought or consideration they incontinently took to their heels. In an instant they had plunged through the slimy water of the acéquia beside the causeway, and were fleeing away across the meadow land beyond as though their assailant had been not a little stout friar, but the devil himself.

Then Fray Inocencio, puffing greatly,— for at the best of times he was but a short-winded man,-knelt down beside the ass with Fray Antonio and aided him to loose the cords which bound the pots upon its back, and so set it free of its grievous load. Together, very tenderly, they lifted the maimed creature and carried it into the convent garden; and while Fray Inocencio gave it water to drink-and this before he had quenched his own thirstFray Antonio, who had a good knowledge of the surgeon's craft, set himself to binding up the broken leg in a splint. And the poor ass, seeming to understand that it was being dealt with by friends who meant well by it, suffered them to do with it what they would.

It was not until their labors were ended the broken leg well set, and the ass straitly fastened in a little stall that they made for him that he might not stir the leg in its setting

that Fray Inocencio had time to think of the sin which he had fallen into in giving his righteous anger such unrighteous vent. He was the more distressed in spirit because, for the very life of him, he could not create in his heart a sincere repentance of having given to those Indians so sound a beating. Strive how ever much he might to crush it, the thought would assert itself that they richly deserved not only every blow that they received, but also the great many more blows which they escaped by running away. And with this thought most persistently came a carnal longing to get at them again and finish the work that he had so vigorously begun. To Fray Inocencio's dying day this sin remained with him; and while the prickings of it were hard to bear, he had of it, at least, the compensating advantage that it always was with him as a wholesome reminder to keep his too-ready anger within due bounds.

Fortunately for it is to be feared that he could not have resisted it. the temptation to finish the beating was not put in his way. That the Indians returned and carried off their earthen pots was inferred by the brothers when, having ended their surgical and other ministra tions to the ass's comfort, they looked out upon the causeway and found that the pots were gone. And they believed that from the Indians came the rather mysterious old man who presented himself the next day at the convent with a confused request for medicine for a sick child; and who contrived, while the apothecary-work was in progress, to get into the garden where the hurt ass was and make an examination of its state. But from this old man they could learn nothing of the owners of the ass; nor were their many inquiries among the Indians round about better rewarded. That the owners thus modestly veiled their identity, and that they made no effort to reclaim their property, on the whole was not surprising. No doubt they held, and wisely, that a broken-legged ass was not worth adventuring for within the dangerous range of the little friar's staff.

Chiefly, as Fray Inocencio very firmly believed, because of the many prayers to this end that he addressed to the miracle-working image of San Antonio that was in the little church, the ass in due season got well. But as, through some mischance, the broken bone had gone awry in the splint, it healed crookedly; so that that leg was shorter than the other legs. From this fresh misfortune the ass suffered no pain, but thenceforward he was very lame.

Being thus healed, and, after a fashion, a serviceable ass once more, the question what they should do with him perplexed the brothers sadly. Of other valuable property, being strictly vowed to poverty, they had none.

The cat Timoteo, called Susurro, and the doves, were wild things of nature; of no use to man save in so far as they were a source of happiness through the love in them and for them that God inspired. But the case of the ass, an animal both useful and valuable, was different. Fray Inocencio, into whose heart the devil put the thought that the ass very well might bear to the great convent the loads which he himself was wont to carry thither on his back, reasoned that, inasmuch as the ass in truth was not their own, but only in their ward until his rightful owners should be found, they might use him in all conscionable work without falling into sin. But Fray Antonio, seeing more clearly, pointed out that they had striven earnestly but vainly to find the ass's owner, and that now there was small chance that the owner ever would be found at all; and he showed, further, that no matter in whom might vest his actual ownership, to them would belong, should they elect to avail themselves of it, his usufruct; which possession was a thing of value inconsistent with the poverty to which they were vowed. Yet, since the ass was not truly their own, he admitted, they had no right to sell him and to give the money to the poor-supposing the somewhat improbable case of any one being found willing to buy an ass that in addition to great natural laziness was hopelessly lame; nor were they free to give him away. Giving him in trust, to be surrendered should his owner ever be found, was the only solution of the matter that they could arrive at; and this failed because they could find no one who would accept the ass on these—or, indeed, on any other-terms. Yet to support an ass in absolute idleness, as Fray Antonio was forced to own, would be to violate the law of his being under which a beneficent Creator had placed him in the world for the good of man.

Altogether this case of conscience was so nice a one, and so beset by difficulties, that after the brothers had debated it for a long while together fruitlessly, and had prayed for guidance without receiving light upon their path in answer to their prayer, they determined to relegate its decision, through Fray Agustin de Vetancurt,- to whom, their little church being adjunct to the parish church of San José in San Francisco, they were directly responsible,-to the Very Reverend Father Friar Juan Gutierrez, who then governed the province of the Santo Evangelio, to which their convent pertained, and who was the Senior Provincial of the Franciscan order in New Spain.

This high resolve they executed. Driving before them the cause of their spiritual tribulation, and accommodating their steps to the halting slowness of his gait, and even stop

ping when he turned aside to crop in a meditative fashion at some especially tempting bunch of grass, they went together along the causeway, past the church of San Cosme, the convent of San Diego, the burning-place of the Inquisition, and the Alameda, and so through the outskirts of the city to the great convent. They entered by the gate from the Zuleta, and fastened the ass in the courtyard beneath the windows of the building set apart for the use of the commissioners-general of the order — the same building that now profanely has been changed into a hotel.

There was not a little merriment among the brothers when the purpose for which Fray Antonio and Fray Inocencio had come thither with the ass was known; for already the brothers within this convent, being grown rich and lustful of earthly pleasures, had so fallen from grace that conscientious scruples in regard to the ownership of a lame, wretched ass seemed to them laughable. But the Father Vetancurt, who was a holy man, and who had chosen Fray Antonio and Fray Inocencio for the missionary work that they had in charge because in the midst of much that was evil and corrupt they had remained pure, treated with a due seriousness the case of conscience that they had come to have resolved. That he smiled a little as he exhibited the matter to the Father Provincial is true; and this great dignitary smiled also on hearing what a quaint cause of perplexity beset the souls of the two brothers and had been brought by them, in their rare simplicity, to him for resolution and adjustment. But the smiles of these two good men had in them nothing of derision, and, in truth, were not far removed from tears.

"It is the spirit of our father St. Francis alive again," said the Provincial, reverently; and in all humility they thanked God that innocency so excellent should be found remain ing pure amid so much of earthly corruption and spiritual guile.

Then came the brothers before the Father Provincial, and by his grace told him the whole of the matter that filled with anxious doubts their souls. Fray Antonio, who feared nothing but evil and the doing thereof, said what he had to say reverently, as became him in such a case, yet plainly and at his ease: telling how the ass came into their possession, yet touching but lightly upon the fiery part that Fray Inocencio had played; how they had sought earnestly but had failed to find his lawful owner, and therefore had no right either to sell him or to give him away; how no one could be found willing to accept him as a trust; and how, being thus forced to keep him themselves, they feared that the use of him was a valuable possession that their vow of poverty forbade.

Fray Inocencio, who was terribly frightened at speaking to so great a personage, grew pale and stumbled in his speech; but by God's help he told truly how he had beaten those cruel Indians; how his repentance of this act was not complete, since he could not banish from his heart the wish to finish the punishment that he had begun; and how the devil had put into his heart the desire to keep the ass, that in bringing vegetables to the great convent his own back might be spared. Having thus said to the end what he felt it to be his duty to say, he drew a long breath, wiped with the sleeve of his gown the beads of sweat from his forehead, and was still. That the case might be complete, the Father Provincial looked from the window and saw the ass fastened in the court below, and the brothers pointed to his crooked leg and told how in its healing the bone had gone awry; and the ass, hearing the voices of his friends, looked up towards them with affection and brayed a mighty bray.

With a full heart answered to them the Father Provincial:

"It is God himself, my brothers, who hath given this ass to you in reward for your tenderness and goodness of heart, and to accept a gift from him surely is no infraction of your vow. Go in peace to your convent again, and keep for your service this poor beast that you have saved from a life of misery, and in whose brute heart I perceive that there is for you such well-deserved love. Take you also my blessing-though, in truth, rather should I ask your blessing than thus give you mine."

And the brothers, very grateful for the dispensation in their favor, but not at all understanding the full meaning of the Father Provincial's words, made proper reverence to him and went their way homeward; being full of happiness because of the glad consciousness, untroubled by doubt or misgiving, that the ass now really was their very own.

Thereafter so often as it was necessary that vegetables should be brought from the little convent to the great one the bearer of the load was the lame ass, and behind him or beside him Fray Inocencio walked. As they slowly journeyed, these two held pleasant converse together; for Fray Inocencio maintained that the ass understood the meaning of human speech as well as he himself understood the meaning of the glances which the ass gave him, and the various twitchings of his scraggy tail, and the shakings of his head, and, above all, the whole vocabulary that was in the waggings of his ample ears.

It was, indeed, a cheery sight to see these friends upon the road together. At his best

the ass hobbled along at a pace that a tortoise would have scorned for its slowness; and at times he would stop wholly and would gaze around him with a look of thoughtful inquiry; or he would step aside to crop a bit of grass that pleased his fancy; and ever and anon he would edge up to his friend and rub his long nose gently against the friar's side, and then would look into his face with a glance so movingly tender that nothing more could have been added to it for the expression of his love. For his part, Fray Inocencio patiently accommodated the naturally brisk movements of his own stout little legs to the ass's infinite slowness: when the ass would stop, he would stop also; when by any chance the ass missed sight of a choice bunch of grass, he would lead him to it and would wait by him until he had cropped it to the very last blade; and when the ass by his nose-rubbings would manifest his love, he would gather the ass's long, shaggy head in his arms against his breast and would lavish upon him all manner of terms of endearment as he gently stroked his fuzzy ears.

So the fame of these two went through all the city; and upon the ass, who truly was as lazy as he was lame, the common people bestowed the name of Flojo, which word, in

the Spanish tongue, signifies "the lazy one." In this wise came the proverb that is spoken of any one who greatly loves a useless beast or person: he loves him as Fray Inocencio loved Flojo, the lame ass.

Over the brothers, dwelling peacefully in their little convent, and serving God by loving his creatures and by ministering faithfully to the welfare of the souls of their fellow-men, the years drifted happily. Unharmed by Timoteo, called Susurro, who waxed fat and sluggish as age stole upon him, yet lost nothing of the sweetness of his nature nor of the thunderousness of his purr, the doves increased and multiplied; the little garden yielded ever freshly its substance of fresh food and sweetsmelling flowers; the ass, Flojo, tenderly cherished by his masters, developed yet greater prodigies of laziness as his years advanced; and the brothers themselves, happy in leading a life in all ways innocent and very excellent in the sight of Heaven, knew not what it was to grow old, because their hearts ever remained young.

And in the fullness of their years, their good lives ended, Fray Antonio and Fray Inocencio passed out gently from time into eternity, and were gathered home to God.

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Ventilator over Cabin door in the Puritan.

INLAND NAVIGATION OF THE UNITED STATES.

HERE appeared a few years ago in one of the illustrated papers three curious pictures. The first represented fifty men carrying a large block of stone. The men were arranged in four files and each file carried on their shoulders a stout pole. By means of other poles and ropes the block of stone was suspended in the middle of the group of men, and with terrible strain and labor they were staggering along with their tremendous load. The picture showed how unaided brute force could be used in transporting a weight—or, as we might say to-day, in moving freight.

The second picture represented the same block of stone placed in a rude cart and drawn by a pair of oxen with great difficulty over a very soft and sandy road. The third picture represented the same block placed on a hand-car and easily pushed along a track by

one man.

The first picture was an illustration of simple animal power used in the most wasteful and expensive manner. In the second picture the principles of mechanics were applied in a rude way to assist the oxen. The oxen could not carry the stone or even lift it from the ground; but when attached to the cart they were able to haul it a much greater distance than the fifty men. In the third picture the mechanical advantage was used to the utmost by employing a better vehicle and placing it on a smooth, hard track. So great was the gain that one man could do the work of fifty without such mechanical aid or the work of a pair of oxen aided by a cart.

The three pictures were instructive, but the series was clearly incomplete. There should have been a picture representing five blocks of stone, of the same size as the one shown, placed in a boat and easily drawn or poled along a shallow river or canal by one man. The friction would here be so much reduced that one man walking on the bank of the canal could by means of a tow-line do the work of five times fifty men. The four pictures would then tell far more than the first three, and together they would make a graphic statement of some of VOL. XXXVIII.—46.

353

the factors of one of the most important commercial questions of the day.

The four pictures could be arranged in another way, and might then serve to show the evolution of the business of moving freight and passengers. No doubt the most primitive method of moving either people or things was to pick them up and carry them. The first passenger was an infant in its mother's arms. The chief of a tribe in prehistoric woods may have envied the babies, and compelled two of his followers to lock arms and carry him over a stream or rough place in the trail. Processions of slaves were the first lines of through freight.

If placed in their historical order the suggested picture of the boat would stand second, for the floating log, the raft, the dug-out, and the canoe probably antedated by hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years any form of wheeled vehicle. The third picture would be the ox-cart, and the last picture would be the hand-car, for this idea of an improved car and a smooth track is essentially modern.

It may be suggested that such a series of pictures, to be fair, should contain a fifth, representing a locomotive dragging fifty blocks of stone along a track and only employing a crew of six men. Such a picture would be suggestive, but could be offset by an equally pertinent picture representing two horses drawing a ́ canal-boat containing a freight equal to the entire load of an ordinary freight train and guided by a crew of one man and a boy—in one case an expenditure of two horse-power and in the other a steam-power equal to, say, one hundred horses.

The instincts of men led them to the water because it meant a road, and this meant contact with others, the gaining of knowledge, and the beginning of trade and civilization. Even to-day the great cities are by the waterways, because they are the oldest and cheapest roads. The great cities of the future will be just what they are now -great ports.

Edward Eggleston, writing upon the commerce of the colonies (see THE CENTURY for June, 1884), gives a graphic picture of the great water traffic that grew up between the settle

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