"Yes, father, surely."

"Then we will have that. And, Felipe--" The Padre crossed the chancel to
the small, shabby organ. "Rise, my child, and listen. Here is something
you can learn. Why, see now if you cannot learn it from a single
hearing."

The swarthy boy of sixteen stood watching his master's fingers, delicate
and white, as they played. Thus, of his own accord, he had begun to watch
them when a child of six; and the Padre had taken the wild, half-scared,
spellbound creature and made a musician of him.

"There, Felipe!" he said now. "Can you do it? Slower, and more softly,
muchacho mio. It is about the death of a man, and it should go with our
bell."

The boy listened. "Then the father has played it a tone too low," said
he, "for our bell rings the note of sol, or something very near it, as
the father must surely know." He placed the melody in the right key--an
easy thing for him; and the Padre was delighted.

"Ah, my Felipe," he exclaimed, "what could you and I not do if we had a
better organ! Only a little better! See! above this row of keys would be
a second row, and many more stops. Then we would make such music as has
never yet been heard in California. But my people are so poor and so few!
And some day I shall have passed from them, and it will be too late."

"Perhaps," ventured Felipe, "the Americanos--"

"They care nothing for us, Felipe. They are not of our religion--or of