We breed in an environment of asphalt pavements a
body of people whose creeds are chiefly restrictions against other
people's way of life, and have kitchens and latrines under the same
roof that houses their God.
Such as these go to church to be
edified, but at Las Uvas they go for pure worship and to entreat
their God. The logical conclusion of the faith that every good
gift cometh from God is the open hand and the finer courtesy. The
meal done without buys a candle for the neighbor's dead
child. You do foolishly to suppose that the candle does no good.
At Las Uvas every house is a piece of earth--thick walled,
whitewashed adobe that keeps the even temperature of a cave; every
man is an accomplished horseman and consequently bowlegged; every
family keeps dogs, flea-bitten mongrels that loll on the earthen
floors. They speak a purer Castilian than obtains in like villages
of Mexico, and the way they count relationship everybody is more or
less akin. There is not much villainy among them. What incentive
to thieving or killing can there be when there is little wealth and
that to be had for the borrowing! If they love too hotly, as we
say "take their meat before grace," so do their betters. Eh, what!
shall a man be a saint before he is dead? And besides, Holy Church
takes it out of you one way or another before all is done. Come
away, you who are obsessed with your own importance in the scheme
of things, and have got nothing you did not sweat for, come away by
the brown valleys and full-bosomed hills to the even-breathing
days, to the kindliness, earthiness, ease of El Pueblo de Las Uvas.
End of The Land of Little Rain by Mary Austin
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