BY THE RIGHT REVEREND JAMES H. VAN BUREN, D.D.,

“I

BISHOP OF PORTO RICO

HAVE eleven years of the age and I call me Mercedes. Every week one day
I go to the school industrial, where I am learning to make the lace.

"The school industrial is in Ponce. Many boys and girls go there and are learning there to make shoes and build a house-that is for the boys.

The girls learn to sew and sweep and to make the beautiful lace.

"One day the teacher, but we call him the maestro, tell us about New York. He

say New York is as large as Ponce, or even larger; but I do not believe that. Also he say that sometimes in winter the air makes much cold, very much. So much that the river even comes to be ice, and the little arroyos, what he call the brooks, are still and cannot run and sing any more until the spring time come and warm them again. I am sorry for them.

"I think he tell a lie, that maestro. But I will not tell him that, for I am not one to make people ashamed of himself. But inside. I keep saying that is impossible. For once I saw a piece of ice, and it was very beautiful like a very large diamond, and for one centavo I bought a piece and it was so cold I could not hold it in my hand. I put it down on the pavement to warm in the sun, and when I come back, it is gone. I can not tell where it go for nobody came and took it away, I am sure. But just the same it is gone, and the place is all wet where it was. But the maestro tell us a story worse than that.

"He say that also in winter, in New

York, some day a fine, white powder fall out of the sky, and cover all the houses and the pavements, everything. There I am sure he tells a lie. And one day I ask the maestra, she is my teacher of the to make lace; and she say she never saw such a thing, but she was born in Porto Rico and never went to New York; but she has seen a picture which looks like the story of the falling powder out of heaven, and she has read of the polo del norte which is near New York and where the ice is as big as a mountain, and the white powder as deep as will cover a dog's head. Oh, I wish I could read!

"Pedro can read, a little. He used to go to the school parochial in Ponce, but he does not go now. He has to take care of Francisco. Francisco is the baby. And besides, Pedro has no shoes, and he says he will not go to school without shoes. I have shoes. My mother bought them for me. She stays in the

seen that the boys all love to watch the tren and the locomovil. And really it is very wonderful. I do not believe the boys and girls in New York have seen such a beautiful sight! It passes not far away from Pedro's house every day. And one day when they were watching it, Pedro heard a shriek.

I cannot tell how it was that he had forgotten little Francisco, but when the tren is past, there, on the other side of the track, lies the poor little ninito, all silent; and Pedro, screaming with fear, runs and takes him up in his arms.

"At first he thinks the locomovil has killed him, but after a little Francisco opens his eyes and gives a small little moan. Pedro carries him home, away up the side of the mountain, and always now Francisco has the lameness in his back. And always Pedro carries him, and when he moans and cries Pedro kisses him and gives him the banana or the dulce. I make the dulce out of cocoa, and I tell him stories about the beautiful angels who love the little children.

THE BOYS LOVE TO WATCH THE "TREN"
AND THE "LOCOMOVIL"

"One day I went to see a beautiful tree at the minister's house in Ponce. They called it the Tree of Christmas. And they sang the songs about the Ninito Jésus, and how

born a poor and by and the King of And on the dolls and and books

"They doll! and loved it! it back to ful lady and give me the looked s u r'Why,' she you rather than a doll?'

he Was little nin o, by became Heaven. tree I saw trumpets and pictures. gave me a oh, how I

But I gave

the beauti

said, 'Please

horn.' She prised.

said, 'would have a horn And I said

'Yes.' It was a lie, but I wanted the horn for Francisco.

"And what do you think? When I told Pedro about it he went and told the lady and I saw her wipe with her hand her eyes, but I did not see her do anything. Only when Pedro and I went home, he said, 'Mercedes, I have a sorpresa for you.' 'What is it?' I said. And then he opened a big square box he was carrying and said, "The lady told me to give you this, and to say that you were the sweetest little Christian girl in the world.' And there in the box lay the dear little doll, not to say little though, quite a big doll indeed, also with golden hair and the big blue eyes that open and shut, the very doll I gave back!

"What more do you think? I am making lace as fast as I can and I am going to sell all I can make, and get

all the money I can. Do you want to know why? I will tell you en confianza. Not long ago I heard that the people of whom was the Tree of Christmas have a hospital. In it are beds of the children. They can cure Francisco of the back that is lame. "Now it is seen that Pedro's father have to work very hard and his mother every day to the river has to go, when she can leave the house, and at the river she wash the clothes. So they are very poor, and to cure Francisco will cost money, because the hospital has not yet enough money to take care of all who need. And this is my plan. I will earn all the moneda I can with my lace, and I will have the lame taken off from Francisco, so then he will be well, and Pedro will need not any more to carry him and he will not moan and cry with the pain.

"But you must not tell Pedro, for it is a sorpresa! Also the doll have for name The Lady,' because I am SO thankful, very, very much, that I did not lose her after all."

CHRISTMAS"

"THERE ARE EVER SO MANY OF THEM. SOMETIMES THEY USE SCHOOL-
HOUSES FOR CHURCH AND SUNDAY-SCHOOL SERVICES"

A

ERN PRAIRIES

BY THE REVEREND EDWARD WELLES BURLESON

ND there are ever so many of them. Many of them were born here and have never seen any kind of country but prairie. You would laugh at the banks of earth where some of them "slide down hill." But some live where there are really and truly hills, and good big ones, too. Others were born far across the sea, and you can hear almost all the languages of northern Europe spoken without going very far on the prairies. There are as many different nations represented here as were in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost, when Simon Peter preached his first sermon.

Speaking of first sermons, I have seen not a few boys and girls old enough to know the whole Catechism, and have preached to them the first sermon they ever heard. And I

of them whom we call men and womseen the insidenever seen the outchurches.

surprise us prairie whole towns, with elevators (Bishop the "prairie mounhouses and stores. and sometimes a two, grow up in

But it is not a church in a town two chief reasons.

"THEY ARE ALWAYS GLAD TO SEE US"

know ever so many shall soon have to en who have never because they have side-of one of our It does not folk at all to see four or five grain Mann calls them tains), lots of an "opera house" meeting house or just a few weeks. often that we put like this, and for First, we do not

think it wise to begin a work like that unless we are reasonably sure that we are going to be able to supply the place with somewhat regular services, and that we cannot always promise with the few clergy we have. Then, too, we want to be sure that the town is going to stay there before we put our money into it. For sometimes these towns get up and move into new locations and the buildings get on wheels and travel away. Sometimes they just die a natural death because the people go to some other part of the country.

The ministers of our Church on the prairie are not exactly tramps, but they have to keep tramping a good part of the time, gathering a few of our people here and there and giving them the services and sacraments of the Church, and teaching the Catechism. Sometimes they use schoolhouses, sometimes rent or borrow a meeting house, often they have cottage services in some village or in some prairie "claim shack." They are always ready for a gallop across country to baptize a baby in a ranch shanty.

Of course they have to travel in all kinds of ways to get around their parishes. The railroads are good when they run in the right direction, for even if the trains are