gathering was, however, seldom lacking in humor. Yet she was always the
principal performer to an admiring audience. Perhaps there was security
in this multitude of admirers; perhaps there was a saving grace in this
humorous trifling. The passions are apt to be serious and solitary, and
Jovita evaded them with a jest,--which, if not always delicate or witty,
was effective in securing the laughter of the majority and the jealousy
of none.

At the end of the week another peculiarity was noticed. There was a
perceptible increase of the Mexican population, who had always hitherto
avoided Buckeye. On Sunday an Irish priest from El Pasto said mass in a
patched-up corner of the old Mission ruin opposite Rollinson's Ford. A
few lounging "Excelsior" boys were equally astonished to see Jovita's
red rose crest and black mantilla glide by, and followed her unvarying
smile and jesting salutation up to the shadow of the crumbling portal.
At vespers nearly all Buckeye, hitherto virtuously skeptical and
good-humoredly secure in Works without Faith, made a point of attending;
it was alleged by some to see if Jovita's glossy Indian-inky eyes would
suffer aberration in her devotions. But the rose-crested head was never
lifted from the well-worn prayer-book or the brown hands which held
a certain poor little cheap rosary like a child's string of battered
copper coins. Buckeye lounged by the wall through the service with
respectful tolerance and uneasy shifting legs, and came away. But the
apparently simple event did not end there. It was unconsciously charged
with a tremendous import to the settlement. For it was discovered the
next day by Mrs. "Bob" Carpenter and Nan Shuttleworth that the Methodist
Church at Fiddletown was too far away, and Buckeye ought to have a
preacher of its own. Seats were fitted up in the loft of Carpenter's
store-house, where the Reverend Henry McCorkle held divine service,
and instituted a Bible class. At the end of two weeks it appeared