Of course, the grass took fire and
very nearly burned up the whole caravan.
Other people said they were not surprised to hear of miracles
emanating from the shrine of the patron saint of Don Jose. His
grandfather had whittled this famous image out of a cottonwood tree,
whereon a saintly Penitente had been crucified after the custom of
the order of Flagellants. This Penitente resembled the penitent thief
who died on the cross and entered Paradise with the Saviour in this,
that he was known to be a good horse thief, and as he had died on the
cross on a night of Good Friday, he surely went to Glory Everlasting.
Don Jose's grandfather made a pilgrimage with this image he had made
to the City of Mexico, to have the Archbishop bless it in the
cathedral before Santa Guadalupe. During the ceremony, it was said,
there grew a fine head of flaxen hair on the image and it received
beautiful blue eyes. And it had the miraculous propensity to ever
after wink its eye in the presence of a priest and at the approach of
a Christ-hating Jew, it would spit. This virtue saved much wealth for
the family of Don Jose, as they were ever put on their guard against
Jewish peddlers.
The rumor that Don Jose Lopez had carried the household saint with
him in his wagon was at once contradicted and disproved by his wife,
Dona Mercedes.
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