The Seven Serpents Trilogy (67 page)

I shook my head. “I have come to doubt that I've been called to speak for Christ.”

“What a shame, Julián. You would make such an excellent priest—so sympathetic and kind and thoughtful of other people. Oh, my!”

“If I can be of help to you,” Don Alfredo said.

“Yes, if we can,” Doña Elena said.

I thanked the
alcalde
and his wife, and they did not detain me further. Waving their gloved hands, they rode down the sunny trail toward the fair.

At the bottom of the next hill stood the gray stone dwelling that housed the Brothers of the Poor. It was off the trail in a meadow beside a stream. I had never talked to any of the brothers, though I had seen them working in their scanty fields in black gowns and cowls. They were a clannish lot, having little to do with anyone who wasn't poor.

I went down a path overgrown with weeds that led to the door of their dwelling. Carved above the door, in the stone lintel, was a legend. I tried to make out the letters, but all that I could see was “Anno MCCCLX” and the words “Know ye this…” Time and weather had erased the rest. It did not mat ter. What words could ever encompass or even hint at the marvels of this world of pain and beauty?

I rang the bell that hung beside the door on a rusting chain.

Scott O'Dell
is the author of many timeless children's tales including
Island of the Blue Dolphins
,
Zia
,
The 290, The Dark Canoe, The King's Fifth
,
The Black Pearl
, and
Black Star, Bright Dawn
. He has won the Newbery Medal and has been a three-time Newbery Honor Book Winner. He was the first American to ever be awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Children's Literature. The Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction was created in his honor.