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SAN ANTONIO 225
found an object, but who are about to join the great
majority.
There stands San Antonio, more than life size,
listening to their prayers, bearing his dear little symbol,
the child, in his arms. The child wears genuine white
linen and the sweet young things beg the priests to let
them take home the child’s linen to wash and iron it.
They vie with each other to do the neatest job, for it
is true of San Antonio as it is of others that the way to
win the heart of grown-ups is through the children.
You may visit San Antonio’s church every Tuesday for
weeks—although you are not a welcome attendant, I
can assure you—and you will always find it full of
praying women. You will hear unexpected outcries,
little bursting sobs:
“San Antonio, hurry! “Not so many children,
San Antonio!” “Dear little San Antonio, my heart
bleeds!” Or, you may hear a bride-to-be, whose lover
has gone overseas, saying: ‘San Antonio, if there is a
letter from Juan, please see to it that it is not lost on
the way!’ For the saint who assigns the number of
children to be born to each married couple also serves
as a postillon d’amour for parted lovers.
Once he is off on an errand, San Antonio might just
as well take care of several things at once, so he is
given charge of all the letters sent by women, regard-
less of whether they deal with love or not. But hav-
ing so many irons in the fire, he necessarily fails to
strike all of them when they are hot. Those who are
disappointed or cheated revenge themselves by lower-
ing him mercilessly into the well.
While San Antonio is the refuge and hope for
legitimate affection, he is also the great protector of
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