"The fathers of all orders," explained Father Baby, "from their
earliest foundations, have counted it a worthy mortification of the
flesh to till the ground. And be ready to refresh me without grinning,
when I come back muddy from performing the labor to which I might send
you, if I were a man who loved sinful ease. Monastic habits are above
the understanding of a black rascal like you.".
The truth was, the friar loved to play in wet dirt. Civilized life and
the confinement of a shop worked a kind of ferment in his wild spirit,
which violent dancing somewhat relieved, but which intimate contact with
the earth cooled and settled. Father Baby sometimes stripped off his
capote and lay down in the hollow between furrows of corn, like a very
lean but peaceful pig. He would not have been seen, on any account, and
lifted an apprehensive head in the darkness of the morning if a bird
rustled past. This performance he called a mortification of his frame;
but when this sly churchman slipped up and put on his capote again, his
thin visage bore the same gratified lines which may be seen on the face
of a child making mud pies.
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