At Play in the Fields of the Lord

Quarrier raised his eyebrows, as if to try them out. When Moon lifted his head, a near smile came to his lips; he actually gave a bubbly cough of laughter. “Martin Quarrier, evangelist,” he said, “martyred by savages in the service of the Lord.” He looked pleadingly at Moon. “Yes,” Moon said, turning his head away.

“I’ll tell you something else. I was naked, and I wasn’t ashamed. Am I a sinner, Martin? Am I a sinner then?” More quietly she said, “Maybe it was because he was naked too, because he belonged there where he was, with the fish and leaves and sun, with that emerald bird. For the first time the jungle seemed like paradise, bugs, heat, mud, and all, a

Disregarding this, Padre Xantes said, “Is it true that Moon is still alive? Amazing! Do you know, I was certain that this man must die even before he disappeared”—he puckered his thin mouth, musing—“because he makes bold to fly into the sun, into the face of God, one might almost say! What a fellow!” He laughed with admiration. “His friend, the mag

“I’m not really afraid of anything that may happen.” Quarrier raised his eyebrows, as if surprised by this realization. “I’ve made such a disaster of my life that I’m not afraid of anything—that is, any change is welcome. Maybe you’ve never reached that point.” “I’ve been there, all right. My trouble is, I never left it. I even like it.” He turned

Now … if we could just take time from our teaching of our poor Indians, we might learn something from them. After all, the Indians come out of Asia, theirs is essentially an Eastern culture; they do not seek for meaning: they are. They are not heavy the way we are, they are light as the air; their being is a mere particle of the universe, like a le

Quite apart from her grief, Hazel was torn in half by loyalty to her marriage vows on the one hand, and by a vengeful resentment, a lack of respect for him, on the other; she would leave him if she had the courage, if she didn’t feel that search for happiness on earth must be immoral. He would leave her too, as perhaps Andy might leave Leslie, but

The numerals of the watch face, reading five-fifteen, glowed with chinks of light, as if time burning had been forced into the casing; its metal swelled and shimmered with constraint. At this, his chest began to tighten, and his breathing hurt the cold wound in his heart; he removed the watch, and holding it by one end of the strap, rapped it sharp

Surely you have noticed, Señor Quarrier, that the people we dismiss most vehemently are the very ones we find it necessary to dismiss most often? And let us be honest, it is not the banditry of the late Moon that so unsettles us. We all sit up, we call old names at him; we cannot be comfortable while he is there. Yet we circle in uneasily—what is h

“I’m surprised you holy people talk to me,” Wolfie said suddenly, “after what I done.” He swayed there a moment, frowning. “As a Catholic priest, I must accept men’s frailty. And as a European I am too old and tired to expend emotion upon matters I can do nothing about.”