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Show Capistrano's Summer Guests PKiestiet rpHE wind blew unseasonably cold one early spring day in 1776, making the sunny California - morning chilly for the young padre who walked in the gardens of the mission of San Juan Cap-istrano. Cap-istrano. As he paced with bent head, thinking of St. Joseph, whose feast day it was, he heard excited cries outside the high walls that separated the mission from the village. "Hay vienen las golondrinas!" the children shouted. "The swallows swal-lows are coming!" Lifting his head, the young padre saw a small cloud against the blue swallows lived at the Mission. On San Juan day, Oct. 23, they flew south in a great rush of wings. When spring approached again, the good padre watched for their return, wondering if they would come again to the Mission. On the eve of St. Joseph's day, which is March 19, he prepared again the inviting mudhole in the garden. Rushing in from the sea in a great cloud, the swallows rapturously rap-turously greeted their friend, the priest, and set about repairing their nests under the eaves. Every year since that time the golden-breasted birds have returned re-turned to the Mission of San Juan Capistrano with almost miraculous regularity on March 19 and they go away on Oct. 23. of the morning sky. As he watched the cloud grew larger and larger. With a thrill of excitement and awe, the priest saw the great moving mov-ing mass obscure the light of the rising sun! The quiet was broken j with the sound of thousands of beating wings. The golden-breasted golden-breasted swallows of San Juan Capistrano were . coming home across the trackless miles of ocean! Twittering and darting in excitement, ex-citement, the birds swooped down to the eaves of the village tavern where their nests had been the summer before. Then the birds discovered that their treasured mud homes, to which the same swallow families return every year, were gone. Now the boys on the ground began pelting the birds with clods and sticks. JS the birds flew about in circling cir-cling panic, the young padre saw the tavernkeeper rubbing his hands together with satisfaction and urging the boys to further efforts. "Why are you disturbing the birds?" the priest called angrily. "They only wish to return to their nests in the eaves of the tavern." The tavernkeeper stared at the young man fiercely. "And do they pay rent for the space they take, Padre?" he demanded. "No! Every spring they plaster more mud upon my tavern, and every spring they twitter louder and dart about my head!" He stopped to laugh loud and long.' - "But this year there will be none of that. I have torn down their nests and if I must hire every boy in the village to throw sticks and stones, those beggar beg-gar birds shall build no more!" He gestured angrily. "Faster, boys! Drive them away!" Then he turned to the padre again. "If your heart is touched, good father, by these homeless ones, why do you not invite them to the Mission?" The young priest looked sternly at the man. "Thank you," he said. "That is exactly what I shall do!" rJ1URNING back into the Mission garden, the young priest found a shovel and went to work. Industriously In-dustriously he turned the soil in a part of the grounds, then watered wa-tered it well. Again he turned over the soil and again watered it. Before long he had a fine large mudhole prepared! The distracted birds saw the mudhole. They began to circle in larger and larger numbejs around the young priest's head. Then a pair darted down to carry away the ready-made building material to the eaves of the Mission. Other birds followed until they were all busily building new mud homes under the protection of the good priest. All through the long summer the |