Silvia Ledesma is in the middle of this line, which stretches from the steps of a church, across sidewalks, through neighborhoods, under a bridge, around a soccer stadium and beyond. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other, seeking a more comfortable posture to begin her sixth hour here.  

A casual glance suggests she's stuck in place. But when she lifts her foot and sets it back down, the sole of her shoe lands about two inches in front of where it had been before.   Such movements add up. She is now standing about 1,600 feet from where she started. That means she is actually hurtling toward the church at a rate slightly faster than an inch per second.   "Little by little," she says at around 1 p.m., "we're getting there."  

"There," in this case, is the Roman Catholic Church of San Cayetano. For one day each August, the church opens its doors and allows the faithful to pay tribute to the patron saint of work and prosperity.  

This week, the line began to form several days before the doors opened, with hard-core believers camping in street-side pup tents and huddling around bonfires in the midwinter cold. Before it's all over, about 1 million people will stand in the inexorably glacial line, according to city estimates.  

Some have come to pray for jobs, others to offer thanks for the ones they already have. Ledesma, 35, is standing here because 14 years ago to this day, just after she gave birth to her first son, she made a promise to San Cayetano: If you can somehow help my husband and me support our family, she said, I will forever be in your debt.  

Today her husband is a cook at a restaurant, her two sons are healthy adolescents, and she's keeping her promise, one inch at a time.  

"It's all about faith," she says. "Most of the people in this line are like me -- they come to give thanks, every year."   It's easy to find tales of both joy and woe among the line-dwellers, and the turnout for this annual procession is sometimes taken as a bellwether of the Argentine economy -- a significance the line doesn't really deserve. Veterans insist that variations depend more on the weather and the day of the week than the state of the market.  

One of those in line is Patricia Molina, who is Ledesma's mother and is standing right beside her. She has waited in this line nearly every year for the past two decades; she also queues regularly on other holy days, such as the Day of the Virgin, observed on Dec. 8.  

"Sometimes the lines for the Day of the Virgin are never-ending," Molina says with a knowing shrug. "Even this line has been much longer in past years, especially when San Cayetano Day falls on a weekend."  

To illustrate the relatively brisk pace at which they are now traveling, Molina holds open the plastic bag she carries. It contains a disassembled stool, the legs unscrewed from the seat.   "I haven't even had to use this," she says.  

Beside the snaking line, vendors have assembled a carnival of free enterprise: rosary beads, San Cayetano figurines, knife sharpeners, coffee, churros, magazines, cigarettes and books. If the pilgrims in line have a friend to save their spot, they can even duck into a restaurant and enjoy a hot lunch.  

The event is firmly rooted in Catholic tradition -- priests are even available for line-side confessions -- but this line also attracts some pilgrims whose beliefs are less institutional and who seem eager to solicit good luck from anyone they can find.  

This fact is not lost on Don Amadeo, who walks the line passing out fliers explaining that he is a "magic love doctor" and the "only person capable of putting an end to your problems with love." Shortly after he passes, a competitor named Cipriano, "a descendant of wizards," passes out similar fliers that include his phone number and the warning, "Do not throw away this flier -- it can bring bad luck."  

Ledesma and Molina don't succumb to any of these distractions, except for the vendor selling wheat stalks, a symbol of bread and work that is closely associated with San Cayetano. Molina holds several of them in her hand like a bouquet. A picture of the saint has been affixed to their stems.  

The picture is a lot like the image they will stand in front of inside the church. There they will give thanks for the lives they feel privileged to lead, lives that have allowed them the luxury of standing outside on a reasonably pleasant day with thousands of other people, free from the need to race around frantically to scrape up the bare necessities of survival.  

"It's only a few more hours now," Ledesma says just before 3 p.m.   Not a trace of impatience is detectable in her voice.