"Won't there be any snow at all?" asked Jack wonderingly. "Then how can we go coasting?"
"You can't," said Nan briefly.
Jack looked a little disappointed. She dearly loved a rough and tumble time in the snow.
"And won't there be any Christmas?" asked Jean eagerly.
Nan laughed. "You little goosey, you know there will. You don't suppose Christmas is like a groundhog that only stays out when it doesn't see its shadow. Christmas comes anywhere and in any weather."
This relieved Jean's mind on that score and she settled back in the carriage and began thinking what she would like Santa Claus to bring her while the others looked out upon the road leading by Old Town and thought of the changes which had taken place since Junipero Serra first came that way to plant his mission.
"Shouldn't you like to have been there then?" said Nan to her Aunt Helen. "I wish I could have seen them swinging the bells over a tree and raising the cross while the Indians all stood around looking so surprised." Nan was the first to reach the old church. "I'd salute it with three cheers and a tiger," she said, "if I didn't think Father Junipero would be scandalized."
"You talk as if he could hear you," Mary Lee returned.
"Perhaps he can," said Nan.
Not much of the original church remained, but the portion of the adobe wall and the fachada still standing, gave them an idea of what had been.