“Let’s go to meet them.”
The ball was to be on Wednesday evening, Wednesday morning Shecol heard a great noise of shouting and laughing toward the south.
“They’re coming, Yappa. Let’s go to meet them,” he called.
When the children had run out a little way, they could see some people coming—about twenty-five in the party. These were the Spanish guests and their Indian servants. They were having great fun, for the men were fine riders. They could bend down from their saddles and pick flowers from the ground as they galloped past.
“I wonder what they are doing when they ride up against each other,” said Yappa. As they came nearer she saw that they were smearing each other’s faces with bright colors. Such looking people as they were! But as that was all part of the fun, no one cared.
The Robles family took their friends inside the house to wash their faces, while some of the Indian servants came to where Oshda lived.
“Oh, grandpa, here’s Yisoo’s son,” called Yappa to Docas as one of the Indians stopped at their door.
Yappa could not stay to listen to what they said, for she had to hurry and help her mother with supper. The long tables were set out in an arbor near the house.
In the evening came the ball, for which the largest room in the house had been cleared. Yappa and Shecol climbed up outside one of the windows where they could see everything that went on.
As soon as the people began to gather, came the fun of smashing the eggs on each other’s heads. Don Secundini Robles was standing in the crowd talking to one of his friends from San José, when Donna Maria came up behind him and smashed an eggshell filled with perfumed water on his head. Then she jumped back among the crowd before he could turn round to see who did it.