The Judas-seller had a long branch cut from a tree, with little twigs growing out of it. On each twig hung a “Judas.” They were small dolls, with sticky pink-painted faces and sticky black-painted hair, and they were dressed in tissue paper. The hands of the Judases were stuck straight out on each side and from one hand to the other there was a string stretched. Fire-crackers were hung along on this string. When these [p 88] fire-crackers go off, one after another, they set fire to the Judas and burn him up.
You remember that long years ago, when Jesus was on earth, He was betrayed by a man named Judas Iscariot, who sold Him to his enemies for thirty pieces of silver. In Mexico, Judas Iscariot Day is kept in remembrance of this, and all the Judases which the people buy and burn up are to show how very wicked they believe the real Judas to have been.
But the Judas dolls didn’t look the least bit as the real Judas must have looked. Some of them were made to look like Mexican donkey-boys and some like water-carriers, while others represented priests, or policemen, or cowboys.
Tita couldn’t make up her mind whether to buy a donkey-boy or a policeman. But Tonio found what he wanted right away. It was a “Judas” made like a thin young school-teacher! Tonio thought it looked like the Señor Maestro, and he thought it would be very pleasant to see him burn up, [p 89] and so, though he cost twelve cents, he bought him at once.
II
When Pancho and Doña Teresa and the Twins were ready they went in a little procession to the lake-shore. They found Pedro with his wife and baby and Pablo already there.
This was the very same Pablo on whose feet Tonio had put the lizard. He was Pedro’s son.
Pedro was loading the boat with bundles of reeds. They were the reeds used for weaving the petates[15] or sleeping-mats. The reeds grew all about the lake, but the people in the town could not easily get them, so Pedro had gathered a supply to sell to them.
The boat was quite large. It had one sail and there was a thatched roof of reeds over the back part of it. It was too large to bring into the shallow water near the shore, so [p 90] Pedro had rolled up his white trousers and was wading back and forth from the boat to the beach, carrying a bundle of reeds each time and stowing it away under the thatch.
