As they started for the country on a bright May day, Juanita said, "Oh, mamma, see that strange cow! It is all dressed with flower-wreaths, and has bells around its neck and flowers on its horns. Why does that young girl lead it, and that old blind man walk behind, and blow that horn and beat the drum?"
"That is a cow to be won in a lottery," said the señora. "Manuel, stop; I wish to buy a ticket. How we Spaniards do love a game of chance! See, I shall buy a ticket for each one of you, and maybe your number will win the prize."
"Oh, thank you, mamma!" both children cried, for neither had ever had a lottery ticket before.
"Now I wish you to stop at a cigar-store, and buy a stamp[13] for my letter to your Aunt Isabella, and then we will drive on."
As they turned into the main street leading to the Alameda, Juanita asked, "Oh, mi madre, what are those people sitting in the streets making?"
"Haven't you seen the ice-cream makers before?" said the señora. "No, I think you cannot remember last summer, can you? The gipsies go up to the Sierras in the very early morning, and get donkey-loads of snow, and the people make ice-cream in those pails with the snow in it. They sit right at their doors on the sidewalk and make the fresh cream, and any one can buy a glass of it."
"Do let us have some," cried the children, and their indulgent mother ordered the horses stopped while they ate some of the delicious fresh cream.
As the carriage rolled on down the steep street, so narrow that as Manuel said "one can hardly pass another after a full dinner," the swineherd was just coming out for the day, and Juanita cried:
"Oh, madre! See that man with the pipe in his mouth; what queer music he plays! What is he?"