Long, long ago, there lived in Spain, in the crowded part of a great city, an old woman called Doña Josefa. The street in which she lived was little and narrow; so narrow that if you leaned out of the window of Doña Josefa’s house you could touch with your fingertips the house across the way; and when you looked above your head the sky seemed but a string of blue—tying the houses all together. The sun never found its way into this little street.
The people who lived here were very poor, as you may guess; Doña Josefa was poor, likewise. But in one thing she was very rich; she knew more stories than there were feast days in the year—and that is a great many. Whenever there came a moment free from work; when Doña Josefa had no water to fetch from the public well, nor gold to stitch upon the altar cloth for the Church of Santa Maria del Rosario; then she would run out of her house into the street and call:
“Niños, niñas, come quickly! Here is a story waiting for you.”
And the children would come flying—like the gray palomas when corn is thrown for them in the Plaza. Ah, how many children there were in that little street! There were José and Miguel, and the niños of Enrique, the cobbler,—Alfredito and Juana and Esperanza,—and the little twin sisters of Pancho, the peddler; and Angela, Maria Teresa, Pedro, Edita, and many more. Last of all there were Manuel and Rosita. They had no father; and their mother was a lavandera who stood all day on the banks of the river outside the city, washing clothes.
When Doña Josefa had called the children from all the doorways and the dark corners, she would sit down in the middle of the street and gather them about her. This was safe, because the street was far too narrow to allow a horse or wagon to pass through. Sometimes a donkey would slowly pick its way along, or a stupid goat come searching for things to eat; but that was all.
It happened on the day before Christmas that Doña Josefa had finished her work, and sat as usual with the children about her.
“To-day you shall have a Christmas story,” she said; and then she told them of the three kings and the promise they had made the Christ Child.
“And is it so—do the kings bring presents to the children now?” Miguel asked.
Doña Josefa nodded her head: “Yes.”
“Then why have they never left us one? The three kings never pass this street on Christmas Eve; why is it, Doña?”