Dancing, music, laughter and fun followed, and were kept up until some time after nightfall.
On the second day after Christmas a strolling band of _pastores_, from San Geronimo, passed from house to house singing their Christmas songs.
The company consisted of two or three musicians, a carrier--who was an indian boy about fifteen years old--and half a dozen other youngsters, wearing new palm hats and carrying long staves ending above in a loop from which streamed strips of brilliantly colored tissue paper.

The carrier bore a cushion, upon which was stretched a figure of the infant Christ.

At each house, he passed before the spectators, allowing them to kiss the figure and to deposit gifts of flowers or of money for the little church at San Geronimo; the music then struck up, the leader began to sing, and the little shepherds (_pastores_) marched around and around singing in chorus.
We lost quite two days on account of the drunkenness of the town.

When it was past, by a vigorous indulgence in wheedling and threatening, we got the work again under way, and were just finishing with our one-hundredth man, when Padre Ponce returned for good and all.

We had nearly starved during his absence; his old housekeeper had done her best with the poor materials which we were able to secure, but the best was bad.