BREAKFAST AT THE MISSION
NEXT morning Ama got up very early. She went down to the creek bed and hunted about until she found two stones that she liked. One was large and flat on top; the other was small and long, with one end that had been worn smooth by the water. She wanted to make a new mortar and pestle, for the old ones were so heavy that she had not brought them with her.
Ama carried her corn down to the creek, put it on the big stone, and tried to pound it with the little one; but the corn flew all over the ground, for there was no hole worn yet in the top of the flat rock.
She poured some more corn on the top of the flat stone, but this time she did not pound it so hard. Even then she could not grind it very well, but by and by it was fine enough so that she could make mush of it.
She started to go to the hut to tell Docas to make a fire. Just as she climbed up the bank the sun came over the top of the mountain. It shone on the queer, shiny thing that looked something like a basket upside down. This thinghung between two posts by the church, and it was shining so brightly now that Ama could hardly look at it.
At the same moment that the sun rose, she heard something go, “Clang, clang, clang!” The sound seemed to come from this same shiny thing.
It waked Massea and Docas, and they came running out of the hut to see what was the matter. In a few minutes all the other people in the village came out of their huts, too.
Everybody seemed to be going toward the shiny thing that made the noise. So Ama snatched up little Keoka, and they all followed after the other people to see what was the matter.
They found that all the Indians were going into the big brush house, and they followed. As the people went in they knelt down. Massea said, “I am going to do as other people do,” so he knelt down, too. Then he took Ama and the children and went to a corner of the house to see what was going to happen.
Up in the front of the house some of the long white sticks were burning that the Indian from Monterey had told about. In a few minutes more Docas heard the sweetest sound! Heema began to talk to him just then, but Docas said, “Stop! I want to listen.”
In a few minutes some more boys came in, allsinging. Docas could not understand anything they said, but he liked the sound.
Then Father Pena came out and said something, but Docas could not understand that either. After the little boys had sung, everybody got up and went out of the house. Massea and his family followed, and they all went back to their homes.
Ama asked Docas to build the fire. He found some dry sticks and soon had a fire roaring. Just then a strange little Mission boy with a red skirt on came up. “What are you building that fire for?” he said.
“For my mother to cook breakfast,” answered Docas.
“We don’t do that here at the Mission,” said the strange Indian boy.
“Don’t have any breakfast?” asked Docas. Docas was almost ready to wish he were back at the old rancheria, if he could not have any breakfast.
“Oh, no!” said the boy. “I meant that each family does not get its own breakfast.”
“Then who does get it?” asked Docas.
“Well, you see my mother and some of the other women stayed home and got breakfast ready for all of us while we were at mass,” said the boy. Then he asked, “Where is your mother?”
“She is down at the creek trying to grind some more corn while I build the fire,” answered Docas.
“Let’s surprise her,” said the boy. “Have you some baskets? Get one, and we will go and get the breakfast while she is gone.”
Docas went into the hut and brought out one of the flat baskets. The boy looked at it; then he said, “Haven’t you any deeper basket? They give you so much to eat here.” Docas went back, and this time he brought out one of the deep baskets in which Ama used to carry the grass-seed. Then they went off.
Soon Ama came back. She looked all round, but could not find any fire. “I wonder what has become of Docas,” she said.
Docas had not put any big wood on the fire, but only some small sticks, so by the time Ama came up from the creek it was all burned out.
In a little while Ama saw Docas coming toward them, carrying a basket very carefully in his hands. The other Indian boy was with him.
“I wonder where he has been and what he is carrying in that basket. I should think he would be hungry himself, and build the fire, instead of running off to play before breakfast,” thought Ama.
In a minute more Docas set the basket down at her feet. She looked into it, then she said,“Why, it is filled with mush. Where did you get it?”
Docas then told Ama about the big boilers full of mush, and how every family sent and got its breakfast from them.
The strange little boy, whose name was Yisoo, said, “Good-by; I will be back after breakfast, but I must hurry now and take our breakfast home.”