u want to hear about the dances, you say? Well, every party was
a dance; a fandango or ball, if it was given in a hall where everybody
could come, but at houses where just the people came who were invited
we called it only a dance. Every old grandfather or little girl, even,
danced all night long, and the rooms were hung with flags and wreaths.
All the Spanish dances were pretty, and the ladies with their gay
dresses and mantillas, and the gentlemen in velvet suits trimmed
with gold, made a fine picture. At the cascarone, or egg-shell
dance, baskets of egg-shells filled with cologne or finely cut tinsel
or colored papers were brought into the room, and the game was to
crush these shells over the dancers' heads. If your hair got wet with
cologne or full of gilt paper, everybody laughed, and you laughed too,
for that was the game, you know. Ah, there was plenty of merry-making
and feasting in those days, children," and Senora Sanchez sighed again
and went on with her "drawn-work," while the bell in the old Mission
church near by rang five o'clock, and we children ran home talking of
those old times before the Gringos came to California.

THE AMERICANS AND THE BEAR-FLAG REPUBLIC

While Spain owned Mexico and the two Californias, the Missions were at
their best and grew rich in stores of grain and in cattle and horses.
Almost all the people were Spanish or Indians, and they lived at the
Missions or in ranches near by. But when Mexico in 1822 refused to be
ruled by Spain, Alta or Upper California became a Mexican territory,
and, later on, a republic with governors sent from Mexico. The Mission
Padres did not like the change, and thought that Spain should still
own the New World. Before long it was ordered that the Missions should
be turned into pueblos, or towns, and that the Padres were no longer
to make slaves of the Indians. The missionaries were to stay as
priests, and to teach the Indians in schools, but the Mission lands
were to be divided so that each Indian family might have a small farm
to cultivate. From that time the Missions began to decay and were
finally given up to ruin.

Then Americans began to come in, the first party of hunters and
trappers travelling from Salt Lake City to the San Gabriel Mission.
All kept talking of the rich country where farming was so easy, and
they wished to have land. But the Mexicans and the native Californians
did not believe in allowing the Americans, as they called all t