Esteban stood beaming even after she had gone. And then his joy was suddenly turned to dismay. He had been so busy caring for his garden that he had not heard the other boys planning the part each would take when they sang carols the night before Three Kings’ Day. The Porto Rican children do not have gifts on Christmas, but their gifts come on Three Kings’ Day, which is January the sixth. The kings are said to ride on camels, and every child gathers grass for the camels and puts a little box of it under his bed so that they will find it when they bring the kings with their gifts.

On the night before the kings come, bands of children throng the streets, singing carols. They stop before many houses, and the night rings with their music. The part each child wants is that of a king. There are two white kings and one black one, as the Bible teaches, and now it was that Esteban learned how the other boys had been chosen for the part of the white kings, and the part left for him was that of the black king. He would have to blacken his face and his hands with burnt cork.