Summary

A second person narrator begins with explaining the Catholic neighborhood of Valencia. There is Father Stein's Homeopathic Hospital, which was named after a German Jesuit missionary. It is the largest neighborhood in Kittur, with most of it's inhabitants being educated, employed and homeowners. The Hindus and Muslims have rarely encountered trouble there but there have been trouble for the Protestants in the area. Every Sunday, people file into the Cathedral of Our Lady or Valencia for Mass. Then on Christmas Eve the entire population crams in for Midnight Mass and sing carols and hymns into the early hours of the morning.

The narration shifts to the first person perspective of an older woman named for Jayamma. She is the eighth children out of 12 and the second to last of the nine girls. Her father could only afford to...