It is Christmas Day. Latour has been busy since his return to Santa Fe nine days previous. His return was marked by a friendly welcome from his diocese due to the work of Father Vaillant, who had endeared himself to the diocese. The Mexican priest who had overseen the parish prior to the arrival of Latour and Vaillant had left Santa Fe to return to Mexico. Vaillant has appropriated the priest's house and has hired carpenters to make the quarters livable.
The priests' house is described as an old adobe house in much need of additional repair. All the corners of the house are rounded in adobe fashion. All the furnishings are handmade.
Latour writes a letter to his brother in France. He relates that he must be a businessman all day, how he will help the Mexicans become good American citizens (it is for their own good), and how Vaillant is cooking dinner. He tells his brother that salads are unheard of in New Mexico, and salad oil was an extravagance even in Ohio. The two men will be happy, though living far from the land of their birth.
The two men sit down to a Christmas dinner of onion soup, bean salad with pork, roast chicken, and dried-plum compote. Latour tells Vaillant of the thousand years of tradition that is represented by his soup. Vaillant laments that there is no salad. He remembers the grape vineyards and gardens he tended in Ohio.
