The Doomswoman by Gertrude Atherton

While we were eating supper, a dozen Indian girls were gathered about a table in one of the large rooms behind the house, busily engaged in blowing out the contents of several hundred eggs and filling the hollowed shells with cologne, flour, tinsel, bright scraps of paper. Each egg-was then sealed with white wax, and ready for the cascaron frolic of the evening.

We had been dancing, singing, and talking for an hour after rosario, when the eggs were brought in. In an instant every girl's hair was unbound, a wild dive was made for the great trays, and eggs flew in every direction. Dancing was forgotten. The girls and men chased each other about the room, the air was filled with perfume and glittering particles, the latter looking very pretty on black floating hair. Etiquette demanded that only one egg should be thrown by the same hand at a time, but quick turns of supple wrists followed each other very rapidly. To really accomplish a feat the egg must crash on the back of the head, and each occupied in attack was easy prey.