Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

but foreigners must pay a moderate board, according to what they require and desire. On entering Hawaii there is a hospital tax of two dollars. It seems to me there must be a very large fund by this time. If my dollars were put to good interest it would give some native a good turkey for Thanksgiving, which is close at hand as I write this-I mean to say, a hungry convalescent. This hospital is a comfortable place for the homeless sick in a foreign land.

"Wondrous honors hast Thou given
To our humblest charity,
In thine own mysterious sentence,
'Ye have done it unto me.'
Can it be, O gracious Master,
Thou dost deign for alms to sue,
Saying by Thy poor and needy,
'Give as I have given to you'?

"Yes; the sorrow and the suffering
Which on every hand we see
Channels are for tithes and offerings
Due by solemn right to Thee;
Right of which we may not rob Thee;
Debt we may not choose but pay,

Lest that Face of love and pity

Turn from us another day."

THE GUAVA.

M

OST certainly a bookful could be written, not of the beauty only, but of the uses as well, of the trees found in the Hawaiian Islands.

There is the sweet guava and the sour (very acid). The yellow fruit is, in shape, like a large lemon, firm pulp and full of bony seeds. The fragrance is most delightful, and peculiar to itself; like that of the pineapple, the strawberry, or the earliest green applesnever to be confounded with any other odor! The natives bring them, from the valleys, in the early morning, and a peck can be bought for half a dollar (hapalua). Jelly is made from them, in almost every family.

It is easy to make, and will not spoil. However, it is not so rich, nor so firm as the West India. Possibly, the guavas are not so choice, or there is a "trick" in the making which the Hawaiians lack. It is said that in the West Indies the natives boil the fruit in the woods; that their recipe has come down to them, as a tradition, and that they would not sell it for money, nor give it away for love!

With the English, it seems to be a law, as binding as that of the Medes and Persians, that cooked fruit,

in one form or another (jelly, jam, marmalade, preserves or sauce) shall be eaten with pudding-not so bad a law! So when the boys of Iolani College, Honolulu, were asked what they liked best, of all the dessert offered to them, day by day-pastry, biscuit and cheese, bananas, sago and apple sauce, tapioca and peach, rice and guava—“Rice and guava!" was the shout, without a dissenting voice.

The rice is of good quality, grown on the Islands, and when cooked to be soft, dry and whole, white as a snow-drift, and fortified with a dish of guava of delicate pink color, each slice perfect, and swimming in juice as clear as crystal, you will not wonder that boys (and they are capital judges and critics) would bid and even "bet" on it! "Rice and guava, you bet!" At Iolani the boys are encouraged to talk at meal-times; but, in subdued tones in the morning, and quietly at dinner-time, so as not to over-talk the Bishop, who, as a rule, dines with any guests in the Hall.

But at supper the head-master permits a general letting-up (or down), when there is much fun, hilarity and general good fellowship. Nor this alone; they learn a great deal at the table from one another.

Boys like to tell an ignorant neighbor how to spell a word or name a river, or give to him a bit of school gossip which he has been too unfortunate to hear! In the "waits," too, at table, they will invent games, often quite ingenious. "The game of seven." Each boy at one long table would "guess" what the dessert

would be, for the next day; and they would keep their tally, and, if keen, keep their neighbor's, too! When any boy had guessed right seven times, the game was his, and the trophy, whatever was agreed upon. Another, was to name something in the Hall, of which the first letter was given. And it was curious to note the ingenuity to keep it up. "Wrinkle," on the table-cloth, "crack" in the wall! for amusing himself?

[ocr errors]

Trust a boy

The boys, little and big-from Euclid to alphabet -came to know, in the course of time, that, with the Bishop, "Let your moderation be known unto all men," meant "little men as well. For they had always finished their pudding before he had decided what to do about eating his! But of this they heartily approved, for the bell must be rung for school, directly the dining-hall was cleared!

The natives are very fond of music. The boys attend chapel for matins and for evensong daily. They do the singing, and on Sundays, at the cathedral, all whose voices will permit must be in the choir, and very proud they are to sing.

One little brownie was a marvel in the way of singing. His second teeth were not cut-not on the way, even, that could be seen. He was a half-caste-father English-mother a native. A little dot, of a blackeyed, curly-headed, small-handed, tiny-footed boy. But what a voice in that pipestem of a throat! The head-master said he had never heard such a voice, and I doubt if any one else had.

He would sing "John Brown," and "Yankee Doodle" with much gusto, on the play-ground, whenever the spirit moved him, and that was pretty often!

He

was often invited, by the Seniors, who were intent on baseball just then, to "shut up"!

"Ka Lani, you stop your noise."

One hymn he liked so much, it was called his

own.

66

Now, Ka Lani, sing your hymn." The natives are very wide awake to any form of ridicule, and even where they can speak but little English, will detect at once, any banter or chaffing one may choose to offer. He would fix his eyes on the listeners, and burst out with, "Oft in danger, oft in woe"-watching closely to see if approval and delight was in their faces, and if he detected anything like a laugh at his expense, he would rub his little bare feet on the floor, and in his cheeks one could see the rose through all the brown!

The evening "preparation" was until half-past eight; the Juniors went to the dormitory earlier. The schoolbuilding is in a large paddock—about an eighth of a mile distant-and with very fine verandas.

This little fellow, who was a great pet, would often coax; "Me go look stars-go look stars." I regret to say that in the morning he would be just as eager to "go look black pigs."

He was not, altogether, a "good" boy, but had as much of mischief and fun in him as the average white boy. Hearing a great "war of words" one day,

« AnteriorContinuar »