Alila, Our Little Philippine Cousin

FOREST AND STREAM

There is another cocoanut grove on the farm, beside the one where Alila gets the tuba. The fruit is allowed to ripen on these trees, and it is the boy's duty to gather it. There is a new growth of cocoanuts three times a year.

Alila does not need to climb the trees for them unless he wishes. He usually fastens a sickle-shaped knife to the end of a long pole. In this way he can reach up to the tops of the tallest trees and cut off the cocoanuts; when thud! thud! down they fall to the ground, safe and sound. For the delicious pulp is not only shut up in the hard shell that we know, but this also is enclosed in a still larger and thicker covering.

How could the natives of tropic lands get along without this valuable tree? It has so many uses it would take a long time even to mention them all.

Its roots are good to cure Alila when he is seized by an attack of fever during the wet season. His mother believes that his life has been spared through the use of this medicine. Alila's father made his canoe from the trunk of a cocoanut-tree; while much of the furniture in his employer's mansion has been carved from its beautiful wood. The boy's mother uses a comb made from the stalks of cocoanut leaves. The husks which enclose the fruit are made into coir, out of which are made ropes, brooms, brushes, and even bedding.

When Alila was only five or six years old he learned to weave baskets and mats from the leaves, and he knows how to thatch a roof with them very neatly.

What is so delicious on a hot day as a drink of fresh cocoanut milk! It is never hurtful and quenches the thirst as well as the coldest water. The oil obtained from the nuts is used by Alila's mother in her cooking.

But she also needs it for another purpose. She is always in fear of an earthquake, and feels safer to have a light burning in readiness all night long. She keeps in the cabin a small vessel half-full of water. Cocoanut oil is poured on the water and a wick made of a certain kind of pith called tinsin hangs down in the middle of this odd lamp. The Chinese taught the Tagals the value of tinsin. There is scarcely to be found a native hut where it is not used for lamp wicks.

But you must be tired of hearing about cocoanuts and their uses, so we will return to Alila and his strange adventures. One day not long ago his mother said to him:

"My child, I should like some fish for dinner. Will you go to the river and get some?"

Alila has great success in fishing. He started off at once on his errand. He did not stop to get hook and line, as you would have done; he knew another way to fish, different from any we have in our country.

When he got to the river he walked along by its side till he found a place where the water ran very deep. Then he took off his clothing, and lay quietly down on the bank. His eyes were wide open and watchful, though his body was so still. He soon saw some fish rise near the surface of the water. Quick as a flash he jumped in and dived down, down under where the fish were darting. Rising as suddenly as he had dived, he came to the surface with a fish in each hand.

He is such a nimble little fellow that he did this several times, and hardly ever failed. It was not long before he had a fine string of fish to carry home. As he walked back, he stopped to gather some green bamboos of medium size, for he knew they would be needed in cooking the dinner.

While his mother was cleaning the fish, Alila made a fire and cut the bamboos at every joint. They were changed at once into baking pans, each one large enough to slip a fish inside, together with a little water and some spices. The ends were stopped up, and the bamboos laid in the fire. As soon as they began to burn, it was a sign that the fish inside were cooked enough.

What a good dinner it was! You would have thought so if you could have tasted the rice steamed in the same way as the delicate fish and served on plantain leaves.

Alila has still another way of fishing which is not as hard work as diving, though, after all, it is not much fun. He carries a bamboo basket in which he has put a mixture containing a curious kind of poison. He sets it floating on the water. When the fish come near it the poison makes them stupid, and they rise and float motionless on the surface, as though they were dead. Then it is an easy matter for Alila to get them.

CHAPTER X.

A SWARM OF LOCUSTS

The little brown boy has lived, as you know, on a sugar plantation, where the cane ripens only once a year. You also remember that last summer a hurricane destroyed the boy's home, and a new one had to be built. The sugar crop barely escaped ruin, when, alas! another danger came to it, more fearful even than the great wind. It was a storm of locusts.

Alila was working in the cane-fields with his loved buffalo one morning, when, looking up suddenly, he saw something which frightened him. It was a long distance away, far as his eyes could see, and it appeared like a dark cloud near the earth.

The boy was frightened, as I have said, but it was not for himself. It was on account of the danger threatening the plantation; he knew very well that what seemed like a cloud was composed of millions and millions of locusts. Unless something were done at once, all the sugar-cane would be ruined. For, if that army of insects, perfectly harmless to animals, should settle down upon the canes, the leaves would be entirely eaten in a few hours.

Alila ran as fast as his legs could carry him from one part of the plantation to another, and gave the alarm to the working people as he passed along.

It was wonderful how quickly men, women, and children armed themselves to meet the coming enemy. All the bamboo clappers, cocoanut shells, tin pans, and red flags that could be found were seized and put into use.

Then such a din and commotion you never heard nor saw, even on the glorious Fourth of July. Locusts are very sensitive to noise, so between the beating of drums and clappers, the waving of the red flags, and the smoke from fires of wet wood at the sides of the fields, the greater part of the army passed on. The people breathed again, since the danger was over for the present.

When it was all over Alila was not too tired to play for awhile with a few locusts he had caught in a net. Their bodies looked like those of large grasshoppers, except that they were of a brownish colour.

They would not sting or bite, and the boy kept his new pets as long as they lived. That was only a few days, however, as a locust has a very short life. It is said that food passes through its body as fast as it is eaten, so it is not nourished, and soon dies for this reason. It also has an enemy, a small worm that forms in its body and gradually eats it up.

The mother locust has a queer way of making a nest for her eggs. She extends the end of her body till it is like an auger, and with this she bores a deep hole in the earth. She chooses spots near fields of ripening rice or sugar cane, so the young locusts, as they hatch out, will be near a good supply of food; for at first they have no wings and cannot go in search of it.

After the visit of the locusts, Alila went carefully around the edges of the fields with the other workmen. They wished to see if any signs of young locusts could be found. But they found none and felt that the crops were free from danger for this year, at least. But Alila's father said to himself:

"How many risks there are in working on a sugar plantation! I have been here now many years. I never know whether the crop will be a failure or not. I believe I will go somewhere else. Up on the side of the mountain, not far from here, is a large hemp plantation; I will seek work there. Besides, there is fine hunting near by and Alila can see new sights."

When he told his family, they were all pleased, for Tagals dearly love a change and often move from place to place merely for the sake of change. Alila was the most delighted of all. He said:

"Now, father, I can hunt with you and go bat shooting in the deep forests. You know I can sell their beautiful soft skins to travellers."

Alila's grandmother and mother were pleased, too. They liked the idea because the hemp is gathered throughout the year and can be sold from time to time, whenever there is need of money. But when the women thought of the bands of brigands who hide in the mountain passes, they began to fear.

Many were the stories they had heard of these robbers and their sudden attacks in the night-time on people in lonely houses.

"You need not worry," said Alila's father, "for these wild robbers seldom harm poor people; and they never kill unless they are obliged to do so. I believe they are not as terrible as they are often described."

CHAPTER XI.

THE NEW HOME

So it came to pass that Alila went to a new home. It was not hard work to get ready, for there was little to move. The old buffalo that had grown up with his young master was able to carry on his broad back everything owned by the entire family. He could easily have taken more, too!

The women rode on ponies and the men walked beside the buffalo. No one seemed to feel sad, although it had been an easy, happy life on the little farm and the sugar planter had always been kind.

Their fellow workmen were Tagals like themselves; they would find many Chinese labourers on the hemp plantation, at least they had been told so. But they did not care for that.

There are many Chinamen in the Philippines, and they agree very well with their Tagal neighbours and the people of the many other tribes. Alila has a cousin married to a Chinese merchant in Manila and some time he is going to visit her.

As they journeyed onward they passed a party of Americans. Alila's mother called:

"Come nearer to me, my child. Stay by my side."

She had a fear of white faces of which she could not rid herself. The Spaniards had been cruel to her people, she well knew. And now that these others from far-away lands had taken the power from the Spaniards, she felt that they, too, would be hard and unkind.

Poor ignorant mother! She did not understand that it meant such different things, – schools for all children instead of a very few; work for any one who desired it; better care for the sick in the cities; fewer taxes for all. Yes, all these and many other good things would be done by the Americans to make Alila and Alila's children live more wisely and therefore more happily.

When the sun was setting that night, the hemp plantation could be plainly seen. It was a beautiful sight, those rows of small trees with their large, glossy leaves, shut in by woods of a larger growth.

The plant from which is made what is called Manila hemp belongs to the same family as the banana and the plantain. The leaves all of them look so much alike it would be hard for us to tell the difference.

It did not take many days to get settled. The neighbours were very kind and gave the family shelter and food until Alila and his father had finished building a cabin. This time they made the roof as well as the sides of the hut of split bamboo, and the boy's mother and grandmother helped in preparing it.

Alila had never before seen hemp gathered, and he had much to learn. He was soon very quick in separating the fibres from the pulp and spreading them out to dry before packing.

The boy sometimes wonders what journeys the bales of hemp will take. To what countries will they sail? To what uses will they be put? His father has told him that nothing else in his island home is shipped in such quantities as Manila hemp. It makes stout cordage and sail-cloth; it is woven into mats, carpets, and hammocks; while the finest hemp is made into delicate dress goods for the rich ladies of the island.

Yes, people all over the world have heard of Manila hemp, and when he is older, Alila says he will bear it company and seek strange sights across the oceans.