glowing honeysuckle cobs, and eaten without salt. What boy does care
about such a thing as salt at such times, when his eye is bright and his
skin glows with the flush of health, and the soft murmuring of the sea
is mingling in his ears with the thrilling call of the birds, and the
rustling hum of the bush; and the yellow sun shines down from a glorious
sky of cloudless blue, and dries the sand upon his naked feet; and the
very joy of being alive, and away from school, is happiness enough in
itself!

For here, by rock and pool on this lonely Austral beach, it is good and
sweet for man or boy to be, and, if but in utter idleness, to watch and
listen--and think.




_Solepa_


The last strokes of the bell for evening service had scarce died away
when I heard a footstep on the pebbly path, and old Pâkía, staff in hand
and pipe dangling from his pendulous ear-lobe, walked quietly up the
steps and sat down cross-legged on the verandah. All my own people had
gone to church and the house was very quiet.

"Good evening, Pâkía," I said in English, "how are you, old man?"

A smile lit up the brown, old, wrinkled face as he heard my voice--for I
was lying down in the sitting-room, smoking my after-supper pipe--as he
answered in the island dialect that he was well, but that his house was