his clumsy trinkets carefully in a piece of tappa, would resume
his more pacific operations as quietly as if he had never
interrupted them.

But despite his eccentricities, Marheyo was a most paternal and
warm-hearted old fellow, and in this particular not a little
resembled his son Kory-Kory. The mother of the latter was the
mistress of the family, and a notable housewife, and a most
industrious old lady she was. If she did not understand the art
of making jellies, jams, custard, tea-cakes, and such like trashy
affairs, she was profoundly skilled in the mysteries of preparing
'amar', 'poee-poee', and 'kokoo', with other substantial matters.

She was a genuine busy-body; bustling about the house like a
country landlady at an unexpected arrival; for ever giving the
young girls tasks to perform, which the little hussies as often
neglected; poking into every corner, and rummaging over bundles
of old tappa, or making a prodigious clatter among the
calabashes. Sometimes she might have been seen squatting upon
her haunches in front of a huge wooden basin, and kneading
poee-poee with terrific vehemence, dashing the stone pestle about
as if she would shiver the vessel into fragments; on other
occasions, galloping about the valley in search of a particular
kind of leaf, used in some of her recondite operations, and
returning home, toiling and sweating, with a bundle of it, under
which most women would have sunk.

To tell the truth, Kory-Kory's mother was the only industrious
person in all the valley of Typee; and she could not have
employed herself more actively had she been left an exceedingly