PERSONS

Fil, a Filipino boy.
Filippa, his sister.
Favra, her playmate.
Moro, Fil's playmate, a Mohammedan.
Fil's Father.
Fil's Mother.
The Padre-priest.
The Guest.
Driver of the Water Buffalo Cart.

FIL AND FILIPPA

CHAPTER I

NAMES

It took me over a month and a half to reach the summer islands that
I sought. In three weeks I had gone through the Panama Canal and
had reached San Francisco, and in four weeks more I had crossed the
world's widest, most peaceful, and bluest ocean, the Pacific.

There, like a string of pearls hanging from the golden Equator,
I found thousands of wonderful islands of all sizes, but only two
of them are very large. I found also my new and kind young friends:
Fil; his sister Filippa; Fil's boy playmate named Moro, who came
from the large southern island; their parents and friends; and the
good Padre. Each one of them was shorter and darker than I. Yet they
said to me: "The Stars and Stripes, now our flag also, makes us all
American brothers, which we will be always."

"But how is it that you are called Filipinos, and live in the
Philippine Islands?" I asked.

Fil smiled and said: "Though I believe you know without asking me,
I shall tell you to show that I know our romantic and interesting
history.

"Hundreds of years ago, many years before America became a nation,
the roving Spaniards discovered these islands, and named them the
Philip-pines, in honor of their king Philip. When the American Admiral
Dewey won these islands from Spain, our name was not changed.

"And our Christian names of Fil and Filippa have the same sound,
and almost the same meaning, as Philippines," added Filippa, her
eyes smiling from under her cloud of beautiful hair,--hair longer and
richer than an American girl's hair,--and eyes darker and deeper than
an American girl's eyes. Perhaps her brows were a little bit flatter,
and her nose was a little bit shorter and wider, than ours; but still
she was pretty, especially when she smiled, for she had beautiful
white teeth.

Then I turned to Fil's playmate, Moro, and asked him what his rolling
name could mean. Moro was even more eager and darker than Fil. He
replied, as he bravely touched his toy sword:

"I, too, am of the Malay race, but of a different religion from Fil. I
am a Mohammedan; that is, I reverence the same prophets whom the Turks
worship. I come from the southern islands of the Ph