pig and goat
were roasted, and the neighbors' boys came in to help. The bride, with
orange-blossoms in her hair, the daintiest kid slippers on her feet,
and dressed in a white mist of _pina_, rode away in the new pony cart,
the only one in town. The groom was dressed in baggy trousers, with
a pink shirt and an azure tie. Most of the presents came from _Chino_
Santiago's store; but the best one was a beautiful piano from Cebu.

After the service in the church, a feast was held upstairs in the
bride's house. Ramon, the justice of the peace, the padre, _Maestro_
Pepin, all the _concijales_, and the _presidente_ were invited, and
the groom owned up that he had spent his last cent on the refreshments
that were passed around. It is the custom in the poorer families for
the prospective groom to bond himself out for a certain length of
time to the bride's father, or even to purchase her with articles of
merchandise. A combination of commercial interests was the result,
however, of the marriage of Bonito and Felicidad.

Chapter IX.

The "Brownies" of the Philippines.

How would you like it, not to have a Fourth of July celebration,
or a Christmas stocking, or a turkey on Thanksgiving-day? The
little children of the Philippines would be afraid of one of our
firecrackers--they would think it was another kind of "boom-boom"
that killed men. A life-sized turkey in the Philippines would
be a curiosity, the chickens and the horses and the people are
so small. The little boys and girls do not wear stockings, even
around Christmas-time, and Santa Claus would look in vain for any
chimneys over there. The candy, if the ants did not get at it first,
would melt and run down to the toes and heels of Christmas stockings
long before the little claimants were awake. Of course, they do not
have plum-puddings, pumpkin-pies, and apples. All the season round,
bananas take the place of apples, cherries, strawberries, and peaches;
and boiled rice is the only kind of pumpkin-pie they have.

The fathers and mothers of the little Brownie boys and girls are very
ignorant. Most of them can not even write their names, and if you
asked them when the family birthdays came they would have to go and
ask the padre. Once, when I was living at the convent, a girl-mother,
who had walked in from a town ten miles away, came up to register
the birth of a new baby in the padre's book. She stood before the
priest embarrassed, digging her brown toes into