ere thousands of pretty
shells lay strewn upon the sand and branches of white coral could be had
for the picking up, or to the orange-groves and indigo-thickets on the
mountain-sides, where large sweet oranges ripened, coming back wreathed
with ferns and the fragrant vine maile.

But we had plenty of oranges without going after them. For half a dollar
we could buy a hundred large fine oranges from the natives, who brought
them to the door, and we usually kept a tin washing-tub full of the
delicious fruit on hand. A _real_ (twelve and a half cents) would buy a
bunch of bananas so heavy that it took two of us to lift it to the hook
in the veranda-ceiling, and limes and small Chinese oranges grew
plentifully in the front yard. Of cocoanuts and tamarinds we made no
account, they were so common. Guavas grew wild on bushes in the
neighborhood, and made delicious pies. For vegetables we had taro, sweet
potatoes and something that tasted just like summer squash, but which
grew in thick, pulpy clusters on a tree. The taro was brought to us
just as it was pulled, roots and nodding green tops, and of the donkey
who was laden with it little showed but his legs and his ears as his
master led him up to the gate. Another old man furnished boiled and
pounded taro, which the girls mixed with water and made into poi. He
brought it in large bundles wrapped in broad green banana-leaves and
tied with fibres of the stalk. He had two daughters in the school, and
always inquired about their progress in their studies. One day,
happening to look out of the front door, I saw him coming up the
garden-walk. He had nothing on but a shirt and a _malo_ (a strip of
cloth) about his loins: the malo was all that the natives formerly wore.
Neither the girls who were weeding their garden, nor the other teachers
who were at work in the parlor, seemed to think that there was anything
remarkable in his appearance. He talked with Miss G---- as usual about
the supply of taro for the school, and inquired how his girls were
doing. When he was going away she said, "Uncle, why do you not wear your
clothes when you come to see us? I thought you had laid aside the
heathen fashion." He replied that he had but one suit of clothes, and
that he must save them to wear to church, adding that he was anxious to
give his daughters an education, and must economize in some way in order
to pay for their schooling.

The fuel needed for cooking was brought down from the mountains