Evening bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1895-1912, 1896-09-01
ANNALS or mAKApALAB nv ruEsEA.
(XXVII.)
A BkBY's FOOT AND CHINESE FLORA.
BY ASSE MARIE PRESCOTT.

light yellow, small, and the ex-
tremest tip of the petal is purple;
it's exquisite perfume is pineapple
and a single blossom will suffice
for closed room. Its signifca-
ton is smiling" Several flowers
that we have seen are full as
beautiful as the orange blossom,
and one has the fragrance of the
violet.
She is a little, wiry, thin-faced
woman of thirty--no more if as
much; her hands are, truly, like
birds claws, small, ribbed. seam.
ed and hard with the many labors
of seven days in week; for she
is, poor woman, a heathen and
knows naught of that day of
rest" Her feet are STRANGERS to
shoes and stockings or even
shoes; her sam and fu are of the
;r,o,,..fsest, everyday; for there
are no fetes for her, into her
prose life they may not enter;
color, and flower and pretty
riband are not for her and yet
she is not too old, and woman !
On her head is an old sunburnt
straw hat, and around her waist
the everlastingly string-tied
apron. On her back is what ? A
laughing, chubby, fearless baby
girl of eight months. She takes
her off and sits down, this four
foot seven of womanhood Mongo-
liam on a school room bench and
opens for our admiration its pref
ty feet, as white and as sweet as
your baby's-yes. We ask her to
give the baby to us in one year
from that time; and she tell us, in
reply, that she has four boys and
but one girl and she cannot. The
light of mother love is, in her
eyes, as strong as in yours, and
she would prove very Bengal
tiger in defense of her cubs. We
would not like to harm one of her
children and then to meet her
alone
What is more perfect than a
baby's foot, its little toes and nails,
its pink heel and soft instep.
While we were knocking this
baby's feet together and talking
to it in Mother Goose English, it
did not shrink, whimper nor
whine, but fixed its clear eyes on
our face with such calm uncanny
gaze as to make us (only we are
now used to child's eyes) almost
vince. We felt somewhat as if a
search-light, or cathode rays, were
after our mental anatomy through,
simply, that little rascal's eyes
and a girl.
Into that large square pocket
made in the middle of the bib or
tire of every Chinese baby, made
double and of stout material, a
cover all, go all its toys and
treasures and, often its only food,
its little lunches and munches. 1t
is a perfect treasure house of
economy-that garment. The
Chinese are thrifty, the women
sew by hand and nearly all of
them can do exquisite work withthe
needle; and they can patch to per-
fectIon. The Chinese women are
neat, tidy and careful.
1t goes without saying on our
part that these Chinese love their
wives and do not find fault. We
wish we could say as much for the
Caucasian as for the Mongolian
in this respect. We went in to
see heather family; father, very
pretty mother and three babies
We asked the mother if the baby
in her lap was a girl {
Yes. Then you have two
girls and one boy. With a smile
on her own girlish face she re
piled: "Girls no good, eh ? Oh,
yes, girls are fine; it is the boys
who are not mach account now a
DAYS" Well, you should have
seen rhe look of affection that man
shot at his wife: "Allee same
Alice sameW We came away with
the private opinion that they, the
whole batch, were pretty good
stuff, as rich as Bagdad silks, tc
make Christians of! ..
Ever since, about, we discover
ed that we were resident in this
village, we have had, not a few
guests in tow; and among tn,
large number we had, inadvertent
ly, been looking to increase, wher