The Lexington intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1901-1949, 1902-06-28
TELLS OF LIFE IN HAWAII.
rhe Able and ~Interestine Letter Of
n Chinese BOY 10 a Book
Concern in Chicago.

G41p naiueu L. An Jaw, VINO can
write a better hand than many of the
2Ooo,oo0 people who live right here in
Chicago. Little All Yaw's home is in
the village of Hauapepe, on the
Island of Kauai, which is one Of the
Hawaiian group, and a Chicago book
concern got a letter from him recent
ly which the members of the firm
thought so wonderful that they sent
it to the Daily News so that the rest
of the people in Chicago could share
their surprise at the handiwork of
a Chinese boy in the Hawaiian
islands.
The letter yer most of both
sides of a couple of sheets of fools
cap aud is written with an excel
Ience of penmanship that people in
this country seldom attain except
after years of practice and which
most writer's fail utterly to attain
ever. The boy is after three books,
An payment of which he ~incloses As
cents in postage stamps. But before
telling the book firm what he wants
he politely goes to the trouble of
telling them enough about life in the
little village of Kauai where he lives
to enable the bookmakers to print a
new book about country life in
Hawaii. Says the boy:
Il am a Chinese boy, and live in a
valley which is inhabited by Portu-
rr1aca Hovrofsa,a A.,o~s g..
mans, Japanese, Porto Ricans and
Chinese. The inhabitants of our val
ley is about 800 to 400 pepole. The
chief occupations Of the Chinese and
Japanese are raising rice and yege-
tables. The rice is a kind Of stalk,
almost like corr stalk. This is the
way how they cultivate the land.
First of all they pillow the field and
let water in for two OF three days,
then one or two men SOW the rice,
and about a week or two it is four or
five inches tall. Then two or three
men come with their cicles pun up
the rice, cut off the tops and put it in
a kind of basket. Then others would
come, bear the filled baskets to some
other field and plant it. After about
a month or two it is about five to
eight inches tall, then they shut off
the water and goes to work pulling
out the weeds and grasses and such
things. After that water is let in
again until the rice has grown to be
nine to twelve inches high. By this
time the rice stalk bears the tiny
rice, which is always green.
After two or three weeks more it
Is yellow, which the rice is now ripe
and ready for harvesting. We have
a kind of fowl which is called rice
fowl or rice bird. They would eat
the rice and spoil it and this gives
the farmers whole lots of trouble
and they scare them off by shooting
them When the rice is ready for
harvesting the rice planters bring
their cicles reap it. One man can
reap about three-quarters of an acre
of rice in a day. They begin to work
at five in the morning and work un-
til six o'clock in the evening.
When the rice are all reaped they
collect it together and tie it into
bundles. Then each man will bring
n stick about 10 to Is feet long,
sharp-pointed on each end. On each
end of the stick they have two
bundles and away they bear it to the
threshing place on their shoulders.
After the rice has been threshed il
Is then put into sacks and a wagon
comes along loaded with sacks OF
rice and carried to the mill. There
ut is manufactured and is now very
white and after that there are put
An sacks and sent almost all over the
world mostly to the United States
1 will tell you next something about
our school. 1t is 46 feet in length
% feet in width and contains three
rooms. The principal of our school
is Mr.. II, II, Brodie and | am in his
room. He is a pretty good fellow
but sometimes he gets a little mad
and spanks the children. We have
another old school behind this onC
NNAASh was OhSC buo uISb IOOIu, Dub II
is now the fourth room. In oul
school we have about 1853 to 1888 pu
pills and different nationalities; they
are Hawaiians, Americans, Japanese
Portuguese, Porto Ricans, Germans
and Chinese. We have only an acr,
of ground and it is a very small pla,
ground for such a number Of chill
dreh, indeed On the east of oul
school is a Chinese store, on the ives
the government road, on the north
river and on the south a minister
house. Our school is about is rod
from the river and we often 60 il
swimming and that's great fun. Il
our school the boys play bal
marbles, wrestling, jumping rope an,
etc In our valley we have six Chi
Vese stores, two Chinese restaurants
Two Chinese shoe stores, two Chimes
hiior shop, one Chinese MATCHMAKER
I've Japanese stores, two Japanes
t%staurants, two Japanese barber.
NO Japanese watchmakers and on
saloon owned by a Chinese stor,
About a mile from our school W
have a large beach. On this beac
lived 30 or 40 fishermen who owne
nIentV boats and earned their IL,