The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-12-09
(By UPoo ARAANA)


 This Is weather when your thoughts might turn to sunlit sands and the tropics. They would, doubtless, If you could recall from retrospect some peaceful island where the trade winds ever caress- ed the silver fronds of palms hanging low over translucent wa ters of a South Sea lagoon.
 But the spirit of Christmas, as our tradition maintains 1t, seems not 50 important on all island where never a sleighbell has tinkleo. Yet one Christmas on the island of Moorea, some seventeen degrees south of the equator and nearby to that haven of tourists romance, Tahiti, took on touch of the north, in one sense of the simile.
 Maharepa
 My little house by the lagoon of Maharepa was a busy place that morning of the years greatest day ten years ago. The Tahitian boys, that week engaged in cutting down the cocoanuts and splitting them to, dry up the copra which Is their meat on the grounds near the island road, were set for a holiday. And 50 were my brother and 1, ready to declare open house fol- lowing the irlid-day mapping which is habitual to islanders in the tropics everywhere.
 But, first, there was the cere- 1llony of Christmas and due was to be given to the family spirit which had traversed more than 1000 miles of land and sea to cul- nlinate with the opening of our box from home. The large box was lined with fir boughs from some field or forest in Maine and the aroma, yet pungently remind full of the lakes and mountains of boyhood outings, created a strange nostalgia In the peaceful setting of the semi European house, with It's walls of wood and matched roof.
 There were recently published books which we had not seen, nor yet read even reviews about them. There were gifts which, candidly, were just a trifle absurd for per- sons who rarely wore neck-ties and practically never dressed for dinner, wearing the common whites which served very well at most times when the French or other Europeans sought formality of occasion. Nevertheless, such typical gifts wrought the senti- Inent of hoine-s.ckness which was their intent, in part, for whose family in far New England likes to explain exhaustively why two members had forsaken ancestral habitat for the South Seas.
 Plum Pudding!
 And, wonder of wonders, there was a plum puddingl The canned export variety, of course, but "in" customs free, which fact alone made 1t quite valuable.
 "Ah, here's something" My brother forsook his more common use of French and Tahitian to re- vert to a nasal Dartmouth accent. twill we do e job on this, we'll soaked in brandyl"
 Thought of the natives to arrive interrupted our spiritual reversion to New England and memories of home. There was a hogshead of wine under the house where often the copra had to be hurried to keep 1t from wetting by the sud- den rains. This was to be opened and siphoned into waiting bottles anent arrival of the natives who were not expected to drink up our more expensive white wines.
 Rum was very cheap. the ten- year-old variety selling at about a dollar a quart. Formerly, before the French rulers of the region decided that the natives were drinking too much of the in- digenous beverage, it had sold for Q quarter of that price. Fisher men from surrounding islands had marketed their fish at Papeete and had returned singing but nto sober, their fish sold but their purses empty. The government quadrupled the price of rhum by edict. But, as other prohibitions had failed, 50 this seemed to be