About Pearls
“MY,” said the boy named Billy. “I nearly broke my tooth on the bone of this oyster. Isn’t it funny? It’s as round as a shot and just as hard.”
Everybody laughed, but Somebody said, “That isn’t a bone, Billy; old Mr. Oyster has no bones. That’s a pearl. Too bad you didn’t find it before it was cooked, because then you might have had it set in a pin to wear in your scarf. Now that it has been cooked, it is worthless.”
“I’m in luck, anyhow,” said Billy, “because I didn’t break my tooth. But how did a pearl ever get inside an oyster?”
“It makes its home there,” said Somebody. “Lives snugly year after year inside Mr. Oyster’s shell and pays no rent at all.”
“Tell me about it,” demanded the boy named Billy. “I always supposed that pearls grew at the bottom of the sea.”
“So they do,” said Somebody, “about fifteen fathoms deep is where the pearl bearing oyster lives. He is rather particular about his home and selects a place where there is a swift current of water. There he and his family lie on the hard bed of the ocean and wait for the current to bring their food. Sometimes they prefer to attach themselves to an overhanging ledge, where they live closely huddled together. The ancient peoples had all sorts of beliefs and ideas about the origin of the pearl. One of the most poetical was that it was made from a drop of dew which the oyster came up to the top of the ocean to get. Another was that pearls were the tears of angels who wept over the sorrows of the world.”
“But what are they really?” asked the boy named Billy, his eyes big with interest.
“Science has discovered,” said Somebody, “that Mr. Oyster accidentally gets a grain of sand, or a small insect inside his shell, which becomes uncomfortable; but as the oyster has no way of opening his door and putting an unwelcome guest outside, it remains. Very likely the unwelcome guest hurts. So Mr. Oyster says, ‘All right, then stay if you want to. But you can’t go on hurting me if I know myself.’ And so he builds a wall of the stuff that the inside of his shell is made of between himself and the cause of the trouble. After about four years the oyster is likely to be caught by pearl fishers, the pearl found, and the shell used for inlaid work on boxes, knife handles and other things.
“The finest pearls are gathered in the East, the most valuable, worth tens of thousands of dollars, coming from the oysters of the Persian Gulf. The largest pearl fishery in America is that of lower California, from which come the largest and the finest black pearls on the market.
“Carl von Linné, the great Swedish naturalist and botanist, discovered that pearls could be grown by opening the shell of the oyster and slipping a small bead of lead or wax inside the shell and then putting the oyster back in his bed for three or four years. Acting upon that idea, the Chinese and Japanese people have established great pearl raising industries and turn out a large amount of pearls every year. They are very pretty, and of good color, but being flat on one side they cannot be made into necklaces. In several of our states the fresh water clams are pearl bearers; the Mississippi River industry being the one of most value. The shells are used for pearl buttons and the flesh of the mussels are fed to the pigs.”
“Makes you think of that verse in the Bible about casting your pearls before swine, doesn’t it?” laughed Billy.
About Mr. & Mrs. Pelican
“SAID Pelican quite pleasantly,
‘Come little fish and play with me’;
Said little fishie in a fright,
‘I’ve heard about your appetite,’”
read the boy named Billy from little Sister’s Bird Children book. “Wise little fishie wasn’t he youngster?” said he. “Why is a Pelican anyway—he isn’t good to be eaten and his feathers aren’t worth anything, and he doesn’t do anything except to eat fish in great quantities, at least that is all I’ve ever heard about.”
“Long ago,” said Somebody, “when the first expeditions went across the Colorado desert which had been, until the Colorado River cut it off, a part of the Gulf of California, some one remarked that if the desert could be watered it could be made to raise food enough for a nation. There was the Colorado River going to waste, of course, but how to harness it up and make it provide water for the desert which it had made was a question which no one could answer.
“But along in 1904 it was decided to make the attempt to turn a part of the river back into its old bed and make it work. The river wasn’t quite ready to go back and when she did she meant to go in her own sweet way—but if they wanted her to back into that old bed, why back she would go—and, taking things in her own mighty hands, back she did go with a rush. There was that old Salton Sea Sink—she would first fill that up, and from there it would be easy to give the people all the water they wanted on the desert.
“This was serious! There was a railroad in her track—but what did that matter—people wanted water and water she would give them. It was a Nation’s work to stop that runaway river, but at last it was done, and lo and behold—there was that lovely little sea shining like a jewel in the middle of the desert. They eventually made the Colorado give them water enough besides to water the desert which is now called the Imperial Valley where rice and fruit and cotton and many other things are raised.”
“That is interesting,” said the boy named Billy. “But where does Mr. Pelican fit in?”
“Right here,” said Somebody. “For along about this time very probably along came Mr. and Mrs. Brown Pelican looking for a home. And here was a lovely sea with lots of dear little islands in it just big enough for two. But after they had started their nest they discovered that their private sea had no fish in it. Very probably Brown Pelican said they would move back to the coast, but that Mrs. Pelican wouldn’t listen to him but said, ‘Here we have a whole ocean all to ourselves; let’s raise our own fish—we’ll go right now and bring back our pockets full of mullets and plant them.’ So they did with the result that the Salton Sea is now one of the most important fisheries in the state of California.”
“That’s some story,” said the boy named Billy. “But is it a Really So one?”
“According to scientists it is,” said Somebody. “The Pelican has long been known to be the best friend of the game warden, which is why he is protected. He is supposed to carry fish to inland streams and ponds which otherwise would not have them.”
“Well, he should advertise,” said the boy named Billy, “nobody knows how useful he is.”
“Perhaps he is too modest,” said Somebody.
They believed in Monsters, and Witches
DOG DANCER