"But it ain't a few people, Ann. It seems like most everybody had plenty to eat and wear but us. Why ain't we in it, too? Why don't I live in that fine house where I work instead down in this hole? It seems like we'd been cheated somewhere; but I s'pose there ain't no use talkin' about it. Good-night."
Ann watched the girl as she climbed the rickety steps of the "palace" which fate had assigned to her.
"They're all that way sometimes. I remember—well, she'll get used to it like all the rest of us."
—Agnes Palmer.
Filipino Fear.
One cloudy afternoon when a heavy rain seemed swaying back and forth in a thick mist which was then lowering, and long red streaks of lightning followed by loud rolling thunder seemed trying to break the mist to let the rain fall, there were in a little nipa house in the country below, among aged cocoanut palms, two lonely persons suffering from superstition and fear of the extraordinary phenomena that surrounded them.
The house was just big enough for the two. Its roof, windows and sides were made of cogon. The floor and door were made of narrow bamboo strips nailed side by side. In one corner of the room on a bed, made also of bamboo, sat a boy of eight. There was in the expression and look of the boy a feeling of unknown fear mingled with surprise, because his father, a lusty old superstitious man, who was then holding a blunt stick, had driven their domestic creatures from the house to the open field where there was no means of securing shelter from the heavy rain, whose first large drops were now clattering on the leaves. The boy had a kind disposition, especially toward his pets—a sense that he had inherited from his father. This was the first time that he had seen his father act thus unkindly toward their animals. His surprise was much increased when he saw his father dash at the windows and doors and fling everyone of them open, then retreat to the middle and look sideways. He saw him draw a long agitated breath. Then, seeming to have recovered his wits, he hastened toward one of the windows and took from the outside a portion of a dried cocoanut leaf. He cut two long narrow strips from it and made them into loops. After placing one around his neck, he uttered a short prayer. He then handed the other loop to his still amazed child and said, "Wear this, dear child, around thy neck."
"Why, father?" inquired the innocent boy, "can this protect me?"
"Yes, child, prayer and that alone can save us."