The little fellow made a low bow and answered that his father had spoken about it that very morning and had promised that he should help him. Perhaps you remember that when Alila was christened there was a good supply of tuba at the feast. Did you wonder what it could be?
On the sugar farm there is a clump of cocoanut-trees on which no fruit ever grows. Why is this? Because all the sap which would be used by Mother Nature in making blossoms and changing these into cocoanuts is used for another purpose. It is drawn from the tree at a certain time of the year to make a drink much loved by the natives.
Tapping the trees for tuba is dangerous work, but Alila, you know, loves danger. He went home from the planter's mansion very happy, for now he should have an errand there every day during the next few weeks. For must he not bring the family a fresh bamboo of tuba each night and morning?
CHAPTER VIII.
TAPPING FOR TUBA.
Alila was wide awake before sunrise of the next day. He did not lie on his mat lazily watching to see if a lizard or newt should creep out of a corner, as he often did on other mornings. It was only the day before that he pulled a newt by its tail just to see if the tail would really come off in his hand. It did, for a fact! and away Mr. Newt scuttled without any tail.
Wasn't it a little cruel and ungrateful in Alila, when he knew how much the newts as well as the lizards do to let him sleep comfortably? They destroy ants and spiders and other creeping things, so that Alila's mother never kills them nor drives them away.
Neither did Alila stop to play with his pet cat this morning—such an odd cat, too, with a queer little twist in her tail like that of a pug dog. Alila was dressed before his father waked.
While waiting, he went out into the yard to sharpen his knife. But he had no whetstone. There are more ways than one of doing things, we have already discovered. The boy took a piece of wood and covered it with a paste made of ashes and oil. Then he rubbed the blade of his knife back and forth over this till the edge was sharp enough to split a hair with ease.