ng with wild nature in that
solitary place. Besides Runi, there were, in our little community, two
oldish men, his cousins I believe, who had wives and grown-up
children. Another family consisted of Piake, Runi's nephew, his brother
Kua-ko--about whom there will be much to say--and a sister Oalava. Piake
had a wife and two children; Kua-ko was unmarried and about nineteen or
twenty years old; Oalava was the youngest of the three. Last of all,
who should perhaps have been first, was Runi's mother, called Cla-cla,
probably in imitation of the cry of some bird, for in these latitudes a
person is rarely, perhaps never, called by his or her real name, which
is a secret jealously preserved, even from near relations. I believe
that Cla-cla herself was the only living being who knew the name her
parents had bestowed on her at birth. She was a very old woman, spare
in figure, brown as old sun-baked leather, her face written over with
innumerable wrinkles, and her long coarse hair perfectly white; yet she
was exceedingly active, and seemed to do more work than any other woman
in the community; more than that, when the day's toil was over and
nothing remained for the others to do, then Cla-cla's night work would
begin; and this was to talk all the others, or at all events all the
men, to sleep. She was like a self-regulating machine, and punctually
every evening, when the door was closed, and the night fire made up, and
every man in his hammock, she would set herself going, telling the most
interminable stories, until the last listener was fast asleep; later
in the night, if any man woke with a snort or grunt, off she would go
again, taking up the thread of the tale where she had dropped it.

Old Cla-cla amused me very much, by night and day, and I seldom tired of
watching her owlish countenance as she sat by the fire, never allowing
it to sink low for want of fuel; always studying the pot when it was on
to simmer, and at the same time attending to the movements of the others
about her, ready at a moment's notice to give assistance or to dart out
on a stray chicken or refractory child.

So much did she amuse me, although without intending it, that I
thought it would be only fair, in my turn, to do something for her
entertainment. I was engaged one day in shaping a wooden foil with my
knife, whistling and singing snatches of old melodies at my work,
when all at once I caught sight of the ancient dame looking greatly
delighted, chu