much I care.

When I was filling baskets all Saturday, in my dull mulish way, perhaps
the slowest worker there, surely the most particular, and the only one
that never looked up or knocked off, I could not but think I should have
been sent on exhibition as an example to young literary men. Here is how
to learn to write, might be the motto. You should have seen us; the
verandah was like an Irish bog; our hands and faces were bedaubed with
soil; and Faauma was supposed to have struck the right note when she
remarked (_a propos_ of nothing), "Too much _eleele_ (soil) for me!" The
cacao (you must understand) has to be planted at first in baskets of
plaited cocoa-leaf. From four to ten natives were plaiting these in the
wood-shed. Four boys were digging up soil and bringing it by the boxful
to the verandah. Lloyd and I and Belle, and sometimes S. (who came to
bear a hand), were filling the baskets, removing stones and lumps of
clay; Austin and Faauma carried them when full to Fanny, who planted a
seed in each, and then set them, packed close, in the corners of the
verandah. From twelve on Friday till five P.M. on Saturday we planted
the first 1500, and more than 700 of a second lot. You cannot dream how
filthy we were, and we were all properly tired. They are all at it again
to-day, bar Belle and me, not required, and glad to be out of it. The
Chief Justice has not yet replied, and I have news that he received my
letter. What a man!

I have gone crazy over Bourget's _Sensations d'Italie_; hence the
enclosed dedication,[28] a mere cry of gratitude for the best fun I've
had over a new book this ever so!

TO FRED ORR

The following is in answer to an application for an autograph from a
young gentleman in the United States:--

_Vailima, Upolu, Samoa, November 28th, 1891._

DEAR SIR,--Your obliging communication is to hand. I am glad to find
that you have read some of my books, and to see that you spell my name
right. This is a point (for some reason) of great difficulty; and I
believe that a gentleman who can spell Stevenson with a v at sixteen,
should have a show for the Presidency before fifty. By that time

I, nearer to the wayside inn,

predict that you will have outgrown your taste for autographs, but
perhaps your son may have inherited the collection, and on the morning
of the great day will recall my prophecy to your mind. And in the papers
of 1921 (say) this letter may arouse a smile.

W