This evening I was in another cottage till very late talking to the
people. When the little boy - the only child of the house - got
sleepy, the old grandmother took him on her lap and began singing to
him. As soon as he was drowsy she worked his clothes off him by
degrees, scratching him softly with her nails as she did so all over
his body. Then she washed his feet with a little water out of a pot
and put him into his bed.
When I was going home the wind was driving the sand into my face so
that I could hardly find my way. I had to hold my hat over my mouth
and nose, and my hand over my eyes while I groped along, with my
feet feeling for rocks and holes in the sand.
I have been sitting all the morning with an old man who was making
sugawn ropes for his house, and telling me stories while he worked.
He was a pilot when he was young, and we had great talk at first
about Germans, and Italians, and Russians, and the ways of seaport
towns. Then he came round to talk of the middle island, and he told
me this story which shows the curious jealousy that is between the
islands:
