and they gave milk. Manuelo called his father's water buffalo by a pet name. The little boy climbed up on the animal's back, then slid down, held fast by her tail and had a ride in the water.
When Manuelo went home with his mother, he brought her a bamboo pail full of water from the well in the Plaza. He cleaned some rice for dinner. He put some grain in a wooden trough and beat it with a pestle, to loosen the brown hulls. Then he tossed it in the air to let the chaff blow away. He caught the grains in a basket. Sometimes, in the spring, he helped plant rice. He waded in the mud and water to set the plants in rows. You know rice needs a lot of water to grow in. He made fish nets of split bamboo and hemp.
Manuelo learned to make all sorts of things of bamboo. Perhaps you have a bamboo fishing pole, and you know how light and strong it is. It is hollow inside, and has solid joints. Bamboo is really a kind of grass that grows very thick and tall. Some of the canes are as small as a pencil; some as thick as a man's leg. In The Philippine Islands bamboo grows wild, and the Filipinos use it for many things. Bamboo is used in building houses, carts, bridges, ladders, boats and for water pipes. Split into thin strips it is woven into awnings, baskets and hats. The tender young shoots are good to eat, as we eat celery. If a Filipino is very clever, and is willing to work a little, he can have a very good house and cart, boat and baskets for nothing. And it is no great misfortune if an earthquake shakes his house down. He can easily build another.
Best of all, Manuelo liked a day in the forest, on the mountain slope, hunting bread-fruit, figs, nuts and eggs. The woods were thick and damp and hot and still. Ferns grew as tall as little trees. The palms seemed to touch the sky. The trees grew close together. There were big, twisted and thorny bushes. In the woods were ever so many curious things. There were the mounds that birds built to hide their eggs. There were tailor-bird nests that were bags of thick leaves, sewed with spider webs. The tailor-bird used his sharp bill for a needle. Bats hung by their wing-hooks, and fanned themselves. Monkeys chattered and quarrelled and ran races through the trees. There were orchids (or'kids), great wax butterflies of blossoms, that grew on tree trunks, and fed on the air. Other things were not so pleasant. There were stinging ants and insects. There were snakes that could squeeze little boys to death, and poison snakes. But it was not often that a little Filipino boy got hurt. A number
