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"I am sorrier than I was before," says Bobby, reflectively, "that the heavy rains have drowned so many of the young birds." "O Nancy!" cries Tou Tou, ecstatically clasping her hands, "have a Christmas-tree!" "And a dance after it!" adds Bobby, beginning to whistle a waltz-tune.
There were gangs of sailors likewise, Genoese, judging from the patois which they were speaking, though I occasionally distinguished the sound of "tou logou sas," by which I knew there were Greeks at hand, and twice or thrice caught a glimpse of the red cap and blue silken petticoats of the mariner from the Romaic isles.
Tou Tou giggles, and asserts that she will "kick them away, if he does." Bobby mildly but firmly remonstrates, and points out to her the impropriety and ingratitude of such a line of conduct. But his arguments, though acute and well put, are not convincing, and the subject is continued, with ever-increasing warmth, all the way home. It is Christmas-day a clean white Christmas, pure and crisp.
Thank Heaven! they are getting dark now! If legitimate lovers, whose cooing is desirable and approved, are a sickly and sickening spectacle, surely the sight of illegitimate lovers would make the blood boil in the veins of Moses, Miriam, or Job. Bobby, Tou Tou, and I, having no one to hang over us, or gawk amorously up at us, are sitting in a row in our pew.
Incidents long forgotten came back with singular vividness: he saw the Past as he had not seen it while it was the Present; remembrances of home, recollections of infancy, recurred to him with terrible intensity, the artless pleasures and the trifling griefs, the little hurts and the tender pettings, the hopes and the anxieties of those who loved him, the smiles and tears of slaves ... And his first Creole pony, a present from his father the day after he had proved himself able to recite his prayers correctly in French, without one mispronunciation without saying crasse for grace, and yellow Michel, who taught him to swim and to fish and to paddle a pirogue; and the bayou, with its wonder-world of turtles and birds and creeping things; and his German tutor, who could not pronounce the j; and the songs of the cane-fields, strangely pleasing, full of quaverings and long plaintive notes, like the call of the cranes ... Tou', tou' pays blanc! ... Afterward Camaniere had leased the place; everything must have been changed; even the songs could not be the same.
The Hanover Sovereignties did their function soon enough: but their "expenses for it," these they have in vain demanded ever since. No money to be got from Mecklenburg; and Mecklenburg owes us "ten tons of gold," that is to say, 1,000,000 thalers, "tou" being the tenth part of a million in that coin.
The Taoists claimed it as an important ingredient of the elixir of immortality. The Buddhists used it extensively to prevent drowsiness during their long hours of meditation. By the fourth and fifth centuries Tea became a favourite beverage among the inhabitants of the Yangtse-Kiang valley. It was about this time that modern ideograph Cha was coined, evidently a corruption of the classic Tou.
It is alluded to in the classics under the various names of Tou, Tseh, Chung, Kha, and Ming, and was highly prized for possessing the virtues of relieving fatigue, delighting the soul, strengthening the will, and repairing the eyesight. It was not only administered as an internal dose, but often applied externally in form of paste to alleviate rheumatic pains.
Again I see the divine and jocund serenity of the summer evening the hot, red sunset making all the windows one great flame, and they all, Barbara, Algy, Bobby, Tou Tou, laughing welcome to me from the opened gate. To-night I feel as if they were all dead. I reach the house. I stand in the empty school-room! I, alone, of all the noisy six.
"He cannot complain if we send our two specimen ones," say I, again looking up, and indicating Barbara and Algy with my weapon, "our sample figs: if Sir Robert Sir Robin Sir Roger what is he? does not see the rest of us, he may perhaps imagine that we are all equally presentable, which would be more to your credit, mother, than if Bobby and Tou Tou and I were to be submitted to the poor old thing's notice."
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