The life of Robert Louis Stevenson for boys and girls . volume of Underwoods (Steven- 161 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON sons poems) with an inscription to Grant,the one who hailed from Edinburgh, and theman carried it carefully wrapped in hishandkerchief. They went away waving theirhats and keeping step. A croquet-ground and tennis-court werelaid out, and Vailima was the scene of balls,dinners, and parties of all kinds. No birth-day or holiday, English, American, or Sa-moan, was allowed to pass unnoticed, andthe natives were included in these festivitieswhenever possible. The first Christmas at Vaili
The life of Robert Louis Stevenson for boys and girls . volume of Underwoods (Steven- 161 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON sons poems) with an inscription to Grant,the one who hailed from Edinburgh, and theman carried it carefully wrapped in hishandkerchief. They went away waving theirhats and keeping step. A croquet-ground and tennis-court werelaid out, and Vailima was the scene of balls,dinners, and parties of all kinds. No birth-day or holiday, English, American, or Sa-moan, was allowed to pass unnoticed, andthe natives were included in these festivitieswhenever possible. The first Christmas at Vailima they hada party for the children who had never beforeseen a Christmas tree. Tusitalas birthday was always a specialevent to his island friends. The feast wasserved in native style; all seated about on thefloor. Rather large gatherings they musthave been, to judge from Mrs. Strongs ac-count. We had sixteen pigs roasted wholeunderground, three enormous fish (smallwhales, Lloyd called them), four hundredpounds of beef, ditto of pork, 200 heads of 162. .— -> t/irs VAILIMA taro, great bunches of bananas, nativedelicacies done up in bundles of //leaves, 800pineapples, many weighing fifteen pounds,all from Lloyds patch. Among the presentsfor Tusitala, besides flowers and wreaths,were fans, native baskets . . and cocoa-nut cups beautifully polished. On these occasions the hosts were oftenentertained with dances and songs. All theSamoans are great singers. They composedsongs about everything and everybody, sothat one could judge the standing a personheld by the songs that were sung about him. Those sung at Vailima parties were usuallywritten by one of the house boys andthey were danced and acted with greatspirit. . Sometimes every member of thefamily would be represented . . but thecentral figure, the heart of the song was al-ways Tusitala. It is a marvel with the many demandsmade upon him, his varied interests, and fre-quent visits to neighboring islands, Steven-son still found
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