The Normal Record. November 1904

              10
THE NORMAL RECORD.
reverie, and turning, she saw John standing
with arms outstretched toward her.
"John!"  she answered breathlessly.
Then the instinct of the nurse came back
to the girl and she said softly, "Oh, John, why
have you walked all this way? It is so wrong
of you, and you look so very tired!"
"I knew I would find you here," he replied.
"My love gave me strength to come. How could
I go home without one little word from you?
The dear old Elder couldn't make me!" he
added boyishly. Then catching both her hands,
he looked down into her eyes, and said, "Mary,
will you make this day my own Thanksgiving,
the great and glorious Thanksgiving of my
life, and give me that which I most long for
and desire,—your love?"
She looked up into his true, earnest face
and simply said, "Yes, John." Then as he
took her in his arms, she whispered lovingly,
"Oh, I am so happy and so grateful. Why should
I mind what comes now? Even though our
next winter be as hard as the last, I'm not
afraid if I have you."
Then the Puritan soul shone out of the man's
eyes, and raising one hand toward Heaven, he
said, low and reverently, "I thank thee, my God,
for this, our Thanksgiving Day!"
The Torres Straights Islanders' Thanksgiving Day.
Henrietta
Away on the other side of this globe near
the equator and between the continent of Australia and the island of New Guinea, lie the
beautiful, densely wooded coral islamds of
Torres Straits, and here among this group lies
Thursday Island, the great pearl-shell center
of the  world.
The natives that inhabit these islands are a
great, strong race. Almost every tribe is of a
different color, some are as black as ebony,
and others axe of a bronze hue, more like the
Samoans, or Indians of North America. The
natives paint themselves with different colors,
which they dig from the ground, and which
show very gaudily on account of their scant
clothing. They are only partly civilized, for
it has only been twenty years hence, since the
first white man trod the tropical shores of the
Torres Straits Islands. Though rude and low
in the scale of humanity, these islanders have
a few primitive relations existing between
tribe and tribe. The exchange of the special
products of one island tribe for the products
of the other islands is the occasion for large
tribal meetings. These meetings generally
occur near the end of their summer, in January, on Wala-wala day, or the Thanksgiving
day of the blacks.
One day in January, a party of us were
down near the water-front on Thursday Island
and we noticed that the aborigines seemed to
be more excited than usual. Upon inquiring the
cause of the excitement from one of the
natives,  we  were  told  that  a Wala-wala  day
Cummings.
was going to be held the next day on a little
island not far from Thursday Island. We
talked the sitiation over for a few moments
and as we had a yacht, we decided to go on
the morrow.
The next morning broke bright and clear,
and we were aboard the yacht and had started
for the place of meeting before the sun had
begun to come up from his bed in the ocean.
The yacht skimmed over the deep blue, rippling water, leaving a wake of white cloud-like
foam. In the course of a few hours' time, we
arrived at the island. Several white people
from Thursday Island were already there when
we arrived and we joined their line of boats,
and as soon as the craft was safely anchored,
we went ashore.
The beach was lined with great canoes, principally war-canoes. Each of the war-canoes was
dug out of a single tree, and each one capable
of carrying a hundred men. The canoes were
all fantastically decorated, the bows were supported by carved wooden images, decorated
skulls, which had been taken in battle, and the
upper sides of the boats were generally covered with shark's skins.
As we passed beyond the line of boats, we
came upon a great chattering crowd of native women, who were busy preparing food for
the feast. All the food was cooked on heated
rocks and then covered over with turtle backs
and sacks, and over this was piled the clean,
white sand from the beach.
Several great turtles lay on the beach, and