Francisco used to go with his father and uncles to the rice fields, where he would watch the carabao while the men worked. A great deal of hard labor is necessary to raise a crop of rice. First, the seed must be sown in a plot of ground called a seed bed, where it is left alone for five or six weeks until the plants have grown several inches high. During this time the men are busy plowing the field and getting the ground ready for the second planting. This is a very hard and disagreeable task, because the work has to be done in mud and water, the men sometimes wading up to their knees in the slimy black mud while guiding the plow.

When the ground has been thoroughly stirred and is well under water, the young plants are taken out of the seed bed, cut back a few inches, and replanted in the field. This is also very tiresome work, for each rice plant must be thrust into the soft mud by hand. Men, women, and children come out for this part of the planting, roll up their clothes beyond the reach of mud or water, and, with backs bent low, move slowly across the fields, setting out the young rice plants.

Rice grows well only when it is kept flooded, and this is done by means of ditches that lead from near-by streams. Great pieces of sod are thrown up in long rows, forming a sort of dike that holds the water and separates the fields into divisions called paddies. These long strips of sod are used as a pathway by persons who need to cross the fields and wish to remain dry.

Before many days, the young plants are growing, tall and green, and the field makes a beautiful appearance as the wind sweeps across it. In about five or six months the green has turned to a rich yellow; the rice is then ripe and ready for the harvest. Again the men, women, and children go out to the fields armed with sickles to gather in the precious crop. Again they move slowly across the level ground,—dry now,—with backs bent low, gathering in the grain that is to furnish them food for months to come. The rice bundles are piled on carts, the carabao strain at their yokes, and the loads go off to the house to be carefully stored away, for use when needed.

When Francisco’s mother wanted rice for cooking, she went down the bamboo steps, unfastened the door that led to the store-room under the house, and, taking several bundles into the yard, she laid them on a petate spread on the ground. Then, stepping out of her chinelas (chi-ne_'-lÄs?), or slippers, she trod upon the heads of grain until she had separated the rice from the stalk. The next thing needed was to get rid of the chaff. To do this, she put several handfuls of the grains into a flat tray, and, by carefully throwing the seeds into the air and catching them again in the tray, the chaff was blown away, leaving the clean, fresh rice grains all ready for cooking. Another way to do this is by pounding the rice in a wooden mortar until the seed is well separated from the hulls. Sometimes rice flour is made in these mortars, and bread is baked; but the most common way of cooking is by boiling.

Filipinos eat rice three times a day, and no meal is really complete without it. They like it boiled very dry, and a large plate of it is always placed beside one’s regular plate to be eaten with the meal, much as we eat bread. It is interesting to know that so much rice is eaten in the Philippine Islands that large quantities must be shipped in from China in addition to what is raised by the Filipinos themselves.

The most commonly raised rice is almost pure white, but there is one variety grown in certain parts of the Philippines whose grains are red and whose flavor is different from the white variety.

Not all the rice grown in the Philippine Islands needs the extensive irrigation that was described earlier in the chapter; there is a kind of rice that grows with only a moderate amount of moisture. It is produced on the steep mountain slopes where irrigation would be impossible or extremely difficult.