“From that day my mode of life was changed. Instead of digging in the fields and tending the vines, I wandered aimlessly about the island collecting specimens of stones. I chose them at random—those which had some bright color in them were the best—and every evening I added some fresh specimens to my collection, which were placed for safety in barrels in the store. ‘Don’t say a word to the neighbors,’ was my father’s injunction; and I really believe they all thought my reason was leaving me, or how else could they account for my daily wanderings? “In about a month’s time I had collected enough specimens for my purpose, and then, with considerable trepidation, one evening I disclosed my plan to my father. ‘Something must be done with those specimens,’ I began; and as I said this I saw with pleasure his old eyes sparkle as he tried to look unconcerned. “‘Well, Kola, what is to be done with them?’ “‘Simply this, father. I must take them to Athens or Laurion, and get money down for showing the _effendi_ where the mines are. We can’t work them ourselves.’ “‘To Athens! to Laurion!’ exclaimed my father, breathless at the bare notion of so stupendous a journey. “‘Of course I must,’ I added, laughing, though secretly terrified lest he should flatly refuse to let me go; and before I went to bed that night my father promised to give me ten drachmas for my expenses. ‘Only take a few of your specimens, Kola; keep the best back;’ for my father is a shrewd man, though he has never left Sikinos. But on this point I was determined, and would take all or none, so my father grumbled and called me a ‘peacock,’ but for this I did not care. “Next day I ordered a box for my specimens. ‘Why not take them in the old barrels?’ growled my father. But I said they might get broken, and the specimens inside be seen. So at last a wooden box, just four feet long and two feet high, was got ready—not without difficulty either, for wood in Sikinos is rarer than quails at Christmas, and my father grumbled not a little at the sum he had to pay for it—more than half the produce of his vintage, poor man! And when I thought how my mother might not be able to make any cheesecakes at Easter—the pride of her heart, poor thing!—I almost regretted the game I was playing.” The Easter cheesecakes of the island (τυρόπηττα) are what they profess to be; cheese, curd, saffron, and flour being the chief ingredients. They are reckoned an essential luxury at that time of the year, and some houses make as many as sixty. It is a sign of great poverty and deprivation when none are made.