You must not think that Filipinos spend all their time in planting rice, harvesting abaca, or climbing coconut trees. On the contrary, they are fond of amusements, and they find many ways of gratifying this very natural desire. There were several boys of about the same age as Francisco, who lived close by, and they played together most of their spare time. The American soldiers and teachers had shown the older boys how to play baseball, and the game had become very popular. Pablo and José both played well, the older boy having developed into an excellent pitcher before he went to Manila to enter college. Francisco and his companions were not large enough to play a real game of baseball, but they found much fun in their efforts to imitate the older boys. Of course their native tongue, which in southern Luzon is called "Bicol" (Bee'-col), had no words for this foreign game, and so the English terms had to be taken bodily into their own language and used as native words. If you had watched these small boys playing, you would have heard Francisco shout as he struck at the ball and missed it,--"Sarong (sä'-rong) strike!"--"Duang (du'-äng) strike!--Foul!!" "Tolong (to'-long) strike!" "Aco (ä'-co) out!" sarong meaning one, duang, two, tolong, three, and aco, I.
Filipinos have a game of ball, quite different from baseball, that is much enjoyed by young and old. The ball is of woven rattan, about four inches in diameter and very light. As many as wish to play form a ring, the ball is thrown into the air, and as it comes down, some one sends it flying upward again. The game is to keep it from touching the ground, and the players show much skill in striking it with hands, arms, or feet, from various positions and without getting very far away from their places in the ring. Old men often watch the boys awhile and then get into the game themselves, showing surprising agility and seeming to enjoy fully the brief return to boyhood.
There is a game rather similar to marbles that the younger boys play a great deal. A ring is drawn on the ground and within this are placed small stones or centavos (cen-tä'-vos), Philippine copper coins worth half a cent; the players stand back a certain distance and toss other stones or coins, trying to knock out the ones inside the ring.