"VOY-EZZ VOWS CETT HOMMY ETT SES DUCKS FEMMYS SEELAH?""VOY-EZZ VOWS CETT HOMMY ETT SES DUCKS FEMMYS SEELAH?"
At this, there was no holding in any longer. I burst out laughing, so that I came near falling off the railing; Rectus laughed because I did; the gentleman with the wife and the young lady laughed madly, and Mr. Chipperton, who came out of the saloon on hearing the uproar, laughed quite cheerfully, and asked what it was all about. But Corny didn't laugh. She turned around short to see what effect her speech had had on the yellow-legged party. It had a gooddeal of effect. They reddened and looked at us. Then they drew their chairs closer together, and turned their backs to us. What they thought, we never knew; but Corny declared to me afterward that they talked no more French,—at least when she was about.
The gentleman who had been the subject of Corny's French discourse called her over to him, and the four had a gay talk together. I heard Corny tell them that she never could pronounce French in the French way. She pronounced it just as it was spelt, and her father said that ought to be the rule with every language. She had never had a regular teacher; but if people laughed so much at the way she talked, perhaps her father ought to get her one.
I liked Corny better the more I knew of her. It was easy to see that she had taught herself all that she knew. Her mother held her back a good deal, no doubt; but her father seemed more like a boy-companion than anything else, and if Corny hadn't been a very smart girl, she would have been a pretty bad kind of a girl by this time. But she wasn't anything of the sort, although she did do and say everything that came into her head to say or do. Rectus did not agree with me about Corny. He didn't like her.
When it grew dark, I thought we should stop somewhere for the night, for it was hard enough for the boat to twist and squeeze herself along the river in broad daylight. She bumped against big trees that stood on the edge of the stream, and swashed through bushes that stuck out too far from the banks; but shewas built for bumping and scratching, and didn't mind it. Sometimes she would turn around a corner and make a short cut through a whole plantation of lily-pads and spatterdocks,—or things like them,—and she would scrape over a sunken log as easily as a wagon-wheel rolls over a stone. She drew only two feet of water, and was flat-bottomed. When she made a very short turn, the men had to push her stern around with poles. Indeed, there was a man with a pole at the bow a good deal of the time, and sometimes he had more pushing off to do than he could manage by himself.
When Mr. Chipperton saw what tight places we had to squeeze through, he admitted that it was quite proper not to try to bring the big steam-boats up here.
But the boat didn't stop. She kept right on. She had to go a hundred and forty miles up that narrow river, and if she made the whole trip from Pilatka and back in two days, she had no time to lose. So, when it was dark, a big iron box was set up on top of the pilot-house, and a fire was built in it of pine-knots and bits of fat pine. This blazed finely, and lighted up the river and the trees on each side, and sometimes threw out such a light that we could see quite a distance ahead. Everybody came out to see the wonderful sight. It was more like fairy-land than ever. When the fire died down a little, the distant scenery seemed to fade away and become indistinct and shadowy, and the great trees stood up like their own ghosts all around us; and then, when fresh knots were thrown in, the fire would blaze up, and the wholescene would be lighted up again, and every tree and bush, and almost every leaf, along the water's edge would be tipped with light, while everything was reflected in the smooth, glittering water.
Rectus and I could hardly go in to supper, and we got through the meal in short order. We staid out on deck until after eleven o'clock, and Corny staid with us a good part of the time. At last, her father came down after her, for they were all going to bed.
"This is a grand sight," said Mr. Chipperton. "I never saw anything to equal it in any transformation scene at a theatre. Some of our theatre people ought to come down here and study it up, so as to get up something of the kind for exhibition in the cities."
Just before we went into bed, our steam-whistle began to sound, and away off in the depths of the forest we could hear every now and then another whistle. The captain told us that there was a boat coming down the river, and that she would soon pass us. The river did not look wide enough for two boats; but when the other whistle sounded as if it were quite near, we ran our boat close into shore among the spatterdocks, in a little cove, and waited there, leaving the channel for the other boat.
Directly, it came around a curve just ahead of us, and truly it was a splendid sight. The lower part of the boat was all lighted up, and the fire was blazing away grandly in its iron box, high up in the air.
To see such a glowing, sparkling apparition as this come sailing out of the depths of the dark forest, wasgrand! Rectus said he felt like bursting into poetry; but he didn't. He wasn't much on rhymes. He had opportunity enough, though, to get up a pretty good-sized poem, for we were kept awake a long time after we went to bed by the boughs of the trees on shore scratching and tapping against the outside of our state-room.
When we went out on deck the next morning, the first person we saw was Corny, holding on to the flag-staff at the bow and looking over the edge of the deck into the water.
"What are you looking at?" said I, as we went up to her.
"See there!" she cried. "See that turtle! And those two fishes! Look! look!"
We didn't need to be told twice to look. The water was just as clear as crystal, and you could see the bottom everywhere, even in the deepest places, with the great rocks covered with some glittering green substance that looked like emerald slabs, and the fish and turtles swimming about as if they thought there was no one looking at them.
I couldn't understand how the water had become so clear; but I was told that we had left the river proper and were now in a stream that flowed from Silver Spring, which was the end of our voyage into the cypress woods. The water in the spring and in this stream was almost transparent,—very different from the regular water of the river.
About ten o'clock, we reached Silver Spring, which is like a little lake, with some houses on the bank.We made fast at a wharf, and, as we were to stop here some hours, everybody got ready to go ashore.
Corny was the first one ready. Her mother thought she ought not to go, but her father said there was no harm in it.
"If she does," said Mrs. Chipperton, "she'll get herself into some sort of a predicament before she comes back."
I found that in such a case as this Mrs. Chipperton was generally right.
FOOTNOTES:[B]"Voyez-vous cet homme et ces deux femmes celà?"—Do you see that man and those two women there?[C]"Bien donc, la petite femme n'est pas la femme du homme. La autre femme est sa femme."—Well, then, the little woman is not the wife of the man. The other woman is his wife. [Of course, the French in this, and the preceding, foot-note is Corny's.—The Author.]
[B]"Voyez-vous cet homme et ces deux femmes celà?"—Do you see that man and those two women there?
[B]"Voyez-vous cet homme et ces deux femmes celà?"—Do you see that man and those two women there?
[C]"Bien donc, la petite femme n'est pas la femme du homme. La autre femme est sa femme."—Well, then, the little woman is not the wife of the man. The other woman is his wife. [Of course, the French in this, and the preceding, foot-note is Corny's.—The Author.]
[C]"Bien donc, la petite femme n'est pas la femme du homme. La autre femme est sa femme."—Well, then, the little woman is not the wife of the man. The other woman is his wife. [Of course, the French in this, and the preceding, foot-note is Corny's.—The Author.]
Corny went ashore, but she did not stay there three minutes. From the edge of the wharf we could see that Silver Spring was better worth looking at than anything we should be likely to see on shore. The little lake seemed deeper than a three-story house, and yet, even from where we stood, we could see down to the very bottom.
There were two boys with row-boats at the wharf. We hired one of the boats right off, and Corny gave me such a look, that I told her to get in. After she was in the boat, she asked her mother, who was standing on the deck of the steam-boat, if she might go. Mrs. Chipperton said she supposed so, and away we went. When we had rowed out to the middle of the spring, I stopped rowing, and we looked down into the depths. It was almost the same as looking into air. Far down at the bottom we could see the glittering sand and the green rocks, and sometimes a fish, as long as my arm, would slowly rise andfall, and paddle away beneath us. We dropped nickels and copper cents down to the bottom, and we could plainly see them lying there. In some parts of the bottom there were "wells," or holes, about two feet in diameter, which seemed to go down indefinitely. These, we were told, were the places where the water came up from below into the spring. We could see the weeds and grasses that grew on the edges of these wells, although we could not see very far down into them.
"If I had only known," said Rectus, "what sort of a place we were coming to, I should have brought something to lower down into these wells. I tell you what would have been splendid!—a heavy bottle filled with sweet oil and some phosphorus, and a long cord. If we shook up the bottle it would shine, so that, when we lowered it into the wells, we could see it go down to the very bottom, that is, if the cord should be long enough."
At this instant, Corny went overboard! Rectus made a grab at her, but it was too late. He sprang to his feet, and I thought he was going over after her, but I seized him.
"Sit down!" said I. "Watch her! She'll come up again. Lean over and be ready for her!"
We both leaned over the bow as far as was safe. With one hand I gently paddled the boat, this way and that, so as to keep ourselves directly over Corny. It would have been of no use to jump in. We could see her as plainly as anything.
She was going down, all in a bunch, when I firstsaw her, and the next instant she touched the bottom. Her feet were under now, and I saw her make a little spring. She just pushed out her feet.
Then she began to come right up. We saw her slowly rising beneath us. Her face was turned upward, and her eyes were wide open. It was a wonderful sight. I trembled from head to foot. It seemed as if we were floating in the air, and Corny was coming up to us from the earth.
Before she quite reached the surface, I caught her, and had her head out of water in an instant. Rectus then took hold, and with a mighty jerk, we pulled her into the boat.
Corny sat down hard and opened her mouth.
"There!" she said; "I didn't breathe an inch!"
And then she puffed for about two minutes, while the water ran off her into the bottom of the boat. I seized the oars to row to shore.
"How did you fall over?" said Rectus, who still shook as if he had had a chill.
"Don't know," answered Corny. "I was leaning far over, when my hand must have slipped, and the first thing I knew I was into it. It's good I didn't shut my eyes. If you get into water, with your eyes shut, you can't open them again." She still puffed a little. "Coming up was the best. It's the first time I ever saw the bottom of a boat."
"Weren't you frightened?" I asked.
"Hadn't time at first. And when I was coming up, I saw you reaching out for me."
"WE SAW HER SLOWLY RISING BENEATH US.""WE SAW HER SLOWLY RISING BENEATH US."
"Did you think we'd get you?" said Rectus, his face flushing.
"Yes," said Corny, "but if you'd missed me that time, I'd never have trusted you again."
The gentleman-with-a-wife-and-a-young-lady was in another boat, not very far off, but it was nearer the upper end of the little lake, and none of the party knew of our accident until we were pulling Corny out of the water. Then they rowed toward us asfast as they could, but they did not reach us until we were at the wharf. No one on shore, or on the steam-boat, seemed to have noticed Corny's dive. Indeed, the whole thing was done so quietly, and was so soon over, that there was not as much of a show as the occasion demanded.
"I never before was in deep water that seemed so little like real water," said Corny, just before we reached the wharf. "This was cold, and that was the only thing natural about it."
"Then this is not the first time you've been in deep water?" I asked.
"No," said Corny, "not the very first time;" and she scrambled up on the wharf, where her mother was standing, talking to some ladies.
"Why, Cornelia!" exclaimed Mrs. Chipperton, as soon as she saw the dripping girl, "have you been in the water again?"
"Yes, ma'am," said Corny, drawing her shoulders up to her ears, "and I must be rubbed down and have dry clothes as quick as lightning."
And with this, she and her mother hurried on board the steam-boat.
Rectus and I went back on the lake, for we had not gone half over it when Corny went into it. We had rowed about for half an hour or so, and were just coming in, when Corny appeared on the deck of the steam-boat, with a handkerchief tied around her head.
"Are you going to take a walk on shore?" she called out.
"Yes!" we shouted.
"All right," said she; "if you'll let me, I'll go with you, for mother says I must take a good run in the sun. I look funny, don't I? but I haven't any more hats."
We gave her a good run, although it was not altogether in the sun. The country hereabout was pretty well wooded, but there were roads cut through the woods, and there were some open places, and everywhere, underfoot, the sand was about six inches deep. Rectus took Corny by one hand, and I took her by the other, and we made her trot through that sand, in sunshine and shade, until she declared she was warm enough to last for a week. The yellow-legged party and some of the other passengers were wandering about, gathering the long gray moss,—from limbs where they could reach it,—and cutting great palmetto leaves which grew on low bushes all through the woods, and carrying them about as fans or parasols; but although Corny wanted to join in this fun, we would not stop. We just trotted her until she was tired, and then we ran her on board the boat, where her mother was waiting for her.
"Now, then," said Mrs. Chipperton, "immediately to bed."
The two disappeared, and we saw no more of Corny until supper-time. Her mother was certainly good at cure, if she didn't have much of a knack at prevention.
Just as the boat was about to start off on her return trip, and after she had blown her whistle two or three times, Mr. Chipperton appeared, carrying an immense arm-load of gray moss. He puffed and blew as hethrew it down on deck. When his wife came out and told him of Corny's disaster, he stopped dusting his clothes, and looked up for an instant.
"I declare," said he, "Corny must keep out of the water. It seems to me that I can never leave her but she gets into some scrape. But I'm sure our friends here have proved themselves good fellows, indeed," and he shook hands with both of us.
"Now then, my dear," said he to his wife, "I've enough moss here for the parlor and sitting-room, and the little back-room, upstairs. I didn't get any for the dining-room, because it might blow about and get into the food."
"Do you mean to take that moss all the way home?" asked Mrs. Chipperton, in surprise. "Why, how will you ever carry it?"
"Of course I mean to take it home," said he. "I gathered this with my own hands from the top of one of the tallest trees on the banks of this famous Silver Spring."
"Mr. Chipperton!" exclaimed his wife.
"To be sure, the tree was cut down, but that makes no difference in the fact. It is both an ornament and a trophy of travel. If necessary, I'll buy a trunk for it. What did you do with Corny after they got her out?"
Our journey home was very much like our trip up the river, but there were a few exceptions. There was not so much firing, for I think the ammunition got pretty low; we saw more alligators, and the yellow-legged party, which had joined us at Pilatka, went allthe way to St. Augustine with us. There was still another difference, and that was in Rectus. He was a good deal livelier,—more in the spirit that had hatched out in him in the cemetery at Savannah. He seemed to be all right with Corny now, and we had a good time together. I was going to say to him, once, that he had changed his mind about girls, but I thought I wouldn't. It would be better to let well enough alone, and he was a ticklish customer.
The day after we returned to St. Augustine, we were walking on the sea-wall, when we met Corny. She said she had been looking for us. Her father had gone out fishing with some gentlemen, and her mother would not walk in the sun, and, besides, she had something to say to us.
So we all walked to the fort and sat down on the wide wall of the water-battery. Rectus bestrode one of the cannon that stood pointing out to sea, but Corny told him she wanted him to get down and sit by her, so that she wouldn't have to shout.
"Now then," said she, after pausing a little, as if she wanted to be sure and get it right, "you two saved my life, and I want to give you something to remember me by."
We both exclaimed against this.
"You needn't do that," said I, "for I'm sure that no one who saw you coming up from the bottom, like the fairy-women float up on wires at the theatre, could ever forget you. We'll remember you, Corny, without your giving us anything."
"But that wont do," said she. "The only othertime that I was ever really saved was by a ferryman, and father gave him some money, which was all right for him, but wouldn't do for you two, you know; and another time there wasn't really any danger, and I'm sorry the man got anything; but he did.
"We brought scarcely anything with us, because we didn't expect to need things in this way; but this is my own, and I want to give it to you both. One of you can't use it by himself, and so it will be more like a present for both of you together, than most things would be." And she handed me a box of dominoes.
"I give it to you because you're the oldest, but, remember, it's for both of you."
Of course we took it, and Corny was much pleased. She was a good little girl and, somehow or other, she seemed to be older and more sensible when she was with us than when she was bouncing around in the bosom of her family.
We had a good deal of talk together, and, after a while, she asked how long we were going to stay in St. Augustine.
"Until next Tuesday," I said, "and then we shall start for Nassau in the 'Tigris.'"
"Nassau!" she exclaimed, "where's that?"
"Right down there," I said, pointing out to sea with a crook of my finger, to the south. "It's on one of the Bahamas, and they lie off the lower end of Florida, you know."
"No," said she; "I don't remember where they are. I always get the Bahamas mixed up with the Bermudas, anyway. So does father. We talked ofgoing to one of those places, when we first thought of travelling for his lung, but then they thought Florida would be better. What is there good about Nassau? Is it any better than this place?"
"Well," said I, "it's in the West Indies, and it's semi-tropical, and they have cocoa-nuts and pineapples and bananas there; and there are lots of darkeys, and the weather is always just what you want——"
"I guess that's a little stretched," said Corny, and Rectus agreed with her.
"And it's a new kind of a place," I continued; "an English colony, such as our ancestors lived in before the Revolution, and we ought to see what sort of a thing an English colony is, so as to know whether Washington and the rest of them should have kicked against it."
"Oh, they were all right!" said Corny, in a tone which settled that little matter.
"And so, you see," I went on, "Rectus and I thought we should like to go out of the country for a while, and see how it would feel to live under a queen and a cocoa-nut tree."
"Good!" cried Corny. "We'll go."
"Who?" I asked.
"Father and mother and I," said Corny, rising. "I'll tell them all about it; and I'd better be going back to the hotel, for if the steamer leaves on Tuesday, we'll have lots to do."
As we were walking homeward on the sea-wall, Rectus looked back and suddenly exclaimed:
"There! Do you see that Crowded Owl following us? He's been hanging round us all the afternoon. He's up to something. Don't you remember the captain told us he was a bad-tempered fellow?"
"What did he do?" asked Corny, looking back at the Indian, who now stood in the road, a short distance from the wall, regarding us very earnestly.
"Well, he never did anything, much," I said. "He seemed to be angry, once, because we would not buy some of his things, and the captain said he'd have him told not to worry us. That may have made him madder yet."
"He don't look mad," said Corny.
"Don't you trust him," said Rectus.
"I believe all these Indians are perfectly gentle, now," said Corny, "and father thinks so, too. He's been over here a good deal, and talked to some of them. Let's go ask him what he wants. Perhaps he's only sorry."
"If he is, we'll never find it out," I remarked, "for he can only speak one word of English."
I beckoned to Crowded Owl, and he immediately ran up to the wall, and said "How?" in an uncertain tone, as if he was not sure how we should take it. However, Corny offered him her hand, and Rectus and I followed suit. After this, he put his hand into his pocket, and pulled out three sea-beans.
"There!" said Rectus. "At it again. Disobeying military orders."
"But they're pretty ones," said Corny, taking one of the beans in her hand.
They were pretty. They were not very large, but were beautifully polished, and of a delicate gray color, the first we had seen of the kind.
"These must be a rare kind," said Rectus. "They are almost always brown. Let's forgive him this once, and buy them."
"Perhaps he wants to make up with you," said Corny, "and has brought these as a present."
"I can soon settle that question," said I, and I took the three beans, and pulled from my pocket three quarter-dollars, which I offered to the Indian.
Crowded Owl took the money, grinned, gave a bob of his head, and went home happy.
If he had had any wish to "make up" with us, he had shown it by giving us a chance at a choice lot of goods.
"Now," said I, reaching out my hand to Corny, "here's one for each of us. Take your choice."
"For me?" said Corny. "No, I oughtn't to. Yes, I will, too. I am ever so much obliged. We have lots of sea-beans, but none like this. I'll have a ring fastened to it, and wear it, somehow."
"That'll do to remember us by," said I.
"Yes," said Rectus, "and whenever you're in danger, just hold up that bean, and we'll come to you."
"I'll do it," said Corny. "But how about you? What can I do?"
"Oh, I don't suppose we shall want you to help us much," I said.
"Well, hold up your beans, and we'll see," said Corny.
We found that Corny had not been mistaken about her influence over her family, for the next morning, before we were done breakfast, Mr. Chipperton came around to see us. He was full of Nassau, and had made up his mind to go with us on Tuesday. He asked us lots of questions, but he really knew as much about the place as we did, although he had been so much in the habit of mixing his Bahamas and his Bermudas.
"My wife is very much pleased at the idea of having you two with us on the trip over," said he; "although, to be sure, we may have a very smooth and comfortable voyage."
I believe that, since the Silver Spring affair, he regarded Rectus and me as something in the nature of patent girl-catchers, to be hung over the side of the vessel in bad weather.
We were sorry to leave St. Augustine, but we had thoroughly done up the old place, and had seeneverything, I think, except the Spring of Ponce de Leon, on the other side of the St. Sebastian River. We didn't care about renewing our youth,—indeed, we should have objected very much to anything of the kind,—and so we felt no interest in old Ponce's spring.
On Tuesday morning, the "Tigris" made her appearance on time, and Mr. Cholott and our good landlady came down to see us off. The yellow-legged party also came down, but not to see us off. They, too, were going to Nassau.
Rectus had gone on board, and I was just about to follow him, when our old Minorcan stepped up to me.
"Goin' away?" said he.
"Yes," said I, "we're off at last."
"Other feller goin'?"
"Oh, yes," I answered, "we keep together."
"Well now, look here," said he, drawing me a little on one side. "What made him take sich stock in us Minorcans? Why, he thought we used to be slaves; what put that in his head, I'd like to know? Did he reely think we ever was niggers?"
"Oh, no!" I exclaimed. "He had merely heard the early history of the Minorcans in this country, their troubles and all that, and he——"
"But what difference did it make to him?" interrupted the old man.
I couldn't just then explain the peculiarities of Rectus's disposition to Mr. Menendez, and so I answered that I supposed it was a sort of sympathy.
"I can't see, for the life of me," said the old man, reflectively, "what difference it made to him."
And he shook hands with me, and bade me good-bye. I don't believe he has ever found anybody who could give him the answer to this puzzle.
The trip over to Nassau was a very different thing from our voyage down the coast from New York to Savannah. The sea was comparatively smooth, and, although the vessel rolled a good deal in the great swells, we did not mind it much. The air was delightful, and after we had gone down the Florida coast, and had turned to cross the Gulf Stream to our islands, the weather became positively warm, even out here on the sea, and we were on deck nearly all the time.
Mr. Chipperton was in high spirits. He enjoyed the deep blue color of the sea; he went into ecstasies over the beautiful little nautiluses that sailed along by the ship; he watched with wild delight the porpoises that followed close by our side, and fairly shouted when a big fellow would spring into the air, or shoot along just under the surface, as if he had a steam-engine in his tail. But when he saw a school of flying-fish rise up out of the sea, just a little ahead of us, and go skimming along like birds, and then drop again into the water, he was so surprised and delighted that he scarcely knew how to express his feelings.
Of course, we younger people enjoyed all these things, but I was surprised to see that Corny was more quiet than usual, and spent a good deal of her time in reading, although she would spring up and run to the railing whenever her father announced some wonderful discovery. Mr. Chipperton would havebeen a splendid man for Columbus to have taken along with him on his first trip to these islands. He would have kept up the spirits of the sailors.
I asked Corny what she was reading, and she showed me her book. It was a big, fat pamphlet about the Bahamas, and she was studying up for her stay there. She was a queer girl. She had not been to school very much, her mother said, for they had been travelling about a good deal of late years; but she liked to study up special things, in which she took an interest. Sometimes she was her own teacher, and sometimes, if they staid in any one place long enough, she took regular lessons.
"I teach her as much as I can," said her mother, "although I would much rather have her go regularly to school. But her father is so fond of her that he will not have her away from him, and as Mr. Chipperton's lung requires him to be moving from place to place, we have to go, too. But I am determined that she shall go to a school next fall."
"What is the matter with Mr. Chipperton's lung?" I asked.
"I wish we knew," said Mrs. Chipperton, earnestly. "The doctors don't seem to be able to find out the exact trouble, and besides, it isn't certain which lung it is. But the only thing that can be done for it is to travel."
"He looks very well," said I.
"Oh, yes!" said she. "But"—and she looked around to see where he was—"he doesn't like people to tell him so."
After a while, Rectus got interested in Corny's book, and the two read a good deal together. I did not interrupt them, for I felt quite sure that neither of them knew too much.
The captain and all the officers on the steamer were good, sociable men, and made the passengers feel at home. I had got somewhat acquainted with them on our trip from Savannah to St. Augustine, and now the captain let me come into his room and showed me the ship's course, marked out on a chart, and pointed out just where we were, besides telling me a good many things about the islands and these waters.
I mentioned to Corny and Rectus, when I went aft again,—this was the second day out,—that we should see one end of the Great Bahama early in the afternoon.
"I'm glad of that," said Corny; "but I suppose we sha'n't go near enough for us to see its calcareous formation."
"Its what?" I exclaimed.
"Its cal-car-e-ous formation," repeated Corny, and she went on with her reading.
"Oh!" said I, laughing, "I guess the calcareous part is all covered up with grass and plants,—at least it ought to be in a semi-tropical country. But when we get to Nassau you can dig down and see what it's like."
"Semi-tropical!" exclaimed Mr. Chipperton, who just came up; "there is something about that word that puts me all in a glow," and he rubbed his hands as if he smelt dinner.
Each of us wore a gray bean. Rectus and I had ours fastened to our watch-guards, and Corny's hung to a string of beads she generally wore. We formed ourselves into a society—Corny suggested it—which we called the "Association of the Three Gray Beans," the object of which was to save each other from drowning, and to perform similar serviceable acts, if circumstances should call for them. We agreed to be very faithful, and, if Corny had tumbled overboard, I am sure that Rectus and I would have jumped in after her; but I am happy to say that she did nothing of the kind on this trip.
Early the next morning, we reached Nassau, the largest town in the Bahamas, on one of the smallest islands, and found it semi-tropical enough to suit even Mr. Chipperton.
Before we landed, we could see the white, shining streets and houses,—just as calcareous as they could be; the black negroes; the pea-green water in the harbor; the tall cocoa-nut trees, and about five million conch-shells, lying at the edges of the docks. The colored people here live pretty much on the conch-fish, and when we heard that, it accounted for the shells. The poorer people on these islands often go by the name of "conchs."
As we went up through the town we found that the darkeys were nearly as thick as the conch-shells, but they were much more lively. I never saw such jolly, dont-care-y people as the colored folks that were scattered about everywhere. Some of the young ones, as joyful skippers, could have tired out a shrimp.
There is one big hotel in the town, and pretty nearly all our passengers went there. The house is calcareous, and as solid as a rock. Rectus and I liked it very much, because it reminded us of pictures we had seen of Algiers, or Portugal, or some country where they have arches instead of doors; but Mr. Chipperton wasn't at all satisfied when he found that there was not a fireplace in the whole house.
"This is coming the semi-tropical a little too strong," he said to me; but he soon found, I think, that gathering around the hearth-stone could never become a popular amusement in this warm little town.
Every day, for a week, Mr. Chipperton hired a one-horse barouche, and he and his wife and daughter rode over the island. Rectus and I walked, and we saw a good deal more than they did. Corny told us this, the first walk she took with us. We went down a long, smooth, white road that led between the queer little cottages of the negroes, where the cocoa-nut and orange trees and the bananas and sappadilloes, and lots of other trees and bushes stood up around the houses just as proudly as if they were growing on ten-thousand-dollar lots. Some of these trees had the most calcareous foundations anybody ever saw. They grew almost out of the solid rock. This is probably one of the most economical places in the world for garden mould. You couldn't sweep up more than a bucketful out of a whole garden, and yet the things grow splendidly. Rectus said he supposed the air was earthy.
Corny enjoyed this walk, because we went right into the houses and talked to the people, and bought cocoa-nuts off the trees, and ate the inside custard with a spoon, and made the little codgers race for pennies, and tried all the different kinds of fruits. She said she would like to walk out with us always, but her mother said she must not be going about too much with boys.
"But there are no girls on the island," said she; "at least, no white ones,—as far as I have seen."
I suppose there were white children around, but they escaped notice in the vast majority of little nigs.
The day after this walk, the shorter "yellow-legs" asked me to go out fishing with him. He couldn't find anybody else, I suppose, for his friend didn't like fishing. Neither did Rectus; and so we went off together in a fishing-smack, with a fisherman to sail the boat and hammer conch for bait. We went outside of Hog Island,—which lies off Nassau, very much as Anastasia Island lies off St. Augustine, only it isn't a quarter as big,—and fished in the open sea. We caught a lot of curious fish, and the yellow-legs, whose name was Burgan, turned out to be a very good sort of a fellow. I shouldn't have supposed this of a man who had made such a guy of himself; but there are a great many different kinds of outsides to people.
When we got back to the hotel, along came Rectus and Corny. They had been out walking together, and looked hot.
"Oh," cried Corny, as soon as she saw me. "Wehave something to talk to you about! Let's go and sit down. I wish there was some kind of an umbrella or straw hat that people could wear under their chins to keep the glare of these white roads out of their eyes. Let's go up into the silk-cotton tree."
I proposed that I should go to my room and clean up a little first, but Corny couldn't wait. As her father had said, she wasn't good at waiting; and so we all went up into the silk-cotton tree. This was an enormous tree, with roots like the partitions between horse-stalls; it stood at the bottom of the hotel grounds, and had a large platform built up among the branches, with a flight of steps leading to it. There were seats up here, and room enough for a dozen people.
"Well," said I, when we were seated, "what have you to tell? Anything wonderful? If it isn't, you'd better let me tell you about my fish."
"Fish!" exclaimed Rectus, not very respectfully.
"Fish, indeed!" said Corny. "Wehave seen aqueen!"
"Queen of what?" said I.
"Queen of Africa," replied Corny. "At least a part of it,—she would be, I mean, if she had stayed there. We went over that way, out to the very edge of the town, and there we found a whole colony of real native Africans,—just the kind Livingstone and Stanley discovered,—only they wear clothes like us."
"Oh, my!" exclaimed Rectus.
"I don't mean exactly that," said Corny; "but coats and trousers and frocks, awfully old and patched.And nearly all the grown-up people there were born in Africa, and rescued by an English man-of-war from a slave-ship that was taking them into slavery, and were brought here and set free. And here they are, and they talk their own language,—only some of them know English, for they've been here over thirty years,—and they all keep together, and have a governor of their own, with a flag-pole before his house, and among them is a real queen, of royal blood!"
"How did you find out that?" I asked.
"Oh, we heard about the African settlement this morning, at the hotel, and we went down there, right after dinner. We went into two or three of the houses and talked to the people, and they all told us the same thing, and one woman took us to see the queen."
"In her palace?" said I.
"No," said Corny, "she don't live in a palace. She lives in one of the funniest little huts you ever saw, with only two rooms. And it's too bad; they all know she's a queen, and yet they don't pay her one bit of honor. The African governor knows it, but he lives in his house with his flag-pole in front of it, and rules her people, while she sits on a stone in front of her door and sells red peppers and bits of sugar-cane."
"Shameful!" said I; "you don't mean that?"
"Yes, she does," put in Rectus. "We saw her, and bought some sugar-cane. She didn't think we knew her rank, for she put her things away when the women told her, in African, why we came to see her."
"What did she say to you?" I asked, beginning to be a good deal interested in this royal colored person.
"Nothing at all," said Corny; "she can't talk a word of English. If she could, she might get along better. I suppose her people want somebody over them who can talk English. And so they've just left her to sell peppers, and get along as well as she can."
"It's a good deal of a come-down, I must say," said I. "I wonder how she likes it?"
"Judging from her looks," said Rectus, "I don't believe she likes it at all."
"No, indeed!" added Corny. "She looks woe-begone, and I don't see why she shouldn't. To be taken captive with her people—may be she was trying to save them—and then to have them almost cut her acquaintance after they all get rescued and settled down!"
"Perhaps," said I, "as they are all living under Queen Victoria, they don't want any other queen."
"That's nothing," said Corny, quickly. "There's a governor of this whole island, and what do they want with another governor? If Queen Victoria and the governor of this island were Africans, of course they wouldn't want anybody else. But as it is, they do, don't you see?"
"They don't appear to want another queen," I said, "for they wont take one that is right under their noses."
Corny looked provoked, and Rectus asked me how I knew that.
"I tell you," said Corny, "it don't make any difference whether they want her or not, they haven't any right to make a born queen sit on a stone and sell red-peppers. Do you know what Rectus and I have made up our minds to do?"
"What is it?" I asked.
Corny looked around to see that no one was standing or walking near the tree, and then she leaned toward me and said:
"We are going to seat her on her throne!"
"You?" I exclaimed, and began to laugh.
"Yes, we are," said Rectus; "at least, we're going to try to."
"You needn't laugh," said Corny. "You're to join."
"In an insurrection,—a conspiracy," said I. "I can't go into that business."
"You must!" cried Corny and Rectus, almost in a breath.
"You've made a promise," said Corny.
"And are bound to stick to it," said Rectus, looking at Corny.
Then, both together, as if they had settled it all beforehand, they held up their gray sea-beans, and said, in vigorous tones:
"Obey the bean!"
I didn't hesitate a moment. I held up my bean, and we clicked beans all around.
I became a conspirator!
The next morning, we all went around to see the queen, and on the way we tried to arrange our affair. I was only sorry that my old school-fellows were not there, to go into the thing with us. There couldn't have been better fun for our boys, than to get up a revolution and set up a dethroned queen. But they were not there, and I determined to act as their representative as well as I could.
We three—Corny, Rectus and I—were agreed that the re-enthronement—we could think of no better word for the business—should be done as quietly and peacefully as possible. It was of no use, we thought, to make a great fuss about what we were going to do. We would see that this African ex-sovereigness was placed in a suitable regal station, and then we would call upon her countrymen to acknowledge her rank.
"It isn't really necessary for her to do any governing," said Rectus. "Queens do very little of that.Look at Queen Victoria! Her Prime Minister and Parliament run the country. If the African governor here is a good man, the queen can take him for a Prime Minister. Then he can just go along and do what he always did. If she is acknowledged to be the queen, that's all she need want."
"That's so," said Corny. "And, above all, there must be no blood shed."
"None of yours, any way," said I; and Rectus tapped his bean, significantly.
Rectus had been chosen captain of this revolutionary coalition, because Corny, who held the controlling vote, said that she was afraid I had not gone into the undertaking heart and soul, as Rectus had. Otherwise, she would have voted for me, as the oldest of the party. I did not make any objections, and was elected Treasurer. Corny said that the only office she had ever held was that of Librarian, in a girls' society, but as we did not expect to need a Librarian in this undertaking, we made her Secretary and Manager of Restoration, which, we thought, would give her all the work that she could stand under.
I suggested that there was one sub-officer, or employé, that we should be sure to need, and who should be appointed before we commenced operations. This was an emissary. Proper communications between ourselves and the populace would be difficult, unless we obtained the service of some intelligent and whole-souled darkey. My fellow-revolutionists agreed with me, and, after a moment of reflection, Corny shouted that she had thought of the very person.
"It's a girl!" she cried. "And it's Priscilla!"
We all knew Priscilla. It would have been impossible to be at the hotel for a week and not know her. After breakfast, and after dinner, there was always a regular market at the entrance of the hotel, under the great arched porch, where the boarders sat and made themselves comfortable after meals. The dealers were negroes of every age,—men, women, boys, and girls, and they brought everything they could scrape up, that they thought visitors might buy,—fruit, shells, sponges, flowers, straw hats, canes, and more traps than I can remember. Some of them had very nice things, and others would have closed out their stock for seven cents. The liveliest and brightest of all these was a tall, slim, black, elastic, smooth-tongued young girl, named Priscilla. She nearly always wore shoes, which distinguished her from her fellow-countrywomen. Her eyes sparkled like a fire-cracker of a dark night, and she had a mind as sharp as a fish-hook. The moment Corny mentioned her she was elected emissary.
We determined, however, to be very cautious in disclosing our plans to her. We would sound her, first, and make a regular engagement with her.
"It will be a first-rate thing for me," said Corny, "to have a girl to go about with me, for mother said, yesterday, that it wouldn't do for me to be so much with boys. It looked tomboyish, she said, though she thought you two were very good for boys."
"Are you going to tell your father and mother about this?" asked Rectus.
"I think I'll tell mother," said Corny, "because I ought to, and I don't believe she'll object, if I have a girl along with me. But I don't think I'll say anything to father just yet. I'm afraid he'd join."
Rectus and I agreed that it might be better to postpone saying anything to Mr. Chipperton.
It was very true that the queen did not live in a palace. Her house was nearly large enough to hold an old-fashioned four-posted bedstead, such as they have at my Aunt Sarah's. The little room that was cut off from the main apartment was really too small to count. The queen was hard at work, sitting on her door-stone by the side of her bits of sugar-cane and pepper-pods. There were no customers. She was a good-looking old body, about sixty, perhaps, but tall and straight enough for all queenly purposes.
She arose and shook hands with us, and then stepped into her door-way and courtesied. The effect was very fine.
"This is dreadful!" said Corny. "She ought to give up this pepper-pod business right away. If I could only talk to her, I'd make her understand. But I must go get somebody for an interpreter."
And she ran off to one of the neighboring huts.
"If this thing works," said Rectus, "we ought to hire a regular interpreter."
"It wont do to have too many paid officials," said I, "but we'll see about that."
Corny soon returned with a pleasant-faced woman, who undertook to superintend our conversation with the queen.
"What's her name—to begin with?" asked Corny, of the woman.
"Her African name is Poqua-dilla, but here they call her Jane Henderson, when they talk of her. She knows that name, too. We all has to have English names."
"Well, we don't want any Jane Henderson," said Corny. "Poqua-dilla! that's a good name for a queen. But what we first want is to have her stop selling things at the front door. We'll do better for her than that."
"Is you goin' to sen' her to the 'sylum?" asked the woman.
"The asylum!" exclaimed Corny. "No, indeed! You'll see. She's to live here, but she's not to sell pepper-pods, or anything else."
"Well, young missy," said the woman, "you better buy 'em of her. I reckon she'll sell out for 'bout fourpence."
This was a sensible proposition, and, as treasurer, I bought the stock, the queen having signified her willingness to the treaty by a dignified nod and a courtesy. She was very much given to style, which encouraged us a good deal.
"Now, then," said Rectus, who thought it was about time that the captain should have something to say, "you must tell her that she isn't to lay in any more stock. This is to be the end of her mercantile life."
I don't believe the woman translated all of this speech, but the queen gave another nod and courtesy,and I pocketed the peppers to keep as trophies. The other things we kept, to give to the children and make ourselves popular.
"How much do you think it would cost," asked Corny of me, "to make this place a little more like a palace?"
I made a rough sort of a calculation, and came to the conclusion that the room could be made a little more like a palace for about eight dollars.
"That's cheap enough," said Rectus to me. "You and I will each give four dollars."
"No, indeed!" said Corny. "I'm going to give some. How much is three into eight?"
"Two and two-thirds," said I, "or, in this case, two dollars, sixty-six cents and some sixes over."
"All right!" said Corny; "I'll ask father for three dollars. There ought to be something for extras. I'll tell mother what I want it for, and that will satisfy him. He can know afterward. I don't think he ought to worry his lung with anything like this."
"She wont want a throne," said Rectus, turning the conversation from Mr. Chipperton, "for she has a very good rocking-chair, which could be fixed up."
"Yes," said I, "it could be cushioned. She might do it herself."
At this, the colored woman made a remark to the queen, but what it was we did not know.
"Of course she could," said Corny. "Queens work. Queen Victoria etches on steel."
"I don't believe Porker-miller can do that," said Rectus, "but I guess she can pad her chair."
"Do thrones rock?" asked Corny.
"Some of 'em do," I said. "There was the throne of France, you know."
"Well, then, that will be all right," said Corny; "and how about a crown and sceptre?"
"Oh, we wont want a sceptre," I said; "that sort of thing's pretty old-fashioned. But we ought to have a crown, so as to make a difference between her and the other people."
"How much are crowns?" asked Corny, in a thoughtful tone.
"Various prices," I answered; "but I think we can make one, that will do very well, for about fifty cents. I'll undertake to make the brass part, if you'll cushion it."
"Brass!" exclaimed Corny, in astonishment.
"You don't suppose we can get gold, do you?" I asked, laughing.
"Well, no," she said, but not quite satisfied.
"And there must be a flag and a flag-pole," said Rectus. "But what sort of a flag are we going to have?"
"The African flag," said Corny, confidently.
None of us knew what the African flag was, although Corny suggested that it was probably black. But I told her that if we raised a black flag before the queen's palace, we should bring down the authorities on us, sure. They'd think we had started a retail piratical establishment.
We now took leave of the queen, and enjoined her neighbor to impress on her mind the necessity ofnot using her capital to lay in a new stock of goods. Leaving a quarter of a dollar with her, for contingent expenses during the day, we started for home.
"I'll tell you what it is," said I, "we must settle this matter of revenue pretty soon. If she don't sell peppers and sugar-cane, she'll have to be supported in some way, and I'm sure we can't do it."
"Her subjects ought to attend to that," said Rectus.
"But she hasn't got any yet," I answered.
"That's a fact," said Corny. "We must get her a few, to start with."
"Hire 'em, do you mean?" asked Rectus.
"No; call upon them in the name of their country and their queen," she replied.
"I think it would be better, at first," said I, "to call upon them in the name of about twopence a head. Then, when we get a nice little body of adherents to begin with, the other subjects will fall in, of their own accord, if we manage the thing right."
"There's where the emissary will come in," said Rectus. "She can collect adherents."
"We must engage her this very day," said Corny. "And now, what about the flag? We haven't settled that yet."
"I think," said I, "that we'd better invent a flag. When we get back to the hotel, we can each draw some designs, and the one we choose can easily be made up. We can buy the stuff anywhere."
"I'll sew it," said Corny.
"Do you think," said Rectus, who had been reflecting, "that the authorities of this place will object to our setting up a queen?"
"Can't tell," I said. "But I hardly think they will. They don't object to the black governor, and our queen wont interfere with them in any way that I can see. She will have nothing to do with anybody but those native Africans, who keep to themselves, anyway."
"If anybody should trouble us, who would it be? Soldiers or the policemen? How many soldiers have they here?" asked Corny.
"There's only one company now in the barracks," said Rectus. "I was down there. There are two men-of-war in the harbor, but one of them's a Spanish vessel, and I'm pretty sure she wouldn't bother us."
"Is that all?" said Corny, in a tone of relief.
I didn't want to dash her spirits, but I remarked that there were a good many policemen in the town.
"And they're all colored men," said Corny. "I'd hate to have any of them coming after us."
"The governor of the colony is at the head of the army, police and all, isn't he?" said Rectus.
"Yes," I answered.
"And I know where he lives," put in Corny. "Let's go and see him, sometime, and ask him about it."
This was thought to be a good idea, and we agreed to consider it at our next meeting.
"As to revenue," said Rectus, just before we reached the hotel, "I don't believe these people havemuch money to give for the support of a queen, and so I think they ought to bring in provisions. The whole thing might be portioned out. She ought to have so many conchs a week, so many sticks of sugar-cane, and so many yams and other stuff. This might be fixed so that it wouldn't come hard on anybody."
Corny said she guessed she'd have to get a little book to put these things down, so that we could consider them in order.
I could not help noticing that there was a good deal of difference between Corny and Rectus, although they were much alike, too. Corny had never learned much, but she had a good brain in her head, and she could reason out things pretty well, when she had anything in the way of a solid fact to start with. Rectus was better on things he'd heard reasoned out. He seemed to know a good thing when it came before him, and he remembered it, and often brought it in very well. But he hadn't had much experience in reasoning on his own account, although he was getting more in practice every day.
Corny was just as much in earnest as she was the first day we saw her, but she seemed to have grown more thoughtful. Perhaps this was on account of her having important business on hand. Her thoughtfulness, however, did not prevent her from saying some very funny things. She spoke first and did her thinking afterward. But she was a good girl, and I often wished my sister knew her. Helen was older, to be sure, but she could have learned a great deal from Corny.
That afternoon, we had a meeting up in the silk-cotton tree, and Priscilla, who had sold out her small stock of flowers in the hotel-door market, was requested to be present. A variety-show, consisting of about a dozen young darkeys with their baskets and strings of sponges, accompanied her up the steps; but she was ordered to rout them, and she did it in short order. When we were alone, Rectus, as captain, began to state to her what we desired of her; but he was soon interrupted by Corny, who could do a great deal more talking in a given time than he could, and who always felt that she ought to begin early, in order to get through in good season.
"Now, Priscilla," said Corny, "in the first place, you must promise never to tell what we are going to say to you."
Priscilla promised in a flash.
"We want you, then," continued Corny, "to act as our emissary, or general agent, or errand-girl, if you don't know what the other two things mean."
"I'll do dat, missy," said Priscilla. "Whar you want me to go?"
"Nowhere just now," said Corny. "We want to engage you by the day, to do whatever we tell you."
"Cahn't do dat, missy. Got to sell flowers and roses. Sell 'em for de fam'ly, missy."
"But in the afternoon you can come," said Corny. "There isn't any selling done then. We'll pay you."
"How much?" asked Priscilla.
This question was referred to me, and I offered sixpence a day.
The money in this place is English, of course, as it is an English colony; but there are so many visitors from the United States, that American currency is as much in use, for large sums, as the pounds-shillings-and-pence arrangement. But all sums under a quarter are reckoned in English money,—pennies, half-pennies, four, six and eight-pences, and that sort of thing. One of our quarters passes for a shilling, but a silver dime wont pass in the shops. The darkeys will take them—or almost anything else—as a gift. I didn't have to get our money changed into gold. I got a draft on a Nassau house, and generally drew greenbacks. But I saw, pretty plainly, that I couldn't draw very much for this new monarchical undertaking, and stay in Nassau as long as we had planned.
"A whole afternoon," exclaimed Priscilla, "for sixpence!"
"Why not?" I asked. "That's more than you generally make all day."
"Only sixpence!" said Priscilla, looking as if her tender spirit had been wounded. Corny glanced at me with an air that suggested that I ought to make a rise in the price, but I had dealt with these darkeys before.
"That's all," I said.
"All right, then, boss," said Priscilla. "I'll do it. What you want me to do?"
The colored people generally gave the name "boss" to all white men, and I was pleased to see that Priscilla said boss to me much more frequently than to Rectus.
We had a talk with her about her duties, and eachof us had a good deal to say. We made her understand—at least we hoped so—that she was to be on hand, every afternoon, to go with Corny, if necessary, whenever we went out on our trips to the African settlement; and, after giving her an idea of what we intended doing with the queen,—which interested her very much indeed, and seemed to set her on pins and needles to see the glories of the new reign,—we commissioned her to bring together about twenty sensible and intelligent Africans, so that we could talk to them, and engage them as subjects for the re-enthroned queen.
"What's ole Goliah Brown goin' to say 'bout dat?" said Priscilla.
"Who's he?" we asked.
"He's de Afrikin gubner. He rule 'em all."
"Oh!" said Rectus, "he's all right. We're going to make him prime minister."
I was not at all sure that he was all right, and proposed that Rectus and I should go to his house in the evening, when he was at home, and talk to him about it.
"Yes, and we'll all go and see the head governor to-morrow morning," said Corny.
We had our hands completely full of diplomatic business.
The meeting of the adherents was appointed for the next afternoon. We decided to have it on the Queen's Stair-way, which is a long flight of steps, cut in the solid limestone, and leading up out of a deep and shadowy ravine, where the people of the town manyyears ago cut out the calcareous material for their houses. There has been no stone cut here for a long time, and the walls of the ravine, which stand up as straight as the wall of a house, are darkened by age and a good deal covered up by vines. At the bottom, on each side of the pathway which runs through the ravine to the town, bushes and plants of various semi-tropical kinds grow thick and close. At the top of the flight of stairs are open fields and an old fort. Altogether, this was considered a quiet and suitable place for a meeting of a band of revolutionists. We could not have met in the silk-cotton tree, for we should have attracted too much attention, and, besides, the hotel-clerk would have routed us out.