Part 13 (1/2)
Was that all? Well, for a tio of Afiola rapscallions he was to drop, one here, one there, all around the Group, we having no further use for them in Puna Punou
The measles struck us shortly afterwards in a Tahiti bark, and it carried off a sight of people, Afiola included, as in a sort of ar on the other side of the island Tweedie, too, who had always been a coh about this tiht off, but spread over a ular in the _Peep o'
Day_, and Mrs Tweediethan ever
Coe turned up fro and overhaul, just as Mrs Tweedie was taking her passage in the _Olive Branch_, missionary auxiliary barkentine for Honolulu None of the saints would have a word to say to hi hie even when the anchor was apeak and the barkentine under steerage way
But he kept singing out for her while they tried to hustle him over the side and into his boat, and the more they hustled the louder he shouted, ”Mrs Tweedie! Mrs Tweedie!” till at last she heard hiing her hair with her hands
It was a tight place for Coe, having to do his courting while they werehim on like the police; but, for all that, when he went down the ladder it ith Mrs Tweedie with him, and they pulled ashore and werein the _Peep o' Day_, bringing up in Papiete three weeks later, to buy her so up to Honolulu in the _Olive Branch_
MR BOB
Far away in the western Pacific, in that labyrinth of coral reefs and low, pal between the blue of heaven and the deeper blue of sea, known to the pajaed traders as ”the Group,” and to the outer world as Micronesia--here, one burningthere arrived a visitor from ”Home,” who descended, not from some tubby bark or slant-lorious stars themselves--Christmas Day!
The Rev Walter Kirke looked out moodily from beneath the eaves of his basket-work house, and his heart sank as he gazed across the sweltering strip of water, twenty hbor, Tarawa His brother in the Lord across the strait, the perpetually unfortunate titcombe (the Rev J B Tracy titcoe of such urgency and need that delay, let alone refusal, was utterly out of the question
”The king has broken all his proible froitation ”He threatens to burn the new church, flog the hts of our infant congregation Yesterday, on averay, a detached jellyfish--a white squid, together with so and contemptuous nature The tiny fold is terrorized, and Thoht-hand man, is in hourly apprehension of a massacre My wife and little Kenneth are doith fever, and this, together with e, has put e that I have no alternative but to appeal to you For Heaven's sake, please come instantly and exert yourself on ood, and put back the good work by a dozen years”
”We'll have to go, dear,” said Kirke to his pretty wife
”Yes, we'll have to go,” she assented sadly
She could not help feeling cross with the titcos--a little unjustly, perhaps--for her own missionary path had ever been so easy and untroubled Mrs Kirke was a woman of marked beauty, whose sweet imperiousness, sympathy, humor, and tact made her the adored of the islanders She not only spoke native well, but with a zest and sparkle, a silver ripple of irony, ridicule, and good-fellowshi+p that carried everything before it No kings ever bothered Mrs Kirke Even the redoubtable Tees, had been stemmed in his Napoleonic career and turned back by her fro the old-inlaid Winchester that was the apple of his eye
”I shall make Karaitch smart for this!” she said vindictively ”I sha'n't let hiirls'
school; and he'll have to apologize, too, and swear on a shark's head to behave for a year”
”We can't all have such intrepid little wives,” said Kirke, putting his arm fondly about her Experience had shown hiood as her word, and it ith a kind of proud humility he conceded her the place he was so much less able himself to fill He had not the faintest apprehensions about the Tarawato heel in fifteen minutes, and in twenty there would be the dawn of a new peace, with stately apologies, gifts of turtle and bonito hooks, endless and troublesomely idiomatic compliments, and incidentally a little friction with the titco saved so easily
No, Kirke wasn't afraid of Karaitch Ada would settle Karaitch out of hand What he dreaded was that twenty miles of water under the noonday sun, and the proble so contentedly on the floor with the presents Santa Claus had just brought her
”Oh, Walter, I can't let Daisy go again!” cried Mrs Kirke ”Last time she nearly died in the boat, and you know she wasn't really herself for weeks and weeks afterwards”
Daisy heard her na spoken, and looked up Her sleek little head and round brown eyes gave her the look of a baby seal Such a happy baby seal that ic lantern, twelve biblical slides, a dolly that could squeak in thelittle chair!
”But leave her?” questioned Kirke, with a hopeless gesture of his hand
”And that with the island full of mutineers, and Heaven only knows to-day what deviltry and carousing?”
Mrs Kirke thought awhile
”Twenty miles over there--three hours,” she said at last; ”an hour to straighten out the king--four hours; three back,hoood care of her, and then I'll get Peter to send down an aruard”