J. Allan Dunn

“ Jimmy created a diversion by starting a new record and the blare and clang of one of Sousa’s marches—butchered to make a South Sea holiday—restored the monarch’s equanimity. He turned the searchlight on the orchestrion and shouted approval at Jimmy, who grinned in reply.
"Hi," said Tamatau. "Jimmy, you come along here."
The little supercargo came over to where the king and the skipper sat side by side on the sand.
"What you want, King?" he asked.
"I like look um teeth," said Tamatau, pointing to his own substantial masticators. ”

“ She was an ancient of ancients, the oldest living being on Totulu, an aunt of Tamatau’s, accredited with powers of witchcraft and puri a’naana—praying to death.
"You, Tiarau," said Jimmy, speaking in Totuluan. with a Hoxton, London, England, accent, "Tamatau will be here with the captain right away. You make these foolish women go home."
"E-yah," snarled the crone in her own language. "This white woman is a witch and she has set her spells upon our men as she did upon us. Only with us, being women, her magic could not last. You say the men will come back. I have known white people to lie. ”

“ Women no work. Fahines they just sit along all time. Dam fool."
"Startin’ the bloomin’ cuckoo racket," said Jimmy.
But it was not his rôle to condemn the skipper’s lady.
"Hit’s just ’er talk," he commented.
Atupa’s anticipation of trouble was shortly confirmed. First came Kokua that evening, complaining bitterly.
"That kapitani fahine," said the concertmaster and handyman of Totulu, "she all same crazy. She speak fahines no cook um, no work in taro patch, no fix um copra, no pick um pearl, no work um turtle-shell."
Jimmy turned to the lustrus-eyed Fuatina, never far away. ”

“ Boyle, sobbing in her husband’s arms.
"Sure, my dear," he comforted. "Sure! The ship can’t get in against the ebb. Tide’ll run for six hours. But we’ll go in the mornin’ to Tahiti and rest up a bit at the hôtel Êgalite. We came in the boats. There’s another comin’. Tamatau’s in it. There, there, acushla, it’s all right, it’s all right!"
Kokua, who had been working over the searchlight, succeeded, and the ray swept the lagoon. Jimmy and Fuatina had disappeared. All about stood the once more friendly women with those of their men who had come in the first boat. ”

“ This is big, oh plenty big light. Can see all around lagoon. I show you tonight. Can burn all time. I show Kokua how to fix."
"Kokua, he dam fool, too. Two, maybe three month now, he break noise-box you bring me last time. Kokua plenty too much dam fool."
This was a real grievance with Tamatau, for the circus orchestrion presented him by Captain Boyle had been a source of delight to all Totulu, until it broke down, to the disgrace of Kokua, general factotum of Tamatau’s little atoll-kingdom of Totulu.
"Jimmy can fix that, King," assured Boyle. "I bring you new tunes for that too." ”

“ A group of empty bottles explained the nature of the emollient.
"I’m going to try the king’s idea, Jimmy," said Boyle. "It’s a good one. Can’t kill, and it may cure."
"Jimmy, you take um drink?" invited Tamatau.
"Here’s the scheme," went on the skipper, while Jimmy swigged at his glass. "The announcement is that men are unnecessary. We are goin’ to put it up to them to prove it. Ebb runs till midnight or a little later. Every man-jack on Totulu will be aboard, quietly, and we’ll take a little trip and let the ladies try it out." ”

“ I’ll go talk with Jimmy.
⁠THE Margaret Ann left on the afternoon tide, with Tamatau, accompanied by the repentant Fatua—under discipline—ensconced in state upon the after deck. The orchestrion sobbed out "The Wearing of the Green" as a farewell lament, and the village, in canoes and afoot along the curving beaches of the lagoon, accompanied the barkentine to the reef-passage. Mrs. Boyle was in the king’s whaleboat, manned, at her insistence, by men instead of it’s regular crew of queens. ”

“ Hi want to pick hout somefing myself."
"Fuatina?" quizzed his skipper. "That’s a good idea, Jimmy. She deserves it. She saved the situation. And I take back what I said about philanderin’. I’ll get her something myself."
"Hand Hi’ll make Mrs. Boyle a present," said Jimmy. "Lesable’s got some fine cuckoo-clocks. Hi’ll buy ’er one hof them."
"A cuckoo-clock? What on earth for? She’s got plenty of clocks at home."
"Ho, just for a sooveneer," said Jimmy. "Hit’ll remind ’er of kings. There was a cuckoo-clock in Hold Tomato’s storehouse. ”

“ Yet shall the white witch die, unelss the men come with the intide. We will go now until the outtide flows. Then we will come with fire and burn down the fence."
Tiarau turned to the mob and spoke rapidly to them. There were yells of assenting "Ais" in reply and they withdrew, savage face after savage face appearing in the dying ray of the searchlight and vanishing into the blackness.
Jimmy drew a long breath. It was up to Fuatina now.
"Hif Hi could honly find some cartridges," he muttered, as he entered the storehouse.
Mrs. Boyle spoke from the darkness. ”

“ Both the view and a fine pearl stimulated Jimmy’s ambition, and with the spell bound Fuatina as official assistant, he started work the next day. In the afternoon Atupa came to overlook the satisfactory progress. Jimmy’s palette stopped mostly at secondary hues, but the result was academic to Atupa and he said so.
"That fool fahine papalangi," he said presently, as Jimmy shared with him beer from his private stock," plenty soon she make heap pirikia."
"What kind of trouble?"
"Oh too much pirikia. She speak men no good, women too much plenty good. ”

“ Fuatina supplied Jimmy with a service of verbal bulletins.
"Pirikia plenty soon I think," she reported. "Coconuts all gone and only young fahine can climb um tree. Young fahine mad along huapala (sweetheart) all gone. Fahine not very good catch um fish. No musika, no hula. Plenty pirikia."
It was even so. Mrs. Boyle was up against it. She was fighting primeval instinct that her own veneer of civilization prevented her from understanding. In the South Seas—and elsewhere—such instinct is divided into two parts, Sex and Stomach. ”

“ The younger women, peeved at the lack of lovemaking facilities, balked at furnishing the supply for the whole crowd and climbed only for themselves. The maturer women with children, began to draw apart in groups. ”

“ If they’re too small, we can take off the heels and turn back the canvas. Don’t you think he’ll like them?"
"He ought to," said Boyle diplomatically.
"Hold Tomato hin carpet slippers!" whispered Jimmy to Hardin. "Ho, my heye!
⁠THE Margaret Ann swung at her moorings in the lagoon of Totulu off the long copra wharf, dipped ensign and fired a royal salute for the monarch of the little atoll-kingdom of which Totulu was the capital. ”

“ Boyle excitedly, as Tamatau’s whaleboat, propelled by six lusty queens, shot out from the private wharf.
"Yes’m," replied Hardin. "They do it for exercise. Keeps ’em reduced."
Mrs. Boyle looked sharply at the mate. "Ha!" she said. "Well, it ain’t ladylike. I thought they wore clothes?"
Jimmy, addressed thus abruptly, sputtered something about "the ’eat," and retired to the cabin to dispense the inevitable "ginnybeer" for Tamatau.
"She’s a startin’ of somefing already," he confided to second mate Wilkins as they hastily shared an extra bottle of beer. ”

“ He was wearing them like a Scotch thingumajig."
"Sporran, my dear," said Boyle, remembering Tamatau’s display of his latest gift, hung from the girdle of his pajamas.
"Besides," went on the lady, "the queens are very interesting. We have already discovered interests in common."
"I don’t see how you get along with them. You don’t know the language and few of them can even talk beach-English."
Mrs. Boyle regarded her husband with scorn.
"Women have no trouble understanding each other," she answered. ”

“ Boyle’s harangue had become an echo. "You no want work hany more?"
"Fahine —— fool," said Fuatina conclusively. "Suppose we go along now, I cook you fine supper."
⁠THE Margaret Ann came in "next day to a divided reception. The men, who had pre-empted the canoes, met the barkentine at the reef-passage and clambered aboard before the anchor was down. The women were ranged in a phalanx beneath the banner of their slogan.
"What’s all this fool business?" demanded Boyle of his supercargo, who was first to gain the deck.
"You can read hit, carn’t yer?" said Jimmy. "Votes fer Wimmin. ”

“ Well, Jimmy, you know she’s had the sufferaging bug bad for a year. She’s what we call back in the States a limelighter. Wants to stand in the spot all the time and thinks she’s a natural-born leader. ”

“ You ’as your dooties on deck, an’ w’en you ain’t got none you can pretend you ’as, an’ she none the wiser. But w’ot price me? My job’s below an’ she knows hit, an’ fair chivvies me hall hover the place till Hi’m barmy. Hi’m sick of hit, Hi tell yer. W’ot did she come haboard for hanyway, that’s w’ot Hi’d like to know? W’ot hif she his the skipper’s missis. Hi’ve got shares hin the ship myself."
"She came aboard, Jimmy, my son," replied the first mate," because she preferred the Margaret Ann to jail." ”

“ He watched with amusement the attempts of the island fahines, under the superintendence of the Woman’s Champion—late of Sydney—to stretch a banner of white cloth between the two flagpoles in front of the storehouse. Presently it was fixed and the group of militants stepped back to admire.
Jimmy and Fuatina got into their canoe and paddled into the neutral waters of the lagoon for a closer inspection.
VOTES FOR WOMEN
So read the challenge, somewhat marred in effect by the crowding of the last letter against the edge of the cloth. ”

“ Suppose ship he come along next time, she all right. Ship no come, she mate—die.
Jimmy glanced at Mrs. Boyle, but she had retreated to the veranda.
"’Ell," he said. "You think they mean hit. Sure will do?"
"Sure, Kimo! They plenty drunk, plenty mad."
"Lokke ’ere Fuatina," said Jimmy prying out some staples. "You climb um through here, you run along canoe and go fast to Uafotu, plenty quick you paddle. You speak Kapitani Boyle, you speak Tamatau, they come quick!" ”

“ The talk drifted to copra and shell and hawkbill turtle, and presently the monarch rose ponderously from the settee which creaked it’s relief.
"I go now," he said. "You come ashore soon, I show fahine all my present."
He puffed himself laboriously up the companionway, attended by Boyle, and puffed himself down the sideladder to his waiting whaleboat.
"A most agreeable person," said Mrs. ”