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The Meanness Of Rosy
by
“The population was there to meet ’em, and even the children looked hungry. Anybody could see that having company drop in for dinner was right to their taste. There was a great chair arrangement in front of the temple, and on it was the fattest, ugliest, old liver- colored woman that Julius ever see. She was rigged up regardless, with a tooth necklace and similar jewelry; and it turned out that she was the queen of the bunch. Most of them island tribes have chiefs, but this district was strong for woman suffrage.
“Well, the visitors had made a hit, but Rosy’s photographs made a bigger one. The queen and the head men of the village pawed over ’em and compared ’em with the originals and powwowed like a sewing circle. Then they called up the Kanaka sailor, and he preached witchcraft and hoodoos to beat the cars, lying as only a feller that knows the plates are warming for him on the back of the stove can lie. Finally the queen wanted to know if the ‘long pigs’ could make a witch picture of HER.
“‘Tell ‘er yes,’ yells George, when the question was translated to him. ‘Tell ‘er we’re picture-makers by special app’intment to the Queen and the Prince of Wales. Tell ‘er we’ll make ‘er look like the sweetest old chocolate drop in the taffy-shop. Only be sure and say we must ‘ave a day or so to work the spells and put on the kibosh.’
“So ’twas settled, and dinner was put off for that night, anyhow. And the next day being sunny, Rosy took the queen’s picture. ‘Twas an awful strain on the camera, but it stood it fine; and the photographs he printed up that afternoon was the most horrible collection of mince-pie dreams that ever a sane man run afoul of. Rosy used one of the grass huts for a dark room; and while he was developing them plates, they could hear him screaming from sheer fright at being shut up alone with ’em in the dark.
“But her majesty thought they was lovely, and set and grinned proud at ’em for hours at a stretch. And the wizards was untied and fed up and given the best house in town to live in. And Cap’n George and Julius and the cook got to feeling so cheerful and happy that they begun to kick Rosy again, just out of habit. And so it went on for three days.
“Then comes the Kanaka interpreter–grinning kind of foolish.
“‘Cappy,’ says he, ‘queen, she likes you. She likes you much lot.’
“‘Well,’ says the skipper, modest, ‘she’d ought to. She don’t see a man like me every day. She ain’t the first woman,’ he says.
“‘She like all you gentlemen,’ says the Kanaka. ‘She say she want witch husband. One of you got marry her.”
“‘HEY?’ yells all hands, setting up.
“‘Yes, sir. She no care which one, but one white man must marry her to-morrow. Else we all go chop plenty quick.’
“‘Chop’ is Kanaka English for ‘eat.’ There wa’n’t no need for the boy to explain.
“Then there was times. They come pretty nigh to a fight, because Teunis and Jule argued that the skipper, being such a ladies’ man, was the natural-born choice. Just as things was the warmest; Cap’n George had an idea.
“‘ROSY!’ says he.
“‘Hey?’ says the others. Then, ‘Rosy? Why, of course, Rosy’s the man.’
“But Rosy wa’n’t agreeable. Julius said he never see such a stubborn mule in his life. They tried every reasonable way they could to convince him, pounding him on the head and the like of that, but ’twas no go.
“‘I got a wife already,’ he says, whimpering. ‘And, besides, cap’n, there wouldn’t be such a contrast in looks between you and her as there would with me.’