olo, Mitaele, Sosimo, Iopu, Sina, Misifolo, and myself, all sick
in bed at the same time; and was not that a pretty dish to set before
the king! The big hall of the new house having no furniture, the sick
pitched their tents in it,--I mean their mosquito-nets,--like a military
camp. The Tamaitai and your mother went about looking after them, and
managed to get us something to eat. Henry, the good boy! though he was
getting it himself, did housework, and went round at night from one
mosquito-net to another, praying with the sick. Sina, too, was as good
as gold, and helped us greatly. We shall always like her better. All the
time--I do not know how they managed--your mother found the time to come
and write for me; and for three days, as I had my old trouble on, and
had to play dumb man, I dictated a novel in the deaf-and-dumb alphabet.
But now we are all recovered, and getting to feel quite fit. A new
paddock has been made; the wires come right up to the top of the hill,
pass within twenty yards of the big clump of flowers (if you remember
that) and by the end of the pineapple patch. The Tamaitai and your
mother and I all sleep in the upper story of the new house; Uncle Lloyd
is alone in the workman's cottage; and there is nobody at all at night
in the old house, but ants and cats and mosquitoes. The whole inside of
the new house is varnished. It is a beautiful golden-brown by day, and
in lamplight all black and sparkle. In the corner of the hall the new
safe is built in, and looks as if it had millions of pounds in it; but I
do not think there is much more than twenty dollars and a spoon or two;
so the man that opens it will have a great deal of trouble for nothing.
Our great fear is lest we should forget how to open it; but it will look
just as well if we can't. Poor Misifolo--you remember the thin boy, do
you not?--had a desperate attack of influenza; and he was in a great
taking. You would not like to be very sick in some savage place in the
islands, and have only the savages to doctor you? Well, that was just
the way he felt. "It is all very well," he thought, "to let these
childish white people doctor a sore foot or a toothache, but this is
serious--I might die of this! For goodness' sake let me get away into a
draughty native house, where I can lie in cold gravel, eat green
bananas, and have a real grown-up, tattooed man to raise spirits and say
charms over me." A day or two we kept him quiet, and got him much
better