said; "it is more than I
am fit for to be Chief Justice of Vailima."--Lauilo is steward. Both
these are excellent servants; we gave a luncheon party when we buried
the Samoan bones, and I assure you all was in good style, yet we never
interfered. The food was good, the wine and dishes went round as by
mechanism.--Steward's assistant and washman, Arrick, a New Hebridee
black boy, hired from the German firm; not so ugly as most, but not
pretty neither; not so dull as his sort are, but not quite a Crichton.
When he came first, he ate so much of our good food that he got a
prominent belly. Kitchen assistant, Tomas (Thomas in English), a Fiji
man, very tall and handsome, moving like a marionette with sudden
bounds, and rolling his eyes with sudden effort.--Washerwoman and
precentor, Helen, Tomas's wife. This is our weak point; we are ashamed
of Helen; the cook-house blushes for her; they murmur there at her
presence. She seems all right; she is not a bad-looking, strapping
wench, seems chaste, is industrious, has an excellent taste in
hymns--you should have heard her read one aloud the other day, she
marked the rhythm with so much gloating, dissenter sentiment. What is
wrong, then? says you. Low in your ear--and don't let the papers get
hold of it--she is of no family. None, they say; literally a common
woman. Of course, we have out-islanders, who _may_ be villeins; but we
give them the benefit of the doubt, which is impossible with Helen of
Vailima; our blot, our pitted speck. The pitted speck I have said is our
precentor. It is always a woman who starts Samoan song; the men who sing
second do not enter for a bar or two. Poor, dear Faauma, the unchaste,
the extruded Eve of our Paradise, knew only two hymns; but Helen seems
to know the whole repertory, and the morning prayers go far more lively
in consequence.--Lafaele, provost of the cattle. The cattle are Jack, my
horse, quite converted, my wife rides him now, and he is as steady as a
doctor's cob; Tifaga Jack, a circus horse, my mother's piebald, bought
from a passing circus; Belle's mare, now in childbed or next door,
confound the slut! Musu--amusingly translated the other day "don't want
to," literally cross, but always in the sense of stubbornness and
resistance--my wife's little dark-brown mare, with a white star on her
forehead, whom I have been riding of late to steady her--she has no
vices, but is unused, skittish and uneasy, and wants a lot of attention
and humour