kind of choking. "If it wasn't for
these damn boils I should never have parted with her or the station."
Then after another nip he takes his bag of money, and calls out to the
Kanakas at the porch to carry his two chests down to the boat that was
laying there ready to take him aboard. He ups as though to kiss the girl
good-by, but she sprang back from him, as fierce as she had been with
me--fiercer, I guess; and when he caught her she turned away her head
like she hated him. Then he swore and stumbled out of the house without
another word or anything, while me and the girl stood side by side, both
of us in our different ways deserted, and slung together by the fate of
things. She didn't fight this time when I made free with her again, but
began to sob like her heart would break, while I squeezed and cuddled
her and watched the sinking topsails of the Ransom.

* * * * *

Women are always alike at bottom; it is only men that are different. A
bit of finery would make Rosie happy for a week. Her hair was an
everlasting job, so was her skin, which she kept out of the sun and
rubbed down very careful with oil. She took walks to see how the other
women wore the single bushy garment that they do in the Gilberts, the
fashion varying from time to time: now it is swung very jaunty from side
to side, now it's low and now it's high, and sometimes it's thick and
sometimes it's thin, and sometimes the modest-and-quiet is the dressy
way of it. She took care of the house very nice, and what few clothes
and things we had were arranged most tidy in three chests with bell
locks. I never hear a little bell ting-a-ling to-day but what it brings
those days back to me, with her so busy at our funny housekeeping. When
I coasted around the island, trading, she 'ud stay behind and guard the
place like a bulldog, and never took a thing except a little soap or
tobacco or maybe a tin of meat for her Pa, a nosing old gentleman
dressed in a mat, who always bobbed up when I was out of the way, being
discouraged at other times from living and dying with us.

Yes, I got very fond of her--loved her, you might call it, for all she
was a little savage, and ate squid, and carried a shark-tooth dagger
against any of the girls that might show a fancy for me. In time I
taught her to play cribbage and checkers and dominoes, so that at night
we would sit very sociable under the lamp, she and I, with the surf
groaning on the outer