(eye-glasses), came riding by the village as I was walking up to
Vailima. He offered me a ride on his chief-horse and gave me his
chief-hand. I put my foot on the stirrup, and just as I jumped the horse
shied, and, as I had hold of the high-chief Loia, we both fell off into
the road _palasi_."
"Yes," I said, "you both fell off. That was very funny."
"_Palasi_!" he reiterated.
But here I looked doubtful. Pola repeated his word several times as
though the very sound ought to convey some idea to my bemuddled brain,
and then a bright idea struck him. I heard his bare feet pattering
swiftly down the stairs. He came flying back, still laughing, and laid a
heavy dictionary in my lap. I hastily turned the leaves, Pola questing
in each one like an excited little dog, till I found the definition of
his word, "to fall squash like a ripe fruit on the ground."
"_Palasi_!" he cried, triumphantly, when he saw I understood, making a
gesture downward with both hands, the while laughing heartily. "We both
fell off _palasi_!"
It was through Pola that I learned all the news of Tanugamanono. He
would curl up on the floor at my feet as I sat in my room sewing, and
pour forth an endless stream of village gossip. How Mata, the native
parson, had whipped his daughter for going to a picnic on Sunday and
drinking a glass of beer.
"Her father went whack! whack!" Pola illustrated the scene with gusto,
"and Maua cried, ah! ah! But the village says Mata is right, for we must
not let the white man's evil come near us."
"Evil?" I said; "what evil?"
"Drink," said Pola, solemnly.
Then he told how "the ladies of Tanugamanono" bought a pig of Mr. B., a
trader, each contributing a dollar until forty dollars were collected.
There was to be a grand feast among the ladies on account of the
choosing of a maid or _taupo_, the young girl who represents the village
on all state occasions. When the pig came it turned out to be an old
boar, so tough and rank it could not be eaten. The ladies were much
ashamed before their guests, and asked the white man for another pig,
but he only laughed at them. He had their money, so he did not care,
"That was very, very bad of him," I exclaimed, indignantly.
"It is the way of white people," said Pola, philosophically.
It was through my little chief that we learned of a bit of fine
hospitality. It seems that pigs were scarce in the village, so each
house-chief pledged himself to refrain from killing one of them for six
months. Any one breaking this rule agreed to give over his house to be
looted by the village.
Pola came up rather late one morning, and told me, hilariously, of the
fun they had had looting Tupuola's house.
"But Tupuola is a friend of ours," I said. "I don't like to hear of all
his belongings being scattered."
"It is all right," Pola explained. "Tupuola said to the village, 'Come
and loot. I have broken the law and I will pay the forfeit.'"
"How did he break the law?" I asked.
"When the high-chief Loia, your brother of the four eyes, stopped the
night at Tanugamanono, on his way to the shark fishing, he stayed with
Tupuola, so of course it was chiefly to kill a pig in his honor."
"But it was against the law. My brother would not have liked it, and
Tupuola must have felt badly to know his house was to be looted."
"He would have felt worse," said Pola, "to have acted unchiefly to a
friend."
We never would have known of the famine in Tanugamanono if it had not
been for Pola. The hurricane had blown off all the young nuts from the
cocoanut palms and the fruit from the breadfruit trees, while the taro
was not yet ripe. We passed the village daily. The chief was my
brother's dear friend; the girls often came up to decorate the place for
a dinner party, but we had no hint of any distress in the village.
One morning I gave Pola two large ship's biscuits from the pantry.
"Be not angry," said Pola, "but I prefer to carry these home."
"Eat them," I said, "and I will give you more."
Before leaving that night he came to remind me of this. I was swinging
in a hammock reading a novel when Pola came to kiss my hand and bid me
good night.
"_Love_," I said, "_Talofa_."
"_Soifua_," Pola replied, "may you sleep;" and then he added, "Be not
angry, but the biscuits----"
"Are you hungry?" I asked. "Didn't you have your dinner?"
"Oh, yes, plenty of pea-soupo" (a general name for anything in tins);
"but you said, in your high-chief kindness, that if I ate the two
biscuits you would give me more to take home."
"And you ate them?"
He hesitated a perceptible moment, and then said:
"Yes, I ate them."
He looked so glowing and sweet, leaning forward to beg a favor, that I
suddenly pulled him to me by his bare, brown shoulders for a kiss. He
fell against the hammock and two large round ship's biscuits slipped
from under his _lava-lava_.
"Oh, Pola!" I cried, reproachfully. It cut me to the heart that he
should lie to me.
He picked them up in silence, repressing the tears that stood in his big
black eyes, and turned to go. I felt there was something strange in
this, one of those mysterious Samoan affairs that had so often baffled
me.
"I will give you two more biscuits," I said, quietly, "if you will
explain why you told a wicked lie and pained the heart that loved you."
"Teuila," he cried, anxiously, "I love you. I would not pain your heart
for all the world. But they are starving in the village. My father, the
chief, divides the food, so that each child and old person and all shall
share alike, and today there was only green baked bananas, two for each,
and tonight when I return there will be again a division of one for each
member of the village. It seems hard that I should come here and eat and
eat, and my brother and my two little sisters, and the good Tumau also,
should have only one banana. So I thought I would say to you, 'Behold, I
have eaten the two biscuits,' and then you would give me two more and
that would be enough for one each to my two sisters and Tumau and my
brother, who is older than I."
That night my brother went down to the village and interviewed the
chief. It was all true, as Pola had said, only they had been too proud
to mention it. Mr. Stevenson sent bags of rice and kegs of beef to the
village, and gave them permission to dig for edible roots in our forest,
so they were able to tide over until the taro and yams were ripe.
Pola always spoke of Vailima as "our place," and Mr. Stevenson as "my
chief." I had given him a little brown pony that exactly matched his own
skin. A missionary, meeting him in the forest road as he was galloping
along like a young centaur, asked, "Who are you?"
"I," answered Pola, reining in his pony with a gallant air, "am one of
the Vailima men!"
He proved, however, that he considered himself a true Samoan by a
conversation we had together once when we were walking down to Apia. We
passed a new house where a number of half-caste carpenters were briskly
at work.
"See how clever these men are, Pola," I said, "building the white man's
house. When you get older perhaps I will have you taught carpentering,
that you may build houses and make money."
"Me?" asked Pola, surprised.
"Yes," I replied. "Don't you think that would be a good idea?"
"I am the son of a chief," said Pola.
"I know," I said, "that your highness is a very great personage, but all
the same it is good to know how to make money. Wouldn't you like to be a
carpenter?"
"No," said Pola, scornfully, adding, with a wave of his arm that took in
acres of breadfruit trees, banana groves, and taro patches, "Why should
I work? All this land belongs to me."
Once, when Pola had been particularly adorable, I told him, in a burst
of affection, that he could have anything in the world he wanted, only
begging him to name it.
He smiled, looked thoughtful for an instant, and then answered, that of
all things in the world, he would like ear-rings, like those the sailors
wear.
I bought him a pair the next time I went to town. Then, armed with a
cork and a needleful of white silk, I called Pola, and asked if he
wanted the ear-rings badly enough to endure the necessary operation.
He smiled and walked up to me.
"Now, this is going to hurt, Pola," I said.
He stood perfectly straight when I pushed the needle through his ear and
cut off a little piece of silk. I looked anxiously in his face as he
turned his head for me to pierce the other one. I was so nervous that my
hands trembled.
"Are you _sure_ it does not hurt, Pola, my pigeon?" I asked, and I have
never forgotten his answer.
"My father is a soldier," he said.
Pola's dress was a simple garment, a square of white muslin hemmed by
his adopted mother. Like all Samoans, he was naturally very clean, going
with the rest of the "Vailima men" to swim in the waterfall twice a day.
He would wash his hair in the juice of wild oranges, clean his teeth
with the inside husk of the cocoanut, and, putting on a fresh
_lava-lava_, would wash out the discarded one in the river, laying it
out in the sunshine to dry. He was always decorated with flowers in some
way--a necklace of jessamine buds, pointed red peppers, or the scarlet
fruit of the pandanas. Little white boys looked naked without their
clothes, but Pola in a strip of muslin, with his wreath of flowers, or
sea-shells, some ferns twisted about one ankle, perhaps, or a boar's
tusk fastened to his left arm with strands of horse-hair, looked
completely, even handsomely, dressed.
He was not too proud to lend a helping hand at any work going--setting
the table, polishing the floor of the hall or the brass handles of the
old cabinet, leading the horses to water, carrying pails for the
milkmen, helping the cook in the kitchen, the butler in the pantry, or
the cowboy in the fields; holding skeins of wool for Mr. Stevenson's
mother, or trotting beside the lady of the house, "Tamaitai," as they
all called her, carrying seeds or plants for her garden. When my brother
went out with a number of natives laden with surveying implements, Pola
only stopped long enough to beg for a cane-knife before he was leading
the party. If Mr. Stevenson called for his horse and started to town it
was always Pola who flew to open the gate for him, waving a "_Talofa_!"
and "Good luck to the traveling!"
The Samoans are not reserved, like the Indians, or haughty, like the
Arabs. They are a cheerful, lively people, who keenly enjoy a joke,
laughing at the slightest provocation. Pola bubbled over with fun, and
his voice could be heard chattering and singing gaily at any hour of the
day. He made up little verses about me, which he sang to the graceful
gestures of the Siva or native dance, showing unaffected delight when
commended. He cried out with joy and admiration when he first heard a
hand-organ, and was excitedly happy when allowed to turn the handle. I
gave him a box of tin soldiers, which he played with for hours in my
room. He would arrange them on the floor, talking earnestly to himself
in Samoan.
"These are brave brown men," he would mutter. "They are fighting for
Mata'afa. Boom! Boom! These are white men. They are fighting the
Samoans. Pouf!" And with a wave of his arm he knocked down a whole
battalion, with the scornful remark, "All white men are cowards."
After Mr. Stevenson's death so many of his Samoan friends begged for his
photograph that we sent to Sydney for a supply, which was soon
exhausted. One afternoon Pola came in and remarked, in a very hurt and
aggrieved manner, that he had been neglected in the way of photographs.
"But your father, the chief, has a large fine one."
"True," said Pola. "But that is not mine. I have the box presented to me
by your high-chief goodness. It has a little cover, and there I wish to
put the sun-shadow of Tusitala, the beloved chief whom we all revere,
but I more than the others because he was the head of my clan."
"To be sure," I said, and looked about for a photograph. I found a
picture cut from a weekly paper, one I remember that Mr. Stevenson
himself had particularly disliked. He would have been pleased had he
seen the scornful way Pola threw the picture on the floor.
"I will not have that!" he cried. "It is pig-faced. It is not the shadow
of our chief." He leaned against the door and wept.
"I have nothing else, Pola," I protested. "Truly, if I had another
picture of Tusitala I would give it to you."
He brightened up at once. "There is the one in the smoking-room," he
said, "where he walks back and forth. That pleases me, for it looks like
him." He referred to an oil painting of Mr. Stevenson by Sargent. I
explained that I could not give him that. "Then I will take the round
one," he said, "of tin." This last was the bronze _bas-relief_ by St.
Gaudens. I must have laughed involuntarily, for he went out deeply hurt.
Hearing a strange noise in the hall an hour or so later, I opened the
door, and discovered Pola lying on his face, weeping bitterly.
"What _are_ you crying about?" I asked.
"The shadow, the shadow," he sobbed. "I want the sun-shadow of
Tusitala."
I knocked at my mother's door across the hall, and at the sight of that
tear-stained face her heart melted, and he was given the last photograph
we had, which he wrapped in a banana-leaf, tying it carefully with a
ribbon of grass.
We left Samoa after Mr. Stevenson's death, staying away for more than a
year. Pola wrote me letters by every mail in a large round hand, but
they were too conventional to bear any impress of his mind. He referred
to our regretted separation, exhorting me to stand fast in the
high-chief will of the Lord, and, with his love to each member of the
family, mentioned by name and title, he prayed that I might live long,
sleep well, and not forget Pola, my unworthy servant.
When we returned to Samoa we were up at dawn, on shipboard, watching the
horizon for the first faint cloud that floats above the island of Upulu.
Already the familiar perfume came floating over the waters--that sweet
blending of many odors, of cocoanut-oil and baking breadfruit, of
jessamine and gardenia. It smelt of home to us, leaning over the rail
and watching. First a cloud, then a shadow growing more and more
distinct until we saw the outline of the island. Then, as we drew
nearer, the deep purple of the distant hills, the green of the rich
forests, and the silvery ribbons where the waterfalls reflect the
sunshine.
Among the fleet of boats skimming out to meet us was one far ahead of
the others, a lone canoe propelled by a woman, with a single figure
standing in the prow. As the steamer drew near I made out the figure of
Pola, dressed in wreaths and flowers in honor of my return. As the
anchor went down in the bay of Apia and the custom-house officer started
to board, I called out, begging him to let the child come on first. He
drew aside. The canoe shot up to the gangway, and Pola, all in his
finery of fresh flowers, ran up the gangway and stepped forth on the
deck. The passengers drew back before the strange little figure, but he
was too intent upon finding me to notice them.
"Teuila!" he cried, joyfully, with the tears rolling down his cheeks. I
went forward to meet him, and, kneeling on the deck, caught him in my
arms.
LOVE AND ADVERTISING
BY
RICHARD WALTON TULLY
Reprinted from _The Cosmopolitan Magazine_ of April, 1906 by permission
I DO NOT demand," said Mr. Pepper, "I simply suggest a change. If you
wish me to resign"--his self-deprecatory manner bespoke an impossible
supposition--"very well. But, if you see fit to find me a new
assistant----" He paused, with an interrogatory cough.
It was the senior partner who answered, "We shall consider the matter."
The advertising manager's lean face took on an expression of
satisfaction. He bowed and disappeared through the door.
Young Kaufmann, the junior partner, smiled covertly. But the elder man's
face bespoke keen disappointment. For it must be explained that Mr.
Pepper's simple announcement bore vitally upon the only dissension that
had ever visited the firm of Kaufmann & Houghton during the thirty years
of its existence.
In 1875, when John Houghton, fresh from college, had come to New York to
find his fortune, the elder Kaufmann had been a candy manufacturer with
a modest trade on the East Side. Young Houghton had taken the agency of
a glucose firm. The disposal of this product had brought the two
together, with the result that a partnership had been formed to carry
on a wholesale confectionery business. Success in this venture had led
to new and more profitable fields--the chewing-gum trade.
The rise to wealth of these two was the result of the careful plodding
of the German workman, who kept the "K. & H." products up to an
unvarying standard, joined with the other's energy and acumen in
marketing the output. And this mutual relation had been disturbed by but
one difference. When Houghton was disposed to consider a college man for
a vacancy, Kaufmann had always been ready with his "practical man dot
has vorked hiss vay." And each time, in respect to his wishes, Houghton
had given in, reflecting that perhaps (as Kaufmann said) it had been
that he, himself, was a good business man in spite of his college
training, not because of it; and, after all, college ideals had sunk
since _his_ time. And the college applicant had been sent away.
Young Johann Kaufmann graduated from grammar school. Houghton suggested
high school and college.
"Vat? Nein!" said the elder Kaufmann. "I show him how better the gum to
make."
And he did. He put on an apron as of yore and started his son under his
personal supervision in the washing-room. He took off his apron when
Johann knew all about handling chicle products, from importing-bag to
tin-foil wrapper. Then he died.
And this year troublesome conditions had come on. The Consolidated
Pepsin people were cutting in severely. Orders for the great specialty
of K. & H.--"Old Tulu"--had fallen. Something had to be done.
Houghton, now senior partner, had proposed, and young Kaufmann agreed,
that an advertising expert be secured. But the agreement ended there.
For the first words of the junior partner showed Houghton that the
spirit of the father was still sitting at that desk opposite, and
smiling the same fat, phlegmatic smile at his supposed weakness for
"dose college bitzness."
They had compromised upon Mr. Pepper, secured from Simpkins' Practical
Advertising School. But at the end of six months, Pepper's so-called
"follow-up campaign" had failed to meet materially the steady inroads of
the western men. He had explained that it was the result of his need of
an assistant. It was determined to give him one.
Then, one night as he sat in his library, John Houghton had looked into
a pair of blue eyes and promised to "give Tom Brainard the chance." In
consequence he had had his hair tousled, been given a resounding kiss
and a crushing hug from the young lady on his knees. For Dorothy
Houghton, despite her nineteen years, still claimed that privilege from
her father.
In that way, for the first time, a college man had come into the employ
of K. & H., and been made the assistant of Mr. Pepper at the salary he
demanded--"any old thing to start the ball rolling."
And now had come the information that the senior partner's long-desired
experiment had ended in failure.
Young Kaufmann turned to his work with the air of one who has given a
child its own way and seen it come to grief.
"I--I suppose," Houghton said slowly, "we'll have to let Brainard go."
And then a peculiar thing happened. Through the open window, floating in
the summer air, he seemed to see a familiar figure. It was dressed in
fluffy white, and carried a parasol over its shoulders. It fluttered
calmly in, seated itself on the sill, and gazed at him with blue eyes
that were serious, reproachful.
"Daddy!" it said, and it brushed away a wisp of hair by its ear--just as
another one, long ago, had used to. "Daddy!" it faltered. "Why did I ask
you to give him the place, if it wasn't because--because----"
The spell was broken by Kaufmann's voice. "Whatefer you do, I am
sooted," he was saying. It might have been his father. "But if w'at
Pepper says about Brainard----"
The senior partner straightened up and pushed a button. "Yes. But We
haven't heard what Brainard says about Pepper."
Several moments later Tom Brainard entered. Medium-sized and muscular,
he was dressed in a loose-fitting suit that by its very cut told his
training. He stood between them as Mr. Pepper had done, but there was
nothing of the other's ingratiating deference in his level look.
"Sit down, Brainard," said Houghton. The newcomer did so, and the senior
partner marked an attitude of laziness and indifference.
Houghton became stern. "Brainard," he began, "I gave you a chance with
us because----" He paused.
The other colored. "I had hoped to make good without that."
"But this morning Mr. Pepper----"
"Said we couldn't get along together. That's true."
"Ah! You admit!" It was Kaufmann.
"Yes."
There was a pause. Then Houghton spoke. "I can't tell you how much this
disappoints me, Brainard. The fact is, for years I have tried to shut my
eyes to the development of college training. In my time there was not
the call for practicality that there is today. Yet it seems to me that
the training in our colleges has grown less and less practical. Why do
the colleges turn out men who spend their time in personal gossip over
sport or trivialities?"
"You remember that the King of Spain--or was it Cambodia--puzzled his
wise men for a year as to why a fish, when dropped into a full pail of
water, didn't make it overflow."
"What's that got to do with it?"
"Because I must answer as the king did: It's not so--the pail _does_
overflow. They hadn't thought to try it."
"You mean that I am wrong."
"Yes. Are you sure your gossips were 'college men'?"
"Ah!" Houghton made a gesture to his partner, who was about to speak.
"Then let us commence at the root of the matter. Mr. Kaufmann and I have
often discussed the subject. In this case you are the one who has 'tried
it.' Suppose you explain our mistake."
"I'd be glad to do that," said Brainard, "because I've heard a lot of
that talk."
"Well?"
"Well--of course when I say 'college man' I mean college graduate."
"Why?"
"If a kitten crawls into an oven, is it a biscuit?"
There was an earnestness that robbed the question of any flippancy.
Houghton laughed. "No!"
"If a dub goes into college and gets flunked out in a month, is he a
college man?"
"Hardly."
"Oh, but he calls himself one. He goes to Podunk all decorated up in
geraniums and the rest of his life is a 'college man.' I'm not talking
about him or the man who comes to college to learn to mix
cocktails--inside. He may last to the junior year. I'm talking about the
graduate--they're only about a tenth of the college. But they're the
finished product. Mr. Kaufmann, you wouldn't try to sell gum that had
only gone as far as the rolling-room, would you?"
"W'at--me?"
"Would you?"
"No." The junior partner was puzzled.
"That's because you want it to go through all the processes. Well, let's
talk only about the boy who has gone all the way through the man
factory."
Houghton nodded. "That's fair."
"The trouble is, people don't do that. They persist in butting into the
college world, jerking out some sophomore celebration, and saying, 'What
use is this silly thing in the real world?'"
"Well, aren't they right?"
"No. That's just the point. The college world is a mimic world--and your
lifetime is just four years. The sophomore celebration is a practical
thing there; perhaps it's teaching loyalty--that generally comes first.
That's your college rolling-room. But the graduate--he's learned to do
_something_ well. I never knew a college man who wasn't at least
responsible."
"But----"
"But here's the trouble: after selecting say two hundred fellows out of
an entering bunch of six hundred, and developing the thing each is best
fitted for, _father_ steps in and the boy who would have made a
first-class professor is put into business and blamed for being
impractical. The fellow who has been handling thousands of dollars in
college management and running twenty assistants--the man who could have
taken the place--has no father to give him the boost necessary, and the
other man's failure has queered his chances. He has to go to work as a
mere clerk under a man--excuse me, I don't want to do any knocking."
"You think the whole trouble is caused by misdirected nepotism."
"Yes."
"Ah----" It was young Kaufmann again. "But you said that you were
trained in advertising on your college paper."