The Boy’s Pa Becomes King Over the Negroes—Pa Shows the Natives
How to Dig Wells—Pa Teaches the Natives to Become Soldiers—The
Boy Uses a Dozen Nigger Chasers and Some Roman Candles—The Boy,
His Pa and the Natives Assist at the 4th of July Celebration.
This being a king over a few thousand negroes, the position Pa holds,
with the regular king of the tribe reduced to the occupation of
interpreter to the white king, has its drawbacks, and Pa is getting
pretty sick of it, the cowboy that it with us is discouraged, and I have
no one to play with but some coons who never cared for anything but to
feast on human flesh, sleep and fight among themselves, so Pa is
arranging to skip out some morning with the airship when we get our
hands on the gold and diamonds this tribe have hidden around the camp.
But in the meantime we are educating these Africans into the methods of
civilization.
Pa has issued an edict that the eating of human flesh must cease, and he
has explained to them that the Great Spirit will have it in for any
person that kills except in self defense, and that all who are cannibals
will never get to Heaven, and the whole tribe has sworn off on eating
the bodies of human beings, and Pa has taught them the way to broil a
beef steak, and they can’t get enough of it. They never knew what it was
to eat the flesh of cattle, but just raised cattle for the hides, and to
sell at the Railroad stations, but they never knew what the white buyers
did with the cattle.
Pa has showed them how to dig wells, and get good water to drink,
instead of drinking surface water and liquor made out of some kind of
berries, that makes you drunk to smell of it.
The cowboy has got a buffalo trained to ride and a zebra that acts like
a regular cow pony of the plains.
The cowboy came near to getting us in trouble by getting drunk on the
berry juice. He got on the zebra with his lariat rope and put the spurs
to the animal and rode through the camp and threw his rope over the old
ex-king and tightened it up around his neck, just to show what he could
do, and the zebra ran away and dragged the king through the chaparral
and came near killing him, but Pa explained to the old king that the
cowboy was the agent of the Great Spirit, and was trying out the king to
see if he had patience, and could take a joke without letting his angry
passions rise, and that if he could and could smile at adversity, he
would be looked upon as one of the elect.
[Illustration: Pa Explained to the Old King That the Cowboy Was the
Agent of the Great Spirit.]
Pa told him that often King Edward, Emperor William and the Czar of
Russia were roped and dragged around by the neck, and they enjoyed it.
Pa’s diplomatic talk to the negro king so impressed him that he wanted
the cowboy to rope Pa, and drag him some, but Pa pointed his finger to
the sky and said he was so good that no rope could touch him. Gee, but
those niggers are easy marks.
Pa and the cowboy have been training the male members of the tribe in
the military drill, and we have got eight Companies that can march by
fours and in platoons, and come into line just like soldiers, and they
are proud of what they can do, but they only use clubs for guns, though
Pa has promised them that when he gets money enough he will buy
Winchesters for the whole army, and we will go and wipe out a tribe
about twenty miles away, and take all their gold and diamonds, and they
are going to dig up their gold and diamonds and give them to Pa to buy
guns. That is about when we will skip out for the coast and sail for
Paris and New York.
I suppose I ought to be killed, but I couldn’t help having some fun with
Pa’s colored troops. One night Pa had brought them into line, after
drilling them, and had made them break ranks and sit down around the big
camp fire while the women served a barbecue banquet.
All day the women had been cooking an ox and some pigs over a big fire,
under Pa’s supervision, cause Pa used to be a soldier and a politician
and had superintended political barbecues lots of times, and he had the
meat cooked so nice that wild animals had come near camp to smell of the
barbecue, and Pa’s soldiers sat there watering at the mouth, and
thinking how much better oxen and pigs were for food than human beings,
and Pa felt that he had made a big triumph for civilization, and that
his name would be handed down to future generations with the names of
Stanley, Livingston and Roosevelt.
The negroes were resting around the fire, talking over the day’s
drilling, and how, when they got the guns Pa was going to buy for them,
they would go on the war path, when the women began to bring the food,
the meat cut up in chunks, and sweet potatoes on big leaves and straw
mats, and all began to eat like wild animals. It was too peaceful a
scene for me to enjoy, so I went to a knapsack that I brought along from
Paris, and got out my fireworks, which I always carry along for
emergencies.
I got about a dozen nigger chasers and some Roman candles, and told the
cowboy I was going to have some fun scaring Pa’s troops, to see if they
were brave enough to fight an enemy.
[Illustration: Told the Cowboy I Was Going to Have Some Fun Scarring
Pa’s Troops.]
The cowboy had been drinking some berry juice and he said he would
assist at the Fourth of July celebration by taking his Winchester and
firing at some of the jackals and hyenas that had been attracted by the
barbecue smell, just as I touched off my fireworks.
Well, it was a crime to do it, but what is a boy going to do when he is
away off in a strange country and he has to create his own fun.
Well, just as the troops had got filled up with the meal, and the women
who had served the banquet had sat down with the colored soldiers to eat
what was left, and everybody was laughing, and Pa stood up by a tree in
the light of the fire, like a fat statue, patting himself on the back
and thinking he was the greatest man since Julius Caeser, I got a coal
of fire and touched off my nigger chasers and pointed them towards the
crowd sitting around the fire, and touched off a pinwheel I had fastened
to a tree by a thorn, and opened up my battery of Roman candles,
pointing them at Pa and the ex-king, who were the only ones standing up,
and the cowboy cut loose with the Winchester at the wild animals, with a
cowboy yell such as they give when they are shooting up a town out west.
O my, O my! I hope I may live to see another such a circus some day, but
I guess not, for if Pa does not kill me the niggers will, if they ever
come back. Those nigger chasers started the stampede. You know how
nigger chasers such as boys use in America, rush around in every
direction spitting fire, and acting like crazy snakes. Well, they went
into that crowd like pizen, run up the legs of the men, and chased the
women, and there was a stampede for fair. Men and women fell over each
other, clawed hair and got on their knees and said their “now I lay me,”
dodged the nigger chasers, and when they got away from one chaser
another one would meet them and run up their frames and jump off and go
for another and there was the scardest bunch of negroes that ever danced
a war dance, and when the balls from the Roman candles began to strike
all around Pa and the old king, and the pinwheel began to revolve, and
spatter out different colored lights, and the cowboy’s Winchester
boomed, and the wounded jackals howled, and a lion that got pretty near
the camp let out a roar that shook the earth the whole crowd made for
the woods and I touched off a rocket and let it go into the crowd there
was a breaking of brush and a yelling in the negro dialect, and all that
was left around the campfire was Pa and the cowboy and your little
Hennery.
Pa knew what was the trouble. He knew it was his little boy that created
the disturbance. “They’re off” says I, walking up to Pa, and putting my
arm around him. “That scarce pays me for all I have suffered since I
came to Africa on this fool expedition,” said the cowboy, as he picked
up a piece of roast pig and began to gnaw it. “Hennery,” says Pa,
picking up a club, “You have stampeded the noblest army in Africa, and
broken up a tribe that were my subjects, and left me a white king with
nothing to king it over; you have broken up the whole show and I must
proceed to kill you.”
I dodged and gave Pa the laugh, and told him his tribe would be back in
the morning, and he could make up a story that the Great Spirit had
become offended at the tribe, and turned loose the elements on them, and
Pa said, “Good idea, Hennery,” and we climbed trees to sleep while the
hyenas came into camp and ate up the remains of the banquet. Pa said,
“Hennery, you always raise hades on your watch, but I fear you have
overdone it this time,” and I said to Pa, “You wait till daylight and
the whole bunch will be back here worshipping you because they think you
are a baldheaded God, see?” and Pa said, “Mebby, boy, mebby so.”
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