Although Mr. Kingley posted a notice where every one could see it, to
the effect that the man who had lost a black string tie at the banquet
could obtain the same by calling at the office and explaining how it
came to be in Ka-kee-ta's fist, no one appeared to claim the silk.
Indeed, it was not long before Mr. Kingley and a majority of the guests
thought that Tessie must have imagined that some one had tried to choke
her, in an attempt to steal the Tear of God.
"She was excited!" they said indulgently. "And no wonder! But it is
ridiculous to think that any one would try to steal the royal jewel,
when the queen was surrounded by friends and with her bodyguard and his
ax behind her."
"You can't tell friend from foe in the dark, and when you are with
friends you are not looking for enemies," Joe Cary told them bluntly. He
was perhaps the only one who believed that Tessie was telling the truth,
when she said that when the lights went out a strong arm had caught her
and pulled her from the table, and then Ka-kee-ta had snatched her and
thrust her behind him.
"He can see in the dark!" she insisted with a shiver. "Just like a
cat!"
"You dreamed it," young Mr. Bill said with a grin. "When the lights went
out you were scared, and screamed, and Ka-kee-ta pulled you behind him.
That's the way it was!"
"Was it?" But Tessie was not sure. The clasp of that strong arm had been
too real for any dream. She could still feel the pull of the fiber that
had held the Tear of God about her neck.
"No, it wasn't!" contradicted Joe. "You are dead right, Tessie. Some one
did try to take your jewel from you."
"How do you know? You were at the other end of the room!" Mr. Bill
regarded him with scorn, because Joe thought he knew so much when Mr.
Bill, who had been sitting right next to Tessie, knew so little.
"I know all right!" There was a confidence in Joe's voice which was
convincing. "I knew as soon as the fellow touched you, Tess, and I was
coming to you even before you screamed. Ask Norah Lee! I bumped against
her when I jumped up. You know when the lights went on I was at your
place!"
"That's true!" agreed Granny. "He was just beside me!"
Tessie looked frightened. Her lip quivered. "But why should any one want
to kidnap me?" she faltered. "I haven't done anything!" She looked at
Mr. Bill, but when he did not tell her, she turned to Joe.
"Yes, you have done something," Joe told her bluntly. "You've become
Queen of the Sunshine Islands." Trust Joe to find a reason. Joe always
had a reason. That was why Tessie had quarreled with him so often. She
usually hated his reason. "You told me yourself that Mr. Marvin said
there was a bunch of people, Sons of Sunshine they call themselves, who
want a native ruler. They don't want a white queen. I bet this kidnaper
was a Sunshine Son who wanted that royal jewel, and if he could get you
with it, he would shut you up until you consented to abdicate in favor
of a native!" There was a grim, triumphant smile on Joe's lips as he
elaborated his reason.
"Such rot!" Mr. Bill was thoroughly disgusted with Joe's reason. It was
too melodramatic to happen anywhere but on the moving picture screen.
"Oh, Joe!" Tessie whimpered and caught his arm. "Would any one do that?"
"A Son of Sunshine would!" declared Joe. "I say, Tessie, why do you want
to be the queen of those cannibal islands?" He sneered at the islands.
"Why--why I have to be," stammered Tessie, confused by the direct
question. "Uncle Pete left me the islands and made me the queen. I
can't help it, can I?" She appealed to Mr. Bill.
"Of course you can't!" He glared at Joe. How dared Joe insinuate that
Tessie could help it. "You can't throw away a kingdom. No one would!"
"Pooh!" sniffed Joe. "Half a dozen islands overrun with naked
cannibals!" It sounded as if Joe had a very small opinion of Tessie's
kingdom. "The first thing you know, they'll eat you," he prophesied
gloomily before he laughed. It was so ridiculous to think of any one,
even a hungry cannibal, eating little Tessie.
Tessie screamed. Mr. Bill promptly put his arm around her. He turned
fiercely to Joe.
"Look here, Cary!" he began furiously. "Mind your words when you talk to
the queen!"
"Queen!" Joe Cary actually laughed. "Queen!" he repeated.
Tessie pulled herself from Mr. Bill's protecting arm. How splendid Mr.
Bill was and how--"Joe Cary!" she gasped, pink with indignation.
"Cary!" exclaimed Mr. Bill, even more indignant than Tessie.
Joe's face sobered as he looked from Tessie to Mr. Bill.
"Pooh!" he said again. "What do kings and queens amount to now? They're
being knocked off their thrones pretty fast. Look at Russia and Germany!
And at the best, they were never anything but a fairy tale. Keep your
eyes on the other countries, on England and Italy and Spain, and some
day you'll see things happen there. People are learning that they can
pay too much for a figurehead and a pageant. An honest workingman is
worth all the kings in the world. You know that, Tess! At least you used
to know it. I told you. And just because your Uncle Pete was washed up
on the Sunshine Islands, and was able to stop the Sunshine king's
toothache the king adopted him and left him the islands. As if any one
had the right to will human beings to any man! The natives were fools to
accept him. You know they were! And as for your Uncle Pete, you'll be
wise if you don't inquire about his life on the islands. Filthy brute!"
Joe quite forgot himself as he talked about kings and queens.
"Why, Joe Cary!" Tessie could scarcely speak. But she could look, and
her eyes flashed fire at the man who dared to stand before her and call
her royal uncle names. What would Granny say? She was glad that Granny
hadn't heard him.
"Look here, Cary, you can't slander the dead!" exclaimed Mr. Bill
indignantly. "And keep your mouth shut about things you don't know," he
advised curtly.
"Know!" Joe repeated the word scornfully. "I bet I know more about the
Sunshine Islands than the Queen there!" He nodded at big-eyed Tessie.
"I've made it my business to know. Every one else has been so wrapped
up in the fact that Tess was a Queen that they haven't cared if her
kingdom was only half a dozen little islands inhabited by cannibals."
"They're not cannibals now!" declared Tessie.
"They were! Your Uncle Pete was almost eaten by them!"
"They've been civilized and Christianized!" insisted Tessie. "Uncle Bill
built a church. It has a corrugated tin roof, and when the sun shines on
it the natives think it's silver. The Home of the Silver God, they call
it. Ka-kee-ta told me!" She flashed an indignant glance at the scoffer.
"That shows how civilized and Christianized they are," laughed Joe. He
was determined to express his thoughts for at least once. "Your Uncle
Pete built a motion picture theater, too, Tess, and it saved him from a
revolution. But once a cannibal always a cannibal. It's in their blood,
and it will take more than one generation to get it out. I wish you'd
give up the job. You don't want those islands. You can't live on them!
Give them up!"
"Give them up!" Tessie could not believe her own pink ears.
"Give them up!" Mr. Bill echoed the words incredulously.
"You bet! You won't dare live there. The Sons of Sunshine won't let you,
and they're right. You don't belong there. Show your sense of truth and
right and give them up. Let the natives elect their own ruler. It's the
only fair way," begged Joe.
"I suppose you'd like me to go back to selling aluminum in the
Evergreen!" Tessie proved that she could be as scornful as she could be
sweet and shy. But her scorn did not make any impression on Joe.
"I would!" he declared. "I'd love to see you back there in your little
black dress earning your own way. And I'd love to have you to walk home
with again. And I'd love to go in to a dinner of Granny's boiled beef
and raisin pie again. I'd like to go back to where we were when you
heard you were a queen! Can't you see, Tess," he pleaded, "that there
isn't anything in this queen business any more? Come on and give it up!"
"You're a socialist!" stammered Mr. Bill, so amazed at such plain
speaking that he could do nothing but stammer. "You're a rank
anarchist!"
Joe tore his eyes from indignant Tessie to stammering Mr. Bill. "If you
think that a hatred of queens--white girl queens--for cannibal islands
is socialism then I am a socialist," he said boldly. "What do you know
about Tessie?" he demanded abruptly. "You never saw her until this
musical-comedy-queen business began."
This was so true that Mr. Bill and Tessie both blushed.
"Well, I see her now," Mr. Bill managed to say. "And I'll help her be a
Queen. The idea of asking any one to give up a kingdom! I never heard of
such an absurd thing in my life!" It was so absurd that he laughed.
"If she doesn't give it up I'll bet it will be taken from her,"
prophesied Joe. "The Sons of Sunshine are after her. And they are after
the Tear of God, too. You saw that gink on the porch the night Tess
heard she was a queen. I'll bet he was a Son of Sunshine! And if you
ever find anything about that man last night you'll find he was a
Sunshine Son too, or I'm a goat! The third time he may get to you, and
then you'll remember what I said," he told Tessie gloomily.
But Tessie had pulled herself together, and now she laughed at his
gloomy prophecies. She did not believe them. How could she when Mr.
Bill, who knew so much more of the world than Joe Cary, told her that
what Joe said was ridiculous. Just what you might expect from a rank
anarchist. But she stopped laughing when Joe looked straight into her
blue eyes and said very soberly, far more soberly than he had spoken
before: "But even if you are a fool, Tess, I'll stand by you. I'll help
you! You can always count on me!"
"Well, upon my word!" gasped Tessie, her eyes following him as he walked
away. "The idea of Joe Cary talking to me like that!"
"Yes, the very idea," agreed Mr. Bill. "But don't think of it another
minute! The fellow's cracked. I'll bet Dad doesn't know what a socialist
he is!"
"You wouldn't tell," begged Tessie in a panic, for if Joe lost his
position in the Evergreen what would he do? He hadn't inherited an
island kingdom and even if he had-- She shook her head. She couldn't
understand Joe.
"No, of course I shan't tell!" Mr. Bill spoke loftily, as if Tessie
should have known that he did not tell tales. "Give those fellows rope
enough and they hang themselves. He's so green with envy that he isn't a
king that he can't do anything but rant."
"I don't think it was that!" frowned honest little Tessie. "I don't
think Joe would ever want to be king of any island!"
"Try him!" advised Mr. Bill scornfully. "Just try him. I never knew a
socialist to keep on spouting socialistic rot after he had money to buy
him decent food and clothes and a bath. But don't let's talk about him!
I'm glad you're a queen. It's the most romantic thing I ever heard, and
I'm strong for romance. I used to think there wasn't any left in the
world." He smiled at Tessie, who looked the very flower of romance. "I'm
darned glad you're a queen!" he said fervently.
"I'm glad, too," murmured Tessie, quite ready to forget Joe Cary. "I
don't care what Joe Cary said! And I am going to try and be a good
queen and do my duty by my people! Be simple and honest, is what Madame
Cabot said."
"Of course you are! But what is there in this Sons of Sunshine
business?" curiously. "Anything?"
"I'm afraid there is!" A little frown broke the pretty curve of Tessie's
eyebrows. "It's true. Joe is right that some of the people want a native
ruler. They rebelled against Uncle Pete, but he kept them down. Now that
he is gone they don't want a white queen. They aren't the best people,
Ka-kee-ta said," she explained apologetically. "They're the--the lower
classes. And they haven't seen me! They don't know how I plan to help
them!"
"They'll adore you the minute they do see you!" declared Mr. Bill
unsteadily.
"Oh, I hope they will!" faltered blushing Tessie.
"Of course they will! Didn't I?" Mr. Bill caught her hand and squeezed
it hard.