Joe Cary's rude and reckless words had an effect, although perhaps not
the one he had hoped. But they did make Tessie think of something
besides Mr. Bill, her new frocks and her new pleasures. The interruption
of the Evergreen banquet did not bother her long, for that was a problem
for the store detective to solve. But Joe Cary made her realize that the
Sunshine Islands were more than a throne and a bank for their queen. It
was odd that, when Tessie returned to the Waloo, she should find Granny
reading one of the big books in which there was an entire chapter
devoted to "The Pearl of the Pacific--The Sunshine Islands." Granny
looked up from a picture of sea and palms when Tessie came in.
"Tessie," she began at once, "are you sure you're going to like being a
queen for a lot of naked cannibals?"
"Why, Granny!" Tessie stood still and stared at her. What did Granny
mean? Of course Joe Cary had been talking to her, and for a moment
Tessie hated him. She didn't care if he had been her only friend when
she was a salesgirl at the Evergreen. She quite forgot that he had taken
her to a moving-picture show once in two weeks. "What's the matter
now?" she asked impatiently. "Have people been complaining about
Ka-kee-ta again?" For there were people who had complained of Ka-kee-ta,
and it must be confessed that it was disconcerting to a timid woman, or
even a brave man, to walk down a dimly lighted corridor and find oneself
face to face with a bare-footed colored man, in loosely fitting blue
clothes; a man with a tattooed nose and frizzled hair stiffened with
cocoanut oil, and carrying a shining ax. Tessie herself would have
shrieked if she had come upon such a man in a dimly lighted corridor. As
it was, she often felt like screaming when she saw him, and just now,
after her talk with Joe, she was impatient. "What is it now, Granny?"
she wanted to know. A lot of her nervous impatience was in her voice as
she stood in front of Granny, and there was more nervous impatience in
her frowning little face.
Granny looked up and sighed as she saw the slim little creature in a
very modish frock and a very modish hat. Tessie was very, very different
from the shabby little girl in the cheap black cotton dress, but that
was no reason why Granny should sigh mournfully as she looked at her.
Surely Granny did not want Tessie to be the shabby little girl of those
old days!
"I was just wondering," Granny said meekly, "as I read this book if you
had learned to eat raw fish yet?"
An angry flush stained Tessie's face, and she stamped her high-heeled
shoe.
"No, I don't like raw fish!" she cried stormily. "And I don't ever
expect to like raw fish! Why should I? Can't I have somebody cook fish
for me?" she demanded haughtily.
"In the Sunshine Islands it's the custom to eat it raw," Granny said
very gently, for she could recognize the beginning of a tantrum as well
as any one. "And there isn't anything that's harder to change than a
custom. When I read about the food and some other things in this book,
and looked at a few of these pictures, I got to wondering how we are
going to like those islands and the customs the people have there. You
know, Tessie," she went on, when Tessie said never a word, but just
stood sulkily tapping the rug with the pointed toe of her shoe, "when
you came home from the Evergreen that day and told me about your Uncle
Pete and how he had died and made you a queen, I couldn't think of
anything but how wonderful it was. My boy a king! And my girl a queen!
And I pictured those Sunshine Islands like England and Italy, and
perhaps a little like the United States, even if the United States ain't
got crowned kings and queens. It was so wonderful that I was all puffed
up like bread sponge. But since we came to the Waloo, and I got so much
time, no washing or cooking to do, I've looked into some of these books
and talked to Ka-kee-ta as much as a body can talk to a critter that
don't know more than the rudiments of real language, and I can't find
that these islands are like any place I ever heard of. I don't know as
we're going to like them. The folks don't all wear clothes," she
confided to Tessie in a dubious whisper.
"I can teach them to wear clothes," Tessie said coldly. "I've talked to
Mr. Kingley, and he's going to send me some clothes from the Evergreen.
We're going to begin with bathing suits."
"Mr. Kingley's a real business man, ain't he? Always thinking of the
Evergreen!" Granny had to admire Mr. Kingley's ability to think of his
business at all times. She went on a bit sarcastically. "And is young
Mr. Bill going to take charge and open a branch in the islands? It won't
pay in your lifetime, Tessie. You mustn't count on it! It'll take more
than Mr. Kingley's say-so to put even bathing suits on folks that don't
wear anything but a bit of fringe around their waists. And it ain't only
clothes," she added mournfully. "It's white ants and centipedes and
snakes and sharks and----"
"For goodness sakes, Granny!" Tessie jumped when Granny spoke of sharks,
and she was almost at the end of her patience when there was a loud
thump on the door. "I do wish," exclaimed Tessie, glad of a legitimate
reason to let Granny see that she had reached the end of her patience,
"that Ka-kee-ta would learn to knock. I hate to hear him hit the door
with his old ax!"
"That's just what I've been telling you," began Granny. "You ain't going
to like the Sunshine Islands' way of doing things."
But Tessie did not listen to her. She walked to the door and threw it
wide open. "Ka-kee-ta," she began sternly, but instead of facing
Ka-kee-ta she looked at a fat man with a light, oh very light, hair, and
a big nose. "Oh," Tessie murmured feebly. "Oh!"
"Queen Teresa?" asked the stranger eagerly, although he knew very well
that she was Queen Teresa. "Of the Sunshine Islands?" He came into the
room and shut the door carefully behind him.
A great hope dashed into Tessie's mind. He was the special
representative from the Sunshine Islands, the man who was to escort her
to her kingdom in obedience to the orders in her Uncle Pete's last will
and testament. Of course he was the special representative. In spite of
the fact that he made Tessie think that he must be made of tubs, large
and small, neatly piled upon one another. He had an air of great
assurance and greater authority. He could tell her all about the islands
and that it would not be necessary for her to eat native food nor to
have Ka-kee-ta bang on the door with his ax. He would tell her
everything. He looked as full of information as a complete set of
encyclopedia. And when he spoke, she was sure he was the special
representative, for he said smilingly, ingratiatingly, "I have come to
talk to you about the Sunshine Islands."
"Is that so!" exclaimed the Queen of the Sunshine Islands. She looked
triumphantly at Granny. "Won't you sit down?" She hesitated in choosing
a chair for herself and at last took one which stood near Granny. After
she was seated in it she moved it even closer to Granny as if she wanted
her comfort or protection.
"You must think it is very romantic to be a queen," went on the tublike
man, still smiling pleasantly. "And it is romantic! I suppose you
picture your kingdom as another England or Spain or----"
"I don't," interrupted Granny. "Not any more. I might as well confess
that at first I did that very thing, but I've just read a few things in
these books about the Sunshine Islands, and I know now that they ain't a
bit like England or even Spain. I was just telling Tessie--the
queen--that when Ka-kee-ta knocked on the door with his ax."
"You are quite right!" He smiled at Granny and nodded his white thatched
head. "But I can tell you much more than you will find in any book. To
begin with, the pleasant parts of the islands are beautiful, very
beautiful. They are not large; you could crowd the half a dozen into the
state of Minnesota and have room to spare. But the climate! Ah, the
climate! It is perfect! The islands are south of Hawaii, you know, but
nearer the United States--nearer Mexico would be more correct--but it is
the same thing. They are coral islands with cocoanut palms and banana
and breadfruit trees. The villages are made up of palm leaf huts with a
larger hut on the largest island for the ruler."
"Isn't there any electric light or any gas or any city water?" asked
Granny, who could not believe that there was any place without those
three necessities.
"There is not. But there is a sky bluer than any sky you ever saw, and
the water in the lagoon is as clear as crystal and of a wonderful
blue-green color. The coral sand is so white that it makes your eyes
ache. The Sunshine Islands are rarely beautiful, but they are not
convenient. It would be safe to say that they have not a single
convenience," he insisted as Granny gasped and exclaimed:
"Not even in the king's palace?"
"Palace!" He laughed scornfully almost, as Joe Cary had laughed at kings
and palaces. "Palm-leaf huts," he explained. "And the people--you know
they are cannibals?" He looked at Tessie, as if he were vastly amused to
know that her people were cannibals.
"Not cannibals now," faltered Tessie, almost in tears to hear how unlike
her dreams her kingdom was. "Uncle Pete civilized them and showed them
how wrong it was to eat each other."
"Not all," corrected the tubular blond. "The last election showed that
one out of every two inhabitants was a conservative--a cannibal."
"Elections!" Tessie did not know that elections were held in the
Sunshine Islands, and she wondered vaguely if she were a democrat or a
republican. She knew she was not a conservative! if conservatives were
cannibals.
"The islands are really no place for a white woman, for a young and
beautiful white woman," the man said bluntly. He gazed at Tessie with
such open admiration that she moved impatiently and wished that he would
stop looking at her and look at Granny. "You can't live there, Miss
Gilfooly--is that the name? I know. It's out of the question. I've spent
months on Ta-ri-ha, that's the largest island, and I know what I'm
talking about when I say it is no place for a white woman. A white man
might keep the natives in hand if he were----"
"Big and strong and brutal," suggested Granny thoughtfully.