I
Looking gloriously bored, Miss Miami Mouth gaped up into the boughs of
a giant silk-cotton-tree. In the lethargic noontide nothing stirred:
all was so still, indeed, that the sound of someone snoring was clearly
audible among the cane-fields far away.
“After dose yams an’ pods an’ de white falernum, I dats way sleepy
too,” she murmured, fixing heavy, somnolent, eyes upon the prospect
that lay before her.
Through the sun-tinged greenery shone the sea, like a floor of silver
glass strewn with white sails.
Somewhere out there, fishing, must be her boy, Bamboo!
And, inconsequently, her thoughts wandered from the numerous
shark-casualties of late to the mundane proclivities of her mother;
for to quit the little village of Mediavilla for the capital was that
dame’s fixed obsession.
Leave Mediavilla, leave Bamboo! The young negress fetched a sigh.
In what, she reflected, way would the family gain by _entering
Society_, and how did one enter it, at all? There would be a gathering,
doubtless, of the elect (probably armed), since the best Society is
exclusive, and difficult to enter. And then? Did one burrow? Or charge?
She had sometimes heard it said that people “pushed” ... and closing
her eyes, Miss Miami Mouth sought to picture her parents, assisted by
her small sister, Edna, and her brother, Charlie, forcing their way,
perspiring, but triumphant, into the highest social circles of the city
of Cuna-Cuna.
Across the dark savannah country the city lay, one of the chief
alluring cities of the world: The Celestial city of Cuna-Cuna,
Cuna, city of Mimosa, Cuna, city of Arches, Queen of the Tropics,
Paradise--almost invariably travellers referred to it like that.
Oh, everything must be fantastic there, where even the very pickneys
put on clothes! And Miss Miami Mouth glanced fondly down at her own
plump little person, nude, but for a girdle of creepers that she would
gather freshly twice a day.
“It would be a shame, sh’o, to cover it,” she murmured drowsily,
caressing her body; and moved to a sudden spasm of laughter, she
tittered: “No! really. De ideah!”