"Do you know," said my room-mate on the night before we reached
Jamaica, "that that four-fifty you paid me for those waists just about
covers my tips."
"Tips?" I repeated innocently. "What are tips?"
She gave me a long, amazed look, her mouth wide-open.
"Good heavens!" at last she said, "where _have_ you lived all of your
life?"
"In Quebec," I said honestly.
"And you never heard of tips--people giving tips to waiters and
servants?"
I grew uncomfortably red under her amused and amazed glance. In the
seven days of that voyage my own extraordinary ignorance had been daily
brought home to me. I now said lamely:
"Well, we had only one servant that I can ever remember, a woman named
Sung-Sung whom papa brought from China; but she was more like one of
our family, a sort of slave. We never gave her tips, or whatever you
call it."
Did I not know, pursued my American friend, that people gave extra
money--that is, "tips"--to waiters at restaurants and hotels when they
got through eating a meal?
I told her crossly and truthfully that I had never been in a hotel or
restaurant in all my life. She threw up her hands, and pronounced me
a vast object of pity. She then fully enlightened me as to the exact
meaning of the word "tips," and left me to calculate painfully upon a
bit of paper the division of two dollars and fifty cents among five
people; to wit, stewardesses, cabin boys, waiters, etc.
I didn't tell her that that was the last of my money--that two-fifty.
However, I did not expend any thought upon the subject of what was to
become of me when I arrived in Jamaica _sans_ a single cent.
We brought our bags and belongings out on deck before the boat docked
next day. Every one was crowded against the rails, watching the
approaching land.
A crowd seemed to be swarming on the wharves, awaiting our boat. As we
came nearer, I was amazed to find that this crowd was made up almost
entirely of negroes. We have few negroes in Canada, and I had seen only
one in all my life. I remember an older sister had shown him to me in
church--he was pure black--and told me he was the "Bogy man," and that
he'd probably come around to see me that night. I was six. I never
took my eyes once from his face during the service, and I have never
forgotten that face.
It was, therefore, with a genuine thrill of excitement and fear that I
looked down upon that vast sea of upturned black and brown faces. Never
will I forget that first impression of Jamaica. Everywhere I looked
were negroes--men and women and children, some half naked, some with
bright handkerchiefs knotted about their heads, some gaudily attired,
some dressed in immaculate white duck, just like the people on the boat.
People were saying good-by, and many had already gone down the
gang-plank. Several women asked me for my address, and said they did
not want to lose me. I told them I did not know just where I was going.
I expected Mr. Campbell to meet me.
As Mr. Campbell had not come on board, however, and as Captain
Hollowell and Mr. Marsden seemed to have forgotten my existence in
the great rush of arrival, I, too, at last descended the gang-plank.
I found myself one of that miscellaneous throng of colored and white
people.
A number of white men and women were hurrying about meeting and
welcoming expected passengers, who were soon disposed of in various
vehicles. Soon not one of the boat's passengers remained, even my
room-mate being one of a party that climbed aboard a bus marked, "The
Crystal Springs Hotel."