A SAMOAN IDYL
Among the passengers from one of the other coaches who had occasionally
visited the Cassowary and listened as the novel symposium progressed was
a brown-bearded, middle-aged gentleman with a tanned face and merry eye.
That he was of the navy the Colonel had soon learned, and to the naval
officer he now addressed himself:
"Lieutenant, you, necessarily, have visited many parts of the world and
must have become acquainted with the facts of many a pretty romance or
rough adventure. I believe you mentioned the circumstance that you were
stationed for a time in the Samoan islands. Can you tell us a tale of
Samoa?"
The Lieutenant smiled: "I'll tell you a tale of Samoa, a little one," he
said. "I was a witness to its main incident, and it interested me. It
was this way:
A SAMOAN IDYL
Una Loa was a Samoan girl, and she was fair to look upon. They have
festivities in their season in Samoa as we have here, and, as here,
there are rivalries among the young women. There are tests of beauty,
too, and she who can show the most beautiful headdress of flowers is
counted the most charming among the maidens. She is as the Jersey heifer
which takes the first prize at the annual fair in some prosperous
county; she is as the lithe and graceful and beautiful creature who
doesn't fall over her train at the receptions at the Court of England;
she is an adornment to the society in which she moves, and, in Samoa, it
must of course be the best society, must consist of those who enter into
the contest exhibiting the sublimity of all head-gear--for head-gear is
a woman's glory.
There was stationed upon one of the islands of the Samoan Group--there
is no use of mentioning the island in particular--a young gentleman who
had been sent out under the auspices of the Department of Agriculture of
the United States, and, to speak more definitely, from that branch of
the Department which is known as the Weather Bureau. His business was to
sit at the top of a somewhat illy-constructed tower and note the
variations of wind and temperature and all that sort of thing, and then
send his report to the Department at Washington, when he could catch a
steamer, which didn't always often happen, for this was some time ago.
Still he sat up in the tower and took notes and glowered, and made the
best of things, and the work in this region of mild latitude and much
lassitude did not wear upon him to such an extent that he could not fall
in love, not in the purely abstract way that he loved some things
either, as for instance, the equation of the parabola, but vigorously
and deeply.
He fell in love to such an extent that he became personally interested
in the contest among the fair Samoans as to whom among the belles should
show the most ardent and effective floral decoration of her mass of hair
on the day appointed.
Now, be it known that the Atlantic Ocean is the Atlantic Ocean, that the
Washington Monument is the Washington Monument. They exist as they are.
Be it known also, that the hair of a Samoan beauty, a great burnished
mass, also exists as it is and is rarely washed between the rising of
the sun and the dropping into the ocean of the same luminary, or at any
other time.
The name of the young man connected with the Weather Bureau was John
Thompson. That is not a very poetic name, but John Thompson can love
just as hard as Everard Argyle. This John Thompson did anyhow, and he
vowed that his sweetheart should win in the contest of flowery
decorations of the heads of the maidens. This resolve came upon him some
six weeks before the time of trial. He visited Una Loa.
"How long is it, sweetheart, since you let your hair down?" said he.
"I do not remember," said she.
"That is all right," said he.
Now, John Thompson had entertained certain ideas regarding
agricultural speculation in the Samoan Islands, and had imported for
experimental purposes various small quantities of assorted delicate
fertilizers--powdered bone and ammonia, or something of that sort. Here
was material, and inspiration for action comes to a man sometimes in a
way which makes it seem to him as if all the ancient gods were behind
him and beside him, aiding him in every way. This sublimity of
inspiration came to John Thompson at this moment.
This is how the man, thus sublimated, reasoned: "All the other girls
must, necessarily, as in the past, wear cut flowers, which must, to an
extent, wither before the judgment of the Wise Ones is declared. I will
make a real, living garden of my darling's head, a garden in which shall
bloom, not only flowers of the islands here, but of Europe and America,
and all countries of the world. Above one of her dark eyes shall dangle
such a bunch of glowing and living pansies as the Islanders have never
seen; the phlox shall lift itself aloft from her coronet; sweet peas and
old-fashioned pinks shall adorn one side of her shapely head, while the
other side will be blazing with tossing poppies. She shall appear among
the contestants with such a crest as never a queen has worn, though the
jewelers of all ages have struggled to make a surpassing crown."
And the man did his work. "Eh," he said, as he patted the matted mass of
dusky hair, "talk about farms in the States! Here is an area of the
right kind for the support of a family! Talk about landscape gardening!
I'll show them what real landscape gardening is!"
He did.
He planted right and left with ardor and good judgment, for he was
not only an enthusiast but had the artist's gift. Una Loa yielded
because she had the trust which every girl should have in a real lover
of good character. As Thompson sowed and sowed, she submitted with all
hopefulness and slept each night with her neck upon a little log, that
each flower plant might grow without abrasion or disturbance. She saw
but little of her kin, save a sister who stayed beside her, for Thompson
was arrogant--said he was making a botanical experiment--and allowed
none to visit her.
[Illustration: "THE AWARD COULD BUT GO TO UNA LOA"]
The day of the contest came, as the world went round and round. At the
appointed hour, all the Samoan maidens appeared together, each with her
head in the halo and glory of fair flowers. But there was no contest.
Una Loa stood among them all like a bright spirit from somewhere. The
fragrance from the flowers upon her head sapped itself into the senses
of all who were near her, and there was a glittering, a very splendor of
brilliant, multicolored and flaming humming-birds about her queenly
head. There was no discussion among the judges. The award could but go
to Una Loa, and so it went!
They say that there is a laziness, which is not, after all, a laziness,
begotten in those who dwell among the islands in the Southern Seas. It
is but adaptation, possibly most sensible. Thompson has resigned from
the Weather Bureau and married Una Loa. He is keeping a cigar-store in
South Apia and is doing tolerably well.
And the listeners agreed that the Lieutenant had at least looked upon a
romance as genuine as simple.