The Rice belt journal. (Welsh, Calcasieu Parish, La.) 1900-19??, 1910-11-18

Waila Nambuka, the Child Of the Sum-" To the
Stmple-minded islanders he was always looked
upon az supernatural being. His recent death
mas plunged his people in gloom. The mourning
robes OF his subjects have been brought out of
lhe hapa nuts and worn in the dead kings honor.
1fis Two little sons, the princelings Of Naikeva
Will reign In his stead and King Wala sleeps at
the crest of gentle slope overlooking coral
reet, where the leaguelong breakers thunder
hour after hour His bones lie far from those of
Scotch-American forbears, who settled in south.
eTn illinois nearly a century ago.
A disappointment in love started him out upon
the long road Of adventure when he was youth
OF nineteen or twenty years. One of these unfor.
tunates who rUn to extremes In matters of senti
ment, he fell In Il with one OF the pretty vii
lage girls of old A.~.on. Things move slowly In
this. one OF the oldest and proudest towns of ILL
hols. In the natural course of events it was to
be expected that the two would marry in the full
ness of time. There was home to be built and
preparations made for a start in life Something
OF the methodical slowness of their English an.
cesors chung then, and still clings to the every
day life Of the citizens of Albion The town has
changed but little in the years that have flown
since Thompson left under cover of nightfall The
same houses line the spacious public square The
same hpnestealS that sheltered the pioneers now
shelter their descendants OF the third and fourth
generations. Red brick homes, low-eayed and
with wide doorsteps still line the older streets OF
the little southern Illinois town.
OutwardIy the town has changed but little,
and In spirit not at ALL since the days when
young thompson waited for his girsh sweet
heart at the haflighted corner of the court house
square. The Albion of the Flowers, the Thomp.
sons, the Humes. the Birkbecks. of Park House"
and Marlborough Place" still remains. Had the
white monarch OF the savage isle of Naikeya
come back to the place Of his birth in the last
year of his life he would have found Little Brit.
ain. as the region is known. much as he left It.
1t Is the same little city of schools and churches
Of quiet homes and quieter streets that It was
when he was barefoot lad stealing awav to
fish and loaf along Bonpas creek The future
ruler of Naikeva spent many an idle hour with
hook and line along the shadows of old Banpas,
II the traditions Of the folk Of Little Britain" are
true. He was fond of making long trips to the
shores of the Wabash with his chums but he
seemed to lack the ambition dear to every boyish
heart the hope of getting out and seeing the big
round world There was nOthin~ to set him
apart from his fellows as one who would taste of
strange adventures before his death in the an
.lpodes The prosy, uneventful life OF farmer
storekeeper or at the most humdrum profes.
;ional man in a country town was all 10 which
he could look forward.
There came an interruption, an awakening to
IFS loves young dream that drove him out of his
ZONE town between shutdown and sunrise one
ummer's night This spur to his pride, this
wound to his self-loye sent him adventuring
mong the spicy isles of the south seas and made
i'm a king in his own right before he was twenty
We He was of that shy. retiring, loyal type OF
he Scotch who love deeply when they love at ALL
lie had become engaged = the village beauty.
he day had been set ceremony and the
married youth OF the ooked upon him as
ne already lost to the H.! and froes of the
ngle state.
About this time new business house was
pened In the little town and youthful eastern
anager was sent on by the owners to look after