Montpelier examiner. [volume] (Montpelier, Idaho) 1895-1937, 1910-11-11

Waila Nambuka, ''the Child of the Sun" To the
simple-minded islanders he always looked
upon as supernatural being His recent death
has plunged his people in gloom. The mourning
robes of his subjects have been brought out of
the napa huts and worn in the dead kings honor
His two little sons, the princelings of Naikeva
will reign in his stead and King Waila sleeps at
the crest of gentle slope overlooking a coral
reef, where the league-1ong breakers thunder
hour after hour. His bones lie far from those of
scotch-American forbears, who settled in south
ern Illinois nearly century ago.
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 sent-
ment, he fell In love with one of the pretty vii
age girls of old Albion Things move slowly in
this of the oldest and proudest towns of I'LL
nois In the natural course of events it was to
be expected that the two would marry In the full
ness of time. There home to be built and
preparations made for a start in life. Something
of the methodical slowness of their English
cestors 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 homesteads that sheltered the pioneers now
shelter their descendants of the third and fourth
generations. Red brick homes, 1ow-eaved and
with wide doorsteps still line the older streets Of
the little southern Illinois town.
Outwardly the town has changed but little.
and in spirit not at ALL since the days when
young Thompson waited for his girlish sweet
heart at the halflighted of the court house
square. The Albion of the Flowers, the Thomp-
sons, the Hulmes, the Brkbecks, of Park House
and Marlborough Place still remains. Had the
white monarch of the savage Isle of Naikeva
como 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 1t.
1t Is the same little city of schools and churches,
of quiet homes and quieter streets that 1t was
when he was a barefoot lad stealing away to
fish and loaf along Bonpas creek. The future
ruler of Nakeva spent many idle hour with
hook and line along the shadows of old Banpas
If 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 nothing to set him
apart from his fellows as one who would taste OF
strange adventures before his death in the an
tipodes The prosy, uneyentful life of farmer.
a storekeeper or at the most humdrum profess
sional man in country town was all TO which
he could look forward.
| There came an interruption. awakening to
| his loves young dream that drove him out of his
home town between shutdown and sunrise one
summers night. This spur to his pride, this
wound to his selflove sent him adventuring
| among the spicy isles of the south seas and made
him a king in his right before he was twenty
| Ave He was of that shy, retiring, loyal type of
the Scotch who love deeply when they love at all.
| He had become engaged to the village beauty.
The day had been set for the ceremony and the
unmarried youth of the town looked upon him as
already lost TO the run ana Hohcs Oh the
single state
About this time a business house was
opened in the little town and youthful eastern
manager was sent on by the owners to look after