The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-10-18
A Romance of The South Seas

Personally, purely sel6shly personally, should be sorry to see you go. But l l am not considering myself. I am con- sidering you. It-it is hardly Ehe proper | thing, you know. If l were married | if there were some woman of your own race here-but as it is"-
 She threw up her hands in mock de spair.
 'I cannot follow you," she said. '1n one breath you tell me must go, and l in the next breath you tell me there is l no place to go and that you will not l permit me to go. What is a poor girl to do?'
 'That's the trouble,'' he said help lessly.
 'And the situation annoys you" sOnly for your sake"
 s"Then let me save your feelings by telling you that it does not annoy me at all-except for the row you are making about it. I never allow what can't be changed to annoy me. l can't go elsewhere, by your own count You certainly can't go else ] where and leave me here alone with a whole plantation and POO woolly can- nibals on my hands. Therefore, you stay, and stay. It is very simple. Also, it is adventure. And further more, you needn't worry for yourself. am not matrimonially inclined. I came to the Solomons for planta- tion, not husband"
 Sheldon flushed, but remained silent.
 tI know what you are thinking" she laughed gayly. 'That if I were man, you'd wiring my neck for me. And I deserve 1t, too. Pm so sorry. I ought not to keep on hurting your feelings"
 sI'm afraid I rather invite it." he said, relieved by the signs of the tempest subsiding.
 'T have it." she announced. Lend me gang of your boys for today. I'll build a grass house for myself over in the far corner of the com pound-on piles, of course. I can move in tonight. I'll be comfortable and safe. The Tahitians can keep an anchor watch just as aboard ship. And then I'll study cocoanut planting. In return, I'll run the kitchen end of your household and give you some decent food to eat.7 And finally, | won't listen to any of your protests. On the other hand, if you don't agree, I will go across the river, beyond your jurisdiction, and build village for myself and my sailors, whom l shall send in the whaleboat to Guvutu for provisions. And now I want you to teach me billiards"
 Joan took hold of the household with no uncertain grip, revOlutiOnizing things till Sheldon hardly recognized . the place. For the first time the bun- galOw was clean and orderly. No longer the house boys loafed and did as little as they could; while the cook complained that head belong him walk about too much from the stren- nous course in cookery which she put him through. Nor did Sheldon escape being roundly lectured for his lazi- ness in eating nothing but timed pro- visions. She called him a muddler and a. slouch, and other invidious names, for his slackness and his dis regard of healthful food.
 She sent her whaleboat down the coast twenty miles for Hines and or anges, and wanted to know scathingly why said fruits had not long since been planted at Berande, while he was beneath contempt because there was no kitchen garden. Mummy apples, which he had regarded as weeds, under her guidance appeared as appe- i1ip hro fyf foc cf ak were metamorphosed into buildings that elicited his unqualified. admira- ton. She or her sailors dynamited fish daily. while the Balesuna natives were paid tobacco for bringing in oysters from the mangrove swamps. Among other things. she burned the pestilential hospital, quarreled with Sheldon over the deed and in anger set her own men to work building a new and what she called decent hos pital. She robbed the windows of their lawn and muslin curtains, replacing them with gaudy calico from the trade store and made herself several gowns. When she wrote out a list of goods and clothing for. herself, to be sent down to Sydney by the first steamer, Sheldon wondered how long she had made up her mind to stay.
 She was certainly unlike any woman he had ever known or dreamed of. So far as he was concerned, she was not a woman at all. She neither languished nor blandished. No feminine lures were wasted on him. He might have been her brother, or she bis brother, for all sex had to do with the strange situation. Despite his warnings about crocodiles and sharks. she persisted in swimming in deep water off the beach, nor could he persuade her, when she was in the boat, to let one of the sailors throw the dynamite when shooting fish. She argued that she was at least a little bit more intelligent than they and that. therefore, there was less liability of an accident if she did the shooting. She was to him the most masculine and at the same time the most feminine woman he had ever met
 A source of continual trouble between them was the disagreement over methods of handling the black boys She ruled by stern kindness, rarely rewarding, never punishing, and he had to confess that her own sailors vu0rc hirnod bor xuL;1o fba bo,rco howe