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Indeed, that warm-hearted Otaheitan would have taken poor Bessy into her house to live with her and Charlie, but for the difficulty that six riotous little creatures of her own, named Fletcher, Edward, Charles, Isaac, Sarah, and Maria, already filled it to overflowing. A little more than six years after this, there came a visitant of a rare and heart-gladdening kind, namely, a parcel of books.
"The hog will not be ready for a long time; will you help me with the cakes?" The women at once assented, and set to work. They spoke to each other in the Otaheitan tongue. To their husbands they spoke in a jumble of that tongue and English. For convenience we shall, throughout our tale, give their conversations in ordinary English.
"Ho, Missr Mills," he called out, in his broken English, "me have just shoot a large pig. Will you let Menalee help carry him home?" "Yes; you may go," said Mills, turning to Menalee. The Otaheitan threw down his tools, and joined his comrades in the bush, where he was at once told what had been done.
So that the self-imposed cares and burdens of that pretty, active, and self-denying little creature, Otaheitan Sally, increased with her years and stature. Before the most of these made their appearance, however, the poor Otaheitan wives and widows became downcast and discontented. One cannot wonder at this.
The coloured men made common cause of it, and from that time forward began to plot the destruction of their white masters. What made matters worse was that Talaloo's wife was not averse to the change, and from that time became a bitter enemy of her Otaheitan husband. It was owing to this wicked woman's preference for Williams that the plot was afterwards revealed.
In particular, he began to go frequently for long walks in the woods with his own sons little Charlie on his back, and Thursday October gambolling by his side; also Otaheitan Sally, for that careful nurse refused to acknowledge any claim to the guardianship of Charlie as being superior to her own, not even that of a father.
Or shall we say, these things are like the gestures of the Otaheitan damsels, merely symbols used as snares for the careless beaux, who pretend to taste and fashion, and indicative of the indolence and extravagance which are to succeed the marriage ceremony?
Such a description corresponds with the notion of some frequently renewed beautfyings of the toilet, rather than that of the infliction of deep and indelible marks, as are prescribed in the Otaheitan ritual. Thus we may see here, as in other instances, that different motives give rise to similar practices.
After him came Elizabeth Mills, whose pretty little whitey-brown face was the counterpart of her mother's in expression. Indeed, all of these little ones inherited in a great degree that sweet pliability of character for which the Otaheitan women were, and we believe still are, famous. Last, but not least, sat Charlie Christian at the bottom of the class.
"That's true," cried Mills, with a laugh, in which all the party except Christian joined more or less sarcastically according to humour. "Oh, mother," exclaimed Otaheitan Sally, going into her hut on tiptoe a few minutes later, with her great eyes dilated in horror, "the white mens is talkin' of shootin' Timoa and Nehow!"
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