john adams longs for a chum and becomes a story-teller.
faithful to his promise, john adams, after the death of young, did his best to carry on the good work that had been begun.
but at first his spirit was very heavy. it had not before occurred to him that there was a solitude far more profound and overwhelming than anything he had hitherto experienced. the difference between ten companions and one companion is not very great, but the difference between one and none is immeasurable. of course we refer to that companionship which is capable of intelligent sympathy. the solitary seaman still had his otaheitan wife and the bright children of the mutineers around him, and the death of young had drawn out his heart more powerfully than ever towards these, but they could not in any degree fill the place of one who could talk intelligently of home, of old england, of british battles fought and won, of ships and men, and things that might have belonged, as far as the women and children were concerned, to another world. they could only in a slight degree appreciate the nautical phraseology in which he had been wont to convey some of his strongest sentiments, and they could not in any degree enter into his feelings when, forgetting for a moment his circumstances, he came out with a pithy forecastle allusion to the politics or the government of his native land.
“oh, you meek-faced brute, if you could only speak!” he exclaimed one day, dropping his eyes from the sea, on which he had been gazing, to the eyes of a pet goat that had been looking up in his face. “what’s the use of having a tongue in your head if you can’t use it!”
as may be imagined, the goat made no reply to this remark, but continued its gaze with somewhat of the solemnity of the man himself.
for want of a companion, poor adams at this time took to talking frequently in a quiet undertone to himself. he also fell a good deal into fletcher christian’s habit of retiring to the cave on the mountain-top, but he did not read the bible while there. he merely communed with his own spirit, meditated sadly on the past, and wondered a good deal as to the probable future.
“it’s not that i ain’t happy enough here,” he muttered softly to himself one evening, while he gazed wistfully at the horizon as christian had been wont to gaze. “i’m happy enough—more so than what i deserve to be, god knows—with them good—natured women an’ jolly bit things of child’n, but—but i’m awful hard up for a chum! i do believe that if bill mccoy, or even matt quintal, was here, i’d get along pretty well with either of ’em. ah, poor quintal! i feel as if i’d never git over that. if it wasn’t murder, it feels awful like it; an’ yet i can’t see that they could call it murder. if we hadn’t done it he would certainly have killed both me an’ mr young, for matt never threatened without performin’, and then he’d have gone mad an’ done for the women an’ child’n as well. no, it wasn’t murder. it was necessity.”
he remained silent for some time, and then his thoughts appeared to revert to the former channel.
“if only a ship would come an’ be wrecked here, now, we could start fresh once more with a new lot maybe, but i’m not so sure about that either. p’r’aps we’d quarrel an’ fight an’ go through the bloody business all over again. no, it’s better as it is. but a ship might touch in passin’, an’ we could prevail on two or three of the crew, or even one, to stop with us. what would i not give to hear a man’s voice once more, a good growlin’ bass. i wouldn’t be partickler as to sentiments or grammar, not i, if it was only gruff, an’ well spiced with sea-lingo an’ smelt o’ baccy. not that i cares for baccy myself now, or grog either. humph! it do make me a’most laugh to think o’ the times i’ve said, ay, and thought, that i couldn’t git along nohow without my pipe an’ my glass. why, i wouldn’t give a chip of a brass farden for a pipe now, an’ as to grog, after what i’ve seen of its cursed natur’, i wouldn’t taste a drop even if they was to offer to make me lord high admiral o’ the british fleet for so doin’. but i would like once more to see a bearded man; even an unbearded one would be better than nothin’. ah, well, it’s no manner o’ use sighin’, any more than cryin’, over spilt milk. here i am, an’ i suppose here i shall be to the end o’ the chapter.”
again he was silent for a long time, while his eyes remained fixed, as usual, on the horizon. suddenly the gaze became intent, and, leaning forward with an eager expression, he shaded his eyes with his hand.
“it’s not creditable,” he murmured, as he fell back again into his former listless attitude, “it’s not creditable for an old salt like me to go mistakin’ sea-gulls for sails, as i’ve bin doin’ so often of late. i’m out o’ practice, that’s where it is.”
“come, john adams,” he added, after another pause, and jumping up smartly, “this will never do. rouse yourself, john, an’ give up this mumble-bumble style o’ thing. why, it’ll kill you in the long-run if you don’t. besides, you promised mr young to carry on the work, and you must keep your promise, old boy.”
“yes,” rang out a clear sweet voice from the inner end of the cave, “and you promised to give up coming here to mope; so you must keep your promise to me as well, father.”
otaheitan sally tripped into the cave, and seating herself on the stone ledge opposite, beamed up in the sailor’s face.
“you’re a good girl, sall, an’ i’ll keep my promise to you from this day forth; see if i don’t. i’ll make a note of it in the log.”
the log to which adams here referred was a journal or register, which edward young had begun to keep, and in which were inserted the incidents of chief interest, including the births and deaths, that took place on the island from the day of landing. after young’s death, john adams continued to post it up from time to time.
the promise to sally was faithfully kept. from that time forward, adams gave up going to the outlook, except now and then when anything unusual appeared on the sea, but never again to mope. he also devoted himself with increased assiduity to the instruction of the women and children in bible truths, although still himself not very clear in his own mind as to the great central truth of all. in this work he was ably assisted by sally, and also by young’s widow, susannah.
we have mentioned this woman as being one of the youngest of the otaheitans. she was also one of the most graceful, and, strange to say, though it was she who killed tetaheite, she was by nature one of the gentlest of them all.
the school never became a prison-house to these islanders, either women or children. adams had wisdom enough at first to start it as a sort of play, and never fell into the civilised error of giving the pupils too much to do at a time. all the children answered the daily summons to school with equal alacrity, though it cannot be said that their performances there were equally creditable. some were quick and intelligent, others were slow and stupid, while a few were slow but by no means stupid. charlie christian was among these last.
“oh, charlie, you are such a booby!” one day exclaimed otaheitan sally, who, being advanced to the dignity of monitor, devoted much of her time to the instruction of her old favourite. “what can be the matter with your brains?”
the innocent gaze of blank wonder with which the “challie” of infancy had been wont to receive his companion’s laughing questions, had not quite departed; but it was chastened by this time with a slight puckering of the mouth and a faint twinkle of the eyes that were suggestive.
sitting modestly on the low bench, with his hands clasped before him, this strapping pupil looked at his teacher, and said that really he did not know what was wrong with his brains.
“perhaps,” he added, looking thoughtfully into the girl’s upturned orbs, “perhaps i haven’t got any brains at all.”
“o yes, you have,” cried sall, with a laugh; “you have got plenty, if you’d only use them.”
“ah!” sighed charlie, stretching out one of his strong muscular arms and hands, “if brains were only things that one could lay hold of like an oar, or an axe, or a sledge-hammer, i’d soon let you see me use them; but bein’ only a soft kind o’ stuff in one’s skull, you know—”
a burst of laughter from sally not only cut short the sentence, but stopped the general hum of the school, and drew the attention of the master.
“hallo, sall, i say, you know,” said adams, in remonstrative tone, “you forget that you’re a monitor. if you go on like that we’ll have to make a school-girl of you again.”
“please, father, i couldn’t help it,” said sally, while her cheeks flushed crimson, “charlie is such a—”
she stopped short, covered her face with both hands, and bending forward till she hid her confusion on her knees, went into an uncontrollable giggle, the only evidences of which, however, were the convulsive movements of her shoulders and an occasional squeak in the region of her little nose.
“come now, child’n,” cried adams, seating himself on an inverted tea-box, which formed his official chair, “time’s up, so we’ll have a slap at carteret before dismissing. thursday october christian will bring the book.”
there was a general hum of satisfaction when this was said, for carteret’s voyages, which, with the bible and prayer-book, formed the only class-books of that singular school, were highly appreciated by young and old alike, especially as read to them by adams, who accompanied his reading with a free running commentary of explanation, which infused great additional interest into that old writer’s book. toc rose with alacrity, displaying in the act the immense relative difference between his very long legs and his ordinary body, in regard to which adams used to console him by saying, “never mind, toc, your legs’ll stop growin’ at last, and when they do, your body will come out like a telescope. you’ll be a six-footer yet. why, you’re taller than i am already by two inches.”
in process of time carteret was finished; it was then begun a second time, and once more read through. after that adams felt a chill feeling of helplessness steal over him, for carteret could not be read over and over again like the bible, and he could not quite see his way to reading the church of england prayers by way of recreation. in his extremity he had recourse to sally for advice. indeed, now that sall was approaching young womanhood, not only the children but all the grown people of the island, including their chief or “father,” found themselves when in trouble gravitating, as if by instinct, to the sympathetic heart and the ready hand.
“i’ll tell you what to do,” said sally, when appealed to, as she took the seaman’s rough hand and fondled it; “just try to invent stories, and tell them to us as if you was readin’ a book. you might even turn carteret upside down and pretend that you was readin’.”
adams shook his head.
“i never could invent anything, sall, ’xcept w’en i was tellin’ lies, an’ that’s a long while ago now—a long, long while. no; i doubt that i couldn’t invent, but i’ll tell ’ee what; i’ll try to remember some old yarns, and spin them off as well as i can.”
the new idea broke on adams’s mind so suddenly that his eyes sparkled, and he bestowed a nautical slap on his thigh.
“the very thing!” cried sally, whose eyes sparkled fully more than those of the sailor, while she clapped her hands; “nothing could be better. what will you begin with?”
“let me see,” said adams, seating himself on a tree-stump, and knitting his brows with a severe strain of memory. “there’s cinderella; an’ there’s ally babby or the fifty thieves—if it wasn’t forty—i’m not rightly sure which, but it don’t much matter; an’ there’s jack the giant-killer, an’ jack and the pea-stalk—no; let me see; it was a beanstalk, i think—anyhow, it was the stalk of a vegetable o’ some sort. why, i wonder it never struck me before to tell you all about them tales.”
reader, if you had seen the joy depicted on sally’s face, and the rich flush of her cheek, and her half-open mouth with its double row of pearls, while adams ran over this familiar list, you would have thought it well worth that seaman’s while to tax his memory even more severely than he did.
“and then,” he continued, knitting his brows still more severely, “there’s gulliver an’ the lillycups or putts, an’ the pilgrim’s progress—though, of course, i don’t mean for to say i knows ’em all right off by heart, but that’s no odds. an’ there’s robinson crusoe—ha! that’s the story for you, sall; that’s the tale that’ll make your hair stand on end, an’ a’most split your sides open, an’ cause the very marrow in your spine to wriggle. yes; we’ll begin with robinson crusoe.”
having settled this point to their mutual and entire satisfaction, the two went off for a short walk before supper. on the way, they met elizabeth mills and mary christian, both of whom were now no longer staggerers, but far advanced as jumpers. they led between them adams’s little daughter dinah, who, being still very small, could not take long walks without assistance and an occasional carry.
“di, my pet,” cried her father, seizing the willing child, and hoisting her on his shoulder. “come, you shall go along with us. and you too, lassies, if you have no other business in hand.”
“yes, we’ll go with you,” cried bessy mills. “may was just saying it was too soon to go home to supper.”
“come along, then,” cried adams, tossing his child in the air as he went. “my beauty, you’ll beat your mammy in looks yet, eh? an’ when you’re old enough we’ll tell you all about rob—”
he checked himself abruptly, cleared his voice, and looked at sally.
“well, father,” said may christian, quickly, “about rob who?”
“ahem! eh? well, yes, about rob—ha, but we won’t talk about him just now, dear. sally and i were havin’ some private conversation just now about rob, though that isn’t the whole of his name neither, but we won’t make it public at present. you’ll hear about him time enough—eh, sall?”
the girls were so little accustomed to anything approaching to mystery or secrecy in john adams, that they looked at him in silent wonder. then they glanced at sally, whose suppressed smile and downcast eyes told eloquently that there was, as adams would have said, “something in the wind,” and they tried to get her to reveal the secret, but sall was immovable. she would not add a single syllable to the information given inadvertently by adams, but she and he laughed a good deal in a quiet way, and made frequent references to rob in the course of the walk.
of course, when the mysterious word was pronounced in the village in the evening, and what had been said and hinted about it was repeated, curiosity was kindled into a violent flame; and when the entire colony was invited to a feast that night, the excitement was intense. from the oldest to the youngest, excluding the more recently arrived sprawlers, every eye was fixed on john adams during the whole course of supper, except at the commencement, when the customary blessing was asked, at which point every eye was tightly closed.
adams, conscious of increased importance, spoke little during the meal, and maintained an air of profounder gravity than usual until the dishes were cleared away. then he looked round the assembled circle, and said, “women an’ child’n, i’m goin’ to tell ’ee a story.”
