A Jolly Fellowship Part 18

We all knew Priscilla. It would have been impossible to be at the hotel for a week and not know her. After breakfast, and after dinner, there was always a regular market at the entrance of the hotel, under the great arched porch, where the boarders sat and made themselves comfortable after meals. The dealers were negroes of every age,--men, women, boys, and girls, and they brought everything they could sc.r.a.pe up, that they thought visitors might buy,--fruit, sh.e.l.ls, sponges, flowers, straw hats, canes, and more traps than I can remember. Some of them had very nice things, and others would have closed out their stock for seven cents. The liveliest and brightest of all these was a tall, slim, black, elastic, smooth-tongued young girl, named Priscilla. She nearly always wore shoes, which distinguished her from her fellow-countrywomen. Her eyes sparkled like a fire-cracker of a dark night, and she had a mind as sharp as a fish-hook. The moment Corny mentioned her she was elected emissary.

We determined, however, to be very cautious in disclosing our plans to her. We would sound her, first, and make a regular engagement with her.

"It will be a first-rate thing for me," said Corny, "to have a girl to go about with me, for mother said, yesterday, that it wouldn't do for me to be so much with boys. It looked tomboyish, she said, though she thought you two were very good for boys."

"Are you going to tell your father and mother about this?" asked Rectus.

"I think I'll tell mother," said Corny, "because I ought to, and I don't believe she'll object, if I have a girl along with me. But I don't think I'll say anything to father just yet. I'm afraid he'd join."

Rectus and I agreed that it might be better to postpone saying anything to Mr. Chipperton.

It was very true that the queen did not live in a palace. Her house was nearly large enough to hold an old-fas.h.i.+oned four-posted bedstead, such as they have at my Aunt Sarah's. The little room that was cut off from the main apartment was really too small to count. The queen was hard at work, sitting on her door-stone by the side of her bits of sugar-cane and pepper-pods. There were no customers. She was a good-looking old body, about sixty, perhaps, but tall and straight enough for all queenly purposes.

She arose and shook hands with us, and then stepped into her door-way and courtesied. The effect was very fine.

"This is dreadful!" said Corny. "She ought to give up this pepper-pod business right away. If I could only talk to her, I'd make her understand. But I must go get somebody for an interpreter."

And she ran off to one of the neighboring huts.

"If this thing works," said Rectus, "we ought to hire a regular interpreter."

"It wont do to have too many paid officials," said I, "but we'll see about that."

Corny soon returned with a pleasant-faced woman, who undertook to superintend our conversation with the queen.

"What's her name--to begin with?" asked Corny, of the woman.

"Her African name is Poqua-dilla, but here they call her Jane Henderson, when they talk of her. She knows that name, too. We all has to have English names."

"Well, we don't want any Jane Henderson," said Corny. "Poqua-dilla!

that's a good name for a queen. But what we first want is to have her stop selling things at the front door. We'll do better for her than that."

"Is you goin' to sen' her to the 'sylum?" asked the woman.

"The asylum!" exclaimed Corny. "No, indeed! You'll see. She's to live here, but she's not to sell pepper-pods, or anything else."

"Well, young missy," said the woman, "you better buy 'em of her. I reckon she'll sell out for 'bout fourpence."

This was a sensible proposition, and, as treasurer, I bought the stock, the queen having signified her willingness to the treaty by a dignified nod and a courtesy. She was very much given to style, which encouraged us a good deal.

"Now, then," said Rectus, who thought it was about time that the captain should have something to say, "you must tell her that she isn't to lay in any more stock. This is to be the end of her mercantile life."

I don't believe the woman translated all of this speech, but the queen gave another nod and courtesy, and I pocketed the peppers to keep as trophies. The other things we kept, to give to the children and make ourselves popular.

"How much do you think it would cost," asked Corny of me, "to make this place a little more like a palace?"

I made a rough sort of a calculation, and came to the conclusion that the room could be made a little more like a palace for about eight dollars.

"That's cheap enough," said Rectus to me. "You and I will each give four dollars."

"No, indeed!" said Corny. "I'm going to give some. How much is three into eight?"

"Two and two-thirds," said I, "or, in this case, two dollars, sixty-six cents and some sixes over."

"All right!" said Corny; "I'll ask father for three dollars. There ought to be something for extras. I'll tell mother what I want it for, and that will satisfy him. He can know afterward. I don't think he ought to worry his lung with anything like this."

"She wont want a throne," said Rectus, turning the conversation from Mr.

Chipperton, "for she has a very good rocking-chair, which could be fixed up."

"Yes," said I, "it could be cus.h.i.+oned. She might do it herself."

At this, the colored woman made a remark to the queen, but what it was we did not know.

"Of course she could," said Corny. "Queens work. Queen Victoria etches on steel."

"I don't believe Porker-miller can do that," said Rectus, "but I guess she can pad her chair."

"Do thrones rock?" asked Corny.

"Some of 'em do," I said. "There was the throne of France, you know."

"Well, then, that will be all right," said Corny; "and how about a crown and sceptre?"

"Oh, we wont want a sceptre," I said; "that sort of thing's pretty old-fas.h.i.+oned. But we ought to have a crown, so as to make a difference between her and the other people."

"How much are crowns?" asked Corny, in a thoughtful tone.

"Various prices," I answered; "but I think we can make one, that will do very well, for about fifty cents. I'll undertake to make the bra.s.s part, if you'll cus.h.i.+on it."

"Bra.s.s!" exclaimed Corny, in astonishment.

"You don't suppose we can get gold, do you?" I asked, laughing.

"Well, no," she said, but not quite satisfied.

"And there must be a flag and a flag-pole," said Rectus. "But what sort of a flag are we going to have?"

"The African flag," said Corny, confidently.

None of us knew what the African flag was, although Corny suggested that it was probably black. But I told her that if we raised a black flag before the queen's palace, we should bring down the authorities on us, sure. They'd think we had started a retail piratical establishment.

We now took leave of the queen, and enjoined her neighbor to impress on her mind the necessity of not using her capital to lay in a new stock of goods. Leaving a quarter of a dollar with her, for contingent expenses during the day, we started for home.

"I'll tell you what it is," said I, "we must settle this matter of revenue pretty soon. If she don't sell peppers and sugar-cane, she'll have to be supported in some way, and I'm sure we can't do it."

"Her subjects ought to attend to that," said Rectus.

"But she hasn't got any yet," I answered.