A Jolly Fellowship by Frank Richard Stockton (ebook reader for pc and android txt) 📕

At this, a wild shout of laughter arose, and one of the men who held the Hof-rath declared, as soon as he got his breath, that they couldn't do that,—they had no hatchet big enough.

Priscilla stood quiet for a minute. She looked over the crowd, and then she looked at the poor Hof-rath, who now began to show that he was a little frightened.

"You, Hop-grog," said she, "how much money did you grab in dem scrahmbles?"

The Hof-rath put his hand in his pocket and pulled out some pennies.

"Five big coppers," said he, sullenly.

"Gim me dem," said she, and he brought them to her.

"Now den, you kin git out," said she, pocketing the[181] money. Then she again raised her crown and replaced it on her head.

"Afrikins, behole your queen!" she cried.

This was more than we could stand. To see this usurpation and robbery made our blood boil. We, by ourselves, could do nothing; but we could get help. We slipped away and ran down the road in the direction of the hotel. We had not gone far before we saw, coming along a cross-road, the two yellow-leg men. We turned, hurried up to them, and hastily told them of the condition of things, and asked if they would help us put down this usurpation. They did not understand the matter, at first, but when we made them see how it stood, they were greatly interested, and instantly offered to join us.

"We can go down here to the police-station," said I, "and get some help."

"No, no!" said the tall yellow-leg. "Don't tell those fellows. They'll only make a row of it, and get somebody into trouble. We're enough to capture that usurper. Let's go for her."

And we went.

When we neared the crowd, the shorter yellow-leg, Mr. Burgan, said that he would go first; then his friend would come close behind him, while Rectus and I could push up after them. By forming a line we could rush right through the crowd. I thought I ought to go first, but Mr. Burgan said he was the stoutest, and could better stand the pressure if the crowd stood firm.

But the crowd didn't stand firm. The moment we made our rush, and the people saw us, they scattered[182] right and left, and we pushed right through, straight to the house. Priscilla saw us before we reached her, and, quick as lightning, she made a dive for the door. We rushed after her, but she got inside, and, hurling the crown from her head, dashed out of a back-door. We followed hotly, but she was out of the yard, over a wall, and into a side lane, almost before we knew it.

Then a good chase began. Priscilla had a long start of us, for we had bungled at the wall, but we were bound to catch her.

I was a good runner, and Rectus was light and active, although I am not sure that he could keep up the thing very long; but the two yellow-legs surprised me. They took the lead of us, directly, and kept it. Behind us came a lot of darkeys, not trying to catch Priscilla, but anxious, I suppose, to see what was going to happen.

Priscilla still kept well ahead. She had struck out of the lane into a road which led toward the outskirts of the town. I think we were beginning to gain on her when, all of a sudden, she sat down. With a shout, we rushed on, but before we reached her she had jerked off both her shoes,—she didn't wear any stockings,—and she sprang to her feet and was off again. Waving the shoes over her head, she jumped and leaped and bounded like an India-rubber goat. Priscilla, barefooted, couldn't be caught by any man on the island: we soon saw that. She flew down the road, with the white dust flying behind her, until she reached a big limestone quarry, where the calcareous[183] building-material of the town is sawn out in great blocks, and there she made a sharp turn and dashed down in among the stones. We reached the place just in time to see her run across the quarry, slip in between two great blocks that were standing up like statue pedestals on the other side, and disappear.

We rushed over, we searched and looked, here and there and everywhere, and all the darkeys searched and looked, but we found no Priscilla. She had gone away.

Puffing and blowing like four steam-fire-engines, we sat down on some stones and wiped our faces.

"I guess we just ran that upstart queen out of her possessions," said the tall yellow-legs, dusting his boots with his handkerchief. He was satisfied.

We walked home by the road at the edge of the harbor. The cool air from the water was very pleasant to us. When we reached the hotel, we found Mr. and Mrs. Chipperton and Corny sitting outside, in the entrance court, waiting for supper-time. A lot of arm-chairs always stood there, so that people might sit and wait for meals, or anything else that they expected. When Corny heard the dreadful news of the fall of our kingdom, she was so shocked that she could scarcely speak; and as for Mrs. Chipperton, I thought she was going to cry. Corny wanted to rush right down to Poqua-dilla's house and see what could be done, but we were all against that. No harm would come to the old woman that night from the loss of her crown, and it was too near supper-time for any attempt at restoration, just then.[184]

"Only to think of it!" said Mrs. Chipperton. "After all we did for her! I don't believe she was queen more than an hour. It's the shortest reign I ever heard of."

"And that Priscilla!" cried Corny. "The girl we trusted to do so much, and——"

"Paid every night," said I.

"Yes," she continued, "and gave a pair of mother's shoes to, for the coronation! And to think that she should deceive us and do the usurping!"

The shorter yellow-legs, who had been standing by with his friend, now made a remark. He evidently remembered Corny, on the Oclawaha steam-boat, although he had never become acquainted with her or her family.

"Did your queen talk French?" he asked, with a smile; "or was not that the language of the Court?"

"No, it wasn't," said Corny, gravely. "African was the language of the Court. But the queen was too polite to use it before us, because she knew we did not understand it, and couldn't tell what she might be saying about us."

"Good!" said the tall yellow-legs. "That's very good indeed. Burgan, you owe her one."

"One what?" asked Corny.

"Another answer as good as that, if I can ever think of it," said Mr. Burgan.

Corny did not reply. I doubt if she heard him. Her soul still ached for her fallen queen.

"I tell you what it is," said Mr. Chipperton, who had kept unaccountably quiet, so far. "It's a great[185] pity that I did not know about this. I should have liked nothing better than to be down there when that usurper girl was standing on that throne, or rocking-chair, or whatever it was——"

"Oh, my dear!" said Mrs. Chipperton. "It would never have done for you to have exposed your lung to such a scene of turmoil and confusion."

"Bother my lung!" cried Mr. Chipperton, who was now growing quite excited. "I would never have stood tamely by, and witnessed such vile injustice——"

"We didn't stand tamely by," said I. "We ran wildly after the unjust one."

"I would have stood up before that crowd," continued Mr. Chipperton, "and I would have told the people what I thought of them. I would have asked them how, living in a land like this, where the blue sky shines on them for nothing, where cocoa-nut and the orange stand always ready for them to stretch forth their hands and take them, where they need but a minimum of clothes, and where the very sea around them freely yields up its fish and its conchs,—or, that is to say, they can get such things for a trifling sum,—I would have asked them, I say, how—when free citizens of a republic, such as we are, come from our shores of liberty, where kings and queens are despised and any throne that is attempted to be set up over us is crushed to atoms,—that when we, I say, come over here, and out of the pure kindness and generosity of our souls raise from the dust a poverty-stricken and down-trodden queen, and place her, as nearly as pos[186]sible, on the throne of her ancestors, and put upon her head a crown,—a bauble which, in our own land, we trample under foot——"

At this I shuddered, remembering the sharp points I had filed in our crown.

"And grind into the dust," continued Mr. Chipperton,—"I would ask them, I say, how they could think of all this, and then deliberately subvert, at the behest of a young and giddy colored hireling, the structure we had upraised. And what could they have said to that, I would like to know?" he asked, looking around from one to another of us.

"Give us a small dive, boss?" suggested Rectus.

"That's so," said Mr. Chipperton, his face beaming into a broad smile; "I believe they would have said that very thing. You have hit it exactly. Let's go in to supper."

The next day, Rectus and I, with Corny and Mrs. Chipperton, walked down to the queen's house, to see how she fared and what could be done for her.

When we reached Poqua-dilla's hut, we saw her sitting on her door-step. By her side were several joints of sugar-cane, and close to them stood the crown, neatly filled with scarlet pepper-pods, which hung very prettily over the peaked points of brass. She was very still, and her head rested on her breast.

"Asleep!" whispered Corny.

"Yes," said Mrs. Chipperton, softly, "and don't let's waken her. She's very well off as she is, and now that her house is a little more comfortable, it would be well to leave her in peace, to peddle what she[187] pleases on her door-step. Her crown will worry her less where it is than on her head."

Corny whispered to her mother, who nodded, and took out her pocket-book. In a moment, Corny, with some change in her hand, went quietly up to the yard and put the money in the queen's lap. Then we went away and left her, still asleep.

A day or two after this, the "Tigress" came in, bringing the mail. We saw her, from one of the upper porticoes, when she was just on the edge of the horizon, and we knew her by the way she stood up high in the water, and rolled her smoke-stack from side to side. She was the greatest roller that ever floated, I reckon, but a jolly good ship for all that; and we were glad enough to see her.

There were a lot of letters for us in her mail. I had nine from the boys at home, not to count those from the family.

We had just about finished reading our letters when Corny came up to us to the silk-cotton tree, where we were sitting, and said, in a doleful tone:

"We've got to go home."

"Home?" we cried out together. "When?"

"To-morrow," said Corny, "on the 'Tigress.'"

All our good news and pleasant letters counted for nothing now.

"How?—why?" said I. "Why do you have to go? Isn't this something new?"

Rectus looked as if he had lost his knife, and I'm sure I had never thought that I should care so much to hear that a girl—no relation—was going away the next day.[188]

"Yes, it is something new," said Corny, who certainly had been crying, although we didn't notice it at first. "It's a horrid old lawsuit. Father just heard of it in a letter. There's one of his houses, in New York, that's next to a lot, and the man that owns the lot says father's house sticks over four inches on his lot, and he has sued him for that,—just think of it! four inches only! You couldn't do anything with four inches of dirt if you had it; and father didn't know it, and he isn't going to move his wall back, now that he does know it, for the people in the house would have to cut all their carpets, or fold them under, which is just as bad, and he says he must go right back to New York, and, of course, we've all got to go, too, which is the worst of it, and mother and I are just awfully put out."

"What's the good of