A Minstrel In France | Page 3

kept me busy shaking hands.
"Good-by, Harry," they said. And "Good luck, Harry," they cried. And
just before the bugles sounded all ashore I heard a few of them
crooning an old Scots song:
"Will ye no come back again?"
"Aye, I'll come back again!" I told them when I heard them.
"Good, Harry, good!" they cried back to me. "It's a promise! We'll be
waiting for you--waiting to welcome you!"
And so we sailed from San Francisco and from America, out through
the Golden Gate, toward the sunset. Here was beauty for me, who loved
it new beauty, such as I had not seen before. They were quiet days,
happy days, peaceful days. I was tired after my long tour, and the days
at sea rested me, with good talk when I craved it, and time to sleep, and
no need to give thought to trains, or to think, when I went to bed, that
in the night they'd rouse me from my sleep by switching my car and
giving me a bump.
We came first to Hawaii, and I fell in love with the harbor of Honolulu
as we sailed in. Here, at last, I began to see the strange sights and hear
the strange sounds I had been looking forward to ever since I left my
wee hoose at Dunoon. Here was something that was different from
anything that I had ever seen before.
We did not stay so long. On the way home I was to stay over and give a
performance in Honolulu, but not now. Our time was given up to sight

seeing, and to meeting some of the folk of the islands. They ken
hospitality! We made many new friends there, short as the time was.
And, man! The lassies! You want to cuddle the first lassie you meet
when you step ashore at Honolulu. But you don't--if the wife is there!
It was only because I knew that we were to stop longer on the way back
that I was willing to leave Honolulu at all. So we sailed on, toward
Australia. And now I knew that my boy was about setting out on his
great voyage around the world. Day by day I would get out the map,
and try to prick the spot where he'd be.
And I'd think: "Aye! When I'm here John'll be there! Will he be nearer
to me than now?"
Thinking of the braw laddie, setting out, so proud and happy, made me
think of my ain young days. My father couldna' give me such a chance
as my boy was to have. I'd worked in the mines before I was John's age.
There'd been no Cambridge for me--no trip around the world as a part
of my education. And I thanked God that he was letting me do so much
for my boy.
Aye, and he deserved it, did John! He'd done well at Cambridge; he had
taken honors there. And soon he was to go up to London to read for the
Bar. He was to be a barrister, in wig and gown, my son, John!
It was of him, and of the meeting we were all to have in Australia, that
I thought, more than anything else, in the long, long days upon the sea.
We sailed on from Honolulu until we came to Paga-Paga. So it is
spelled, but all the natives call it Panga-Panga.
Here I saw more and yet more of the strange and wonderful things I
had thought upon so long back, in Dunoon. Here I saw mankind, for the
first time, in a natural state. I saw men who wore only the figleaf of old
Father Adam, and a people who lived from day to day, and whom the
kindly earth sustained.
They lived entirely from vegetables and from clear crystal streams and
upon marvelous fish from the sea. Ah, how I longed to stay in

Paga-Paga and be a natural man. But I must go on. Work called me
back to civilization and sorrow-fully I heeded its call and waved
good-by to the natural folk of Paga-Paga!
It was before I came to Paga-Paga that I wrote a little verse inspired by
Honolulu. Perhaps, if I had gone first to Paga-Paga-- don't forget to put
in the n and call it Panga-Panga when you say it to yourself!--I might
have written it of that happy island of the natural folk. But I did not, so
here is the verse:
I love you, Honolulu, Honolulu I love you! You are the Queen of the
Sea! Your valleys and mountains Your palais and fountains Forever
and ever will be dear to me!
I wedded a simple melody to those simple, heart-felt lines, and since
then I have sung the song in