A Minstrel In France | Page 3

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 pretty nearly every part of the world-- and in Honolulu itself.
Our journey was drawing to its end. We were coming to a strange land indeed. And yet I knew there were Scots folk there--where in the world are there not? I thought they would be glad to see me, but how could I be sure? It was a far,