Little Lucys Wonderful Globe | Page 5

the time you are doing the ginger.
"It is very hot there, Missie."
"That will be more like some of the places. I'll suppose I'm there! Look, Mrs. Bunker! here's a whole green sea; the tiniest little dots all over it."
"Dots? You'd hardly see all over one of those dots if you were in one. That's the South Sea, Miss Lucy, and those are the loveliest isles, except, may be, the West Indies, that ever I saw."
"Tell me about them, please," entreated Lucy. "Here's one; it's name is--is Isabel--such a little wee one."
"I can't tell you much of those South Sea Isles, Missie, as I made only one voyage among them, when Bunker chartered the Penguin for the sandalwood trade; and we did not touch at many, for the natives were fierce and savage, and thought nothing of coming down with arrows and spears at a boat's crew. So we only went to such islands as the missionaries had been to, and had made the people more gentle and civil."
"Tell me all about it," said Lucy, following the old woman hither and thither as she bustled about, talking all the time, and stirring her pan of ginger over the hot plate.
How it happened, it is not easy to say. The room was very warm, and Mother Bunch went on talking as she stirred, and a steam rose up, and by and by it seemed to Lucy that she had a great sneezing fit; and when she looked again into the smoke, what did she see but two little black figures, faces, heads, and feet all black, but with an odd sort of white garment round their waists, and some fine red and green feathers sticking out of their wooly heads.
"Mrs. Bunker, Mrs. Bunker!" she cried; "what's this? Who are these ugly figures?"
"Ugly!" said the foremost; and though it must have been some strange language, it sounded like English to Lucy. "Is that the way little white girl speaks to boy and girl that have come all the way from Isabel to see her?"
"Oh, indeed! little Isabel boy, I beg your pardon. I didn't know you were real, nor that you could understand me! I am so glad to see you. Hush, Don! don't bark so!"
"Pig, pig; I never heard a pig squeak like that," said the black stranger.
"Pig! It is a little dog. Have you no dogs in your country?"
"Pigs go on four legs. That must be pig."
"What, you have nothing that goes on four legs but a pig! What do you eat, then, besides pig?"
"Yams, cocoa-nut, fish--oh, so good, and put pig into hole among hot stones, make a fire over, bake so nice!"
"You shall have some of my tea and see if that is as nice," said Lucy. "What a funny dress you have; what is it made of?"
"Tapa cloth," said the little girl. "We get the bark off the tree, and then we go hammer, hammer, thump, thump, till all the hard thick stuff comes off;" and Lucy, looking near, saw that the substance was really all a lacework of fibre, about as close as the net of Nurse'sb caps.
"Is that all your clothes?" she asked.
"Yes, till I am a warrior," said the boy; "then they will tattoo my forehead, and arms, and breast, and legs."
"Tattoo? what's that!"
"Make little holes, and lines all over the skin with a sharp shell, and rub in juice that turns it all to blue and purple lines."
"But doesn't it hurt dreadfully?" asked Lucy.
"Hurt! to be sure it does, but that will show that I am brave. When father comes home from the war he paints himself white."
"White?"
"With lime made by burning coral, and he jumps and dances and shouts. I shall go to the war one of these days."
"Oh no, don't!" said Lucy, "it is horrid."
The boy laughed, but the little girl whispered, "Good white men say so. Some day Lavo will go and learn, and leave off fighting."
Lavo shook his head. "No, not yet; I will be brave chief and warrior first,--bring home many heads of enemies."
"I--I think it nice to be quiet," said Lucy; "and--and--won't you have some dinner?"
"Have you baked a pig?" asked Lavo.
"I think this is mutton," said Lucy, when the dish came up,--"It is sheep's flesh."
Lavo and his sister had no notion what sheep were. They wanted to sit cross-legged on the floor, but Lucy made each of them sit in a chair properly; but then they shocked her by picking up the mutton- chops and stuffing them into their mouths with their fingers.
"Look here!" and she showed the knives and forks.
"Oh!" cried Lavo, "what good spikes to catch fish with! and knife-- knife--I'll kill foes! much better than shell knife."
"And I'll dig yams," said the sister.
"Oh, no!" entreated Lucy, "we have spades to dig with, soldiers have