The
Kanakas was doing the work. That was the usual division of labor aboard
the Emily.
"Well, just then there comes a yell from the bushes along the shore.
Then another yell and a most tremendous cracking and smashing. Then out
of them bushes comes tearing a little man with spectacles and a black
enamel-cloth carpetbag, heaving sand like a steam-shovel and seemingly
trying his best to fly. And astern of him comes more yells and a big,
husky Kanaka woman, about eight foot high and three foot in the beam,
with her hands stretched out and her fingers crooked.
"Julius used to swear that that beach was all of twenty yards wide and
that the little man only lit three times from bush to wharf. And he
didn't stop there. He fired the carpetbag at the schooner's stern and
then spread out his wings and flew after it. His fingers just hooked
over the rail and he managed to haul himself aboard. Then he curled up
on the deck and breathed short but spirited. The Kanaka woman danced to
the stringpiece and whistled distress signals.
"Cap'n George Simmons looked down at the wrecked flying machine and
grunted.
"'Umph!' says he. 'You don't look like a man the girls would run after.
Lady your wife?'
"The little feller bobbed his specs up and down.
"'So?' says George. ''Ow can I bear to leave thee, 'ey? Well, ain't
you ashamed of yourself to be running off and leaving a nice, 'andsome,
able-bodied wife that like? Look at 'er now, over there on 'er knees a
praying for you to come back.
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