Read Ebook: The Jungle Baby by Farrow G E George Edward

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Ebook has 359 lines and 11862 words, and 8 pages

Onward through the cloudless noontide, beneath the ardent sun, the caravan drowsily crawled. As the afternoon advanced, Mrs. Mouth produced a pack of well-thumbed cards, and cutting, casually, twice, began interrogating Destiny with these. Reposing as best she might, Miami gave herself up to her reflections. The familiar aspect of the wayside palms, the tattered pennons of the bananas, the big silk-cottons , all brought to her mind Bamboo.

"Dair's somet'in' dat look like a death dah, dat's troublin' me," Mrs. Mouth remarked, moodily fingering a greasy ace.

"De Almighty forgib dese foolish games!" Mr. Mouth protestingly said.

"An' from de lie ob de cards ... it seem as ef de corpse were ob de masculine species."

"Wha' gib you de notion ob dat?"

"Sh'o, a sheep puts his wool on his favourite places," Mrs. Mouth returned, reshuffling slowly her pack.

Awakened by her Father's psalms, Edna's "What would you do's" had commenced with volubility anew, growing more eerie with the gathering night.

"... if a Wood-Spirit wid two heads an' six arms, were to take hold ob you, Miami, from behind?"

"I no do nothin' at all," Miami answered briefly.

"Talk not so much ob de jumbies, Chile, as de chickens go to roost!" Mrs. Mouth admonished.

"Or, if de debil himself should?" Edna insisted, allowing Snowball, the cat, to climb on to her knee.

"Nothin', sh'o," Miami murmured, regarding dreamily the sun's sinking disk, that was illuminating all the Western sky with incarnadine and flamingo-rose. Ominous in the falling dusk, the savannah rolled away, its radiant hues effaced beneath a rapid tide of deepening shadow.

"Start de gramophone gwine girls, an' gib us somet'in' bright!" Mrs. Mouth exclaimed, depressed by the forlorn note the Twa-oo-Twa-oo bird, that mingled its lament with a thousand night cries from the grass.

"When de saucy female sing: 'My Ice Cream Girl,' fo' sh'o she scare de elves."

And as though by force of magic, the nasal soprano of an invisible songstress rattled forth with tinkling gusto a music-hall air with a sparkling refrain.

"And the boys shout Girlie, hi! Bring me soda, soda, soda, For I'm an Ice Cream Soda Girl."

"It put me in mind ob de last sugar-factory explosion! It was de same day dat Snowball crack de Tezzrazine record. Drat de cat."

"O, Lordey Lord! Wha' for you make dat din?" Mr. Mouth complained, knotting a cotton handkerchief over his head.

"I hope you not gwine to be billeous, honey, afore we get to Lucia?"

"Lemme alone. Ah'm thinkin'...."

Pressing on by the light of a large clear moon, the hamlet of Lucia, the halting-place proposed for the night, lay still far ahead.

Stars, like many Indian pinks, flecked with pale brightness the sky above; towards the horizon shone the Southern Cross, while the Pole Star, through the palm-fronds, came and went.

"Silence, dah! Ah'm thinkin'...."

Cuna, full of charming roses, full of violet shadows, full of music, full of Love, Cuna...!

Leaning from a balcony of the Grand Savannah hotel, their instincts all aroused, Miami and Edna gazed out across the Alemeda, a place all foliage, lamplight, and flowers. It was the hour when Society, in slowly-parading carriages, would congregate to take the air beneath the pale mimosas that adorned the favourite promenade. All but recumbent, as though agreeably fatigued by their recent emotions , the Cunans, in their elegant equipages, made for anyone, fresh from the provinces, an interesting and absorbing sight. The liquid-eyed loveliness of the women, and the handsomeness of the men, with their black moustaches and their treacherous smiles--these, indeed, were things to gaze on.

"Oh ki!" Miami laughed delightedly, indicating a foppish, pretty youth, holding in a restive little horse dancing away with him.

Rubbing herself repeatedly, as yet embarrassed by the novelty of her clothes, Edna could only gasp.

"...," she jabbered, pointing at some flaunting belles in great evening hats and falling hair.

"All dat fine," Miami murmured, staring in wonderment around.

Dominating the city soared the Opera House, uplifting a big, naked man, all gilt, who was being bitten, or mauled, so it seemed, by a pack of wild animals carved of stone, while near by were the University, and the Cathedral with its low white dome crowned by moss-green tiles.

Making towards it, encouraged by the Vesper bell, some young girls, in muslin masks, followed by a retinue of bustling nuns, were running the gauntlet of the profligates that clustered on the curb.

"Oh, Jesus honey!" Edna cooed, scratching herself in an ecstasy of delight.

"Fo' shame, Chile, to act so unladylike; if any gen'leman look up he t'ink you make a wicked sign," Mrs. Mouth cautioned, stepping out upon the balcony from the sitting-room behind.

Seduced, not less than they, by the animation of the town, the fatigue of the journey seemed amply rewarded. It was amusing to watch the crowd before the Cin? Lara, across the way, where many were flocking attracted by the hectic posters of "A Wife's Revenge."

"I keep t'inking I see Nini Snagg," Mrs. Mouth observed, regarding a negress in emerald-tinted silk, seated on a public-bench beneath the glittering greenery.

"Cunan folk dat fine," Edna twittered, turning about at her Father's voice:

"W'en de day ob toil is done, W'en de race ob life is run, Heaven send thy weary one Rest for evermore!"

"Prancing Nigger! Is it worth while to wear dose grimaces?"

"Sh'o, dis no good place to be."

"Why, what dair wrong wid it?"

"Ah set out to look fo' de Meetin'-House, but no sooner am Ah in de street, dan a female wid her har droopin' loose down ober her back, an' into her eyes, she tell me to Come along."

"Some of dose bold women, dey ought to be shot through dair bottoms!" Mrs. Mouth indignantly said.

"But I nebba answer nothin'."

"May our daughters respect dair virtue same as you!" Mrs. Mouth returned, focusing wistfully the vast flowery parterre of the Caf? McDhu'l.

Little city of cocktails, Cuna! The surpassing excellence of thy Barmen, who shall sing?

"Sh'o, Chile, an' so dey do...."

"Honey Jesus!" Edna broadly grinned: "Imagine de ignorance ob dat."

The Villa Alba, half-buried in spreading awnings, and surrounded by many noble trees, stood but a short distance off the main road, its pleasaunces enclosed by flower-enshrouded walls, all a-zig-zag, like the folds of a screen. Beloved of lizards, and velvet-backed humming-birds, the shaded gardens led on one side to the sea.

"To make such a noise at dis hour," the negress murmured, going grumblingly at length to the gate, disclosing, upon opening, a gentleman in middle-life, with a toothbrush moustache and a sapphire ring.

"De mist'ess still in bed, sah."

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