The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson, Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez [english novels for students txt] 📗

the last litter of pigs was born, each family on the place was given a pig. Elena chose a spotted boar, which she named Salé Taylor, and Lafaele took what he calls a 'mare pig,' that is, a little sow. Both pigs have been tamed and trot around after Elena and Fanua like pug dogs. They go to bed with their mistresses every night like babies, and must also be fed once in the night with milk like babies. Both pigs came to prayers this morning.... Talolo's brother, a beautiful young boy, has elephantiasis.[54] He has had it for a long time--about a year--but was afraid to tell. Worse than that has happened; one of our boys had a fit of insanity, during which it required the exertions of the entire household to restrain him from running off into the bush and losing himself. It became necessary to tie him down to the bed with strips of sheeting and ropes. The strangest thing about this occurrence is that Lafaele restored him to his senses in a short time by chewing up certain leaves that he brought from the bush and then putting them into the sick boy's ears and nostrils. I had a talk with Lafaele about his remedy. He told me that in case of lockjaw, if these chewed leaves are forced up the nostrils, first the jaw, then the muscles, will soon relax and the cure is accomplished. For some reason he seems unwilling to point out the tree to me.... Talolo affords us much amusement with his naïve ideas. I said to him, 'It seems to me that you Samoans do not feel badly about anything very long.' 'Yes, we do,' said Talolo, seeming much hurt by the accusation. 'When a man's wife runs away he feels badly for two or three days.'

[Footnote 54: A disease of the tropics, said to be
transmitted by the bite of mosquitoes, which causes
enormous enlargement of the parts affected. Mrs.
Stevenson cured this boy, Mitaele, of elephantiasis by
Dr. Funk's remedy of rubbing the diseased vein with blue
ointment and giving him a certain prescribed drug.]

" July 3, 1893. Nothing is talked of or thought of but the impending war. One of our former men came up yesterday to draw out his wages. I asked him if he meant to act like a coward and take heads of wounded men. He said he meant to take all the heads he could get. I reasoned with him, as did Lloyd, but he stood respectfully firm, saying that each people had its own customs. I am afraid the government has not thought to forbid this abomination, or has not dared.

" July 8. News comes that the fighting has begun, and that eleven heads have been taken to Mulinuu,[55] and, worst of all, that one of the heads is that of a village maid, a thing before unheard-of among Samoans.

[Footnote 55: Mulinuu was the seat of government. King
Malietoa lived there.]

" July 10. Mataafa is routed, and, after burning Malie, has fled to Manono. His son was killed with a hatchet and his head taken. In all we hear of three heads of women being brought in to Mulinuu. When Mataafa was the man before whom all trembled we offered him our friendship and broke bread with him. If I gave him loyalty then, fifty thousand times more do I give it now."

At last the smoke and thunder of war rolled away, and peace and security came once more to dwell at Vailima. Entertainments and gaieties again made the place lively. Mrs. Strong[56] describes one of these affairs in a letter to Mr. Stevenson's mother:

[Footnote 56: Now Mrs. Salisbury Field.]

"I suppose Louis will write and tell you of the grand day we had here when the sailors of the Katoomba were invited up here to play. We had twenty-four people on the place--natives, house boys, outside boys, and contractors--and the house was gorgeously decorated with ferns and moso'oi flowers. One large table was piled high with cocoanuts, oranges, lemons, passion fruit, pineapples, mangoes, and even a large pumpkin and some ripe tomatoes, besides three huge bowls of lemonade. The other table had seven baked chickens, ham sandwiches, cakes and coffee--lots of all. At half-past twelve we saw the white caps bobbing at the gate, and sent Simile down to meet them. He was dressed in a dark coat and lavalava and white shirt, and looked very swagger indeed. The sailors all saluted Simile as he appeared, and in another moment--boom, bang, and the band burst out with the big drum in full swing, with the men, fourteen of them, all marching in time. The faces of our Samoans were stricken with amazement as the jackies marched up to the lawn in the blazing sun and finished the piece. The veranda was crowded with our people, all in wreaths of flowers, and a number of guests were there to witness the festivities. Well, we fed our sailors, who were all very red and hot and smiling, and the way they dipped into the lemonade was a caution. Then, to a guitar accompaniment, one of them sang a song with a melodramatic story running through it about a poor fellow going to a house and sitting on the door-step wan and weary, and seeing on the doorplate the name of Jasper. Soon Jasper comes out, and though the poverty-stricken one pleads for a bit of bread he's told to go to the workhouse. 'I pays my taxes,' says the heartless Jasper, 'and to the workhouse you must go.' 'And who would have thought it,' goes the chorus, 'for we were schoolmytes, schoolmytes!'"

A devastating epidemic of measles, much aggravated by the improper treatment given to patients by the natives, now broke out. Even Vailima did not escape its ravages, and Mrs. Strong writes of it on October 8:

"Everybody is well of the measles by now and all are crawling out into the sunshine. There have been a hundred and fifty deaths on this island alone. Our Sosimo was taken ill down in the town. Tamaitai and I went down to see him, and, finding him in a wretched state, had him brought home in a native sling on a pole, the way they carry wounded soldiers. None of our people died, for they willingly accepted our rules for their care."

After the war was over, it was found that the stress and excitement of it all had told on Mr. Stevenson's health, and in the early part of September he went to Honolulu for a change. The trip was a disappointment, for he was taken quite seriously ill there, and his wife had to take steamer and go after him, arriving in a state of great anxiety. Under her tender care he soon recovered and they returned to Vailima.

In Samoa, Tusitala was not the only "teller of tales," for all sorts of strange stories--some amusing, some scurrilous and malicious--were invented about the family at Vailima and ran current in the gossip "on the beach." One of the most fantastic of these inventions was that Mr. Stevenson had been married before to a native woman, and that Mrs. Strong[57] was his half-caste daughter by this marriage. The one advantage about this peculiar story was the hilarious fun he was able to get out of it. He made up all kinds of wonderful romances about the supposititious first wife, who he said was a native of Morocco, "black, but a damned fine woman." When Mrs. Stevenson scolded him for not wearing his cloak in the rain he pretended to weep and said: "Moroccy never spoke to me like that!" One evening Mrs. Strong heard gay laughter in her mother's room, and, going in to see what it was about, found her mother sitting up in bed laughing, while Louis walked up and down the room gesticulating and telling her the "true story" of his affair with Moroccy.

[Footnote 57: Mrs. Strong will be remembered as the
little Isobel Osbourne of the early pages of this book.]

So passed all too swiftly three full years--years crowded with work and play and many rare experiences--and less darkly shadowed by the spectre that had stalked beside them ever since their marriage. For this short space he knew what it was to live like a man, not like a "pallid weevil in a biscuit," and she, though her vigilance was never relaxed for a moment, breathed somewhat more freely. The days sped happily by, until Thanksgiving, November 29, 1894, which was celebrated with an elaborate dinner at Vailima. Mrs. Stevenson was anxious to have this a truly American feast, from the turkey to the last detail, but cranberries were not to be had, so she produced a satisfactory substitute from a native berry, and under her careful supervision her native servants succeeded in setting out a dinner that would have satisfied even an old Plymouth Rock Puritan. At the dinner, the last entertainment taken part in by Mr. Stevenson, in enumerating his reasons for thankfulness, he spoke of his wife, who had been all in all to him when the days were very dark, and rejoiced in their undiminished affection.

A day or two afterwards she was seized with a presentiment of impending evil--a formless shadow that seemed to settle down upon her spirit, and that no argument could relieve. Her mother-in-law writes: "I must tell you a very strange thing that happened just before his death. For a day or two Fanny had been telling us that she knew--that she felt--something dreadful was going to happen to some one we cared for; as she put it, to one of our friends. On Monday she was very low and upset about it and dear Lou tried to cheer her. Strangely enough, both of them had agreed that it could not be to either of them that the dreadful thing was to happen."

On the afternoon of December 3, 1894, according to their custom he took his morning's work for her criticism. She quickly perceived that in this, which neither dreamed was to be the last work of his pen, his genius had risen to its highest level, and she poured out her praise in a way that was unusual with her. It was almost with her words of commendation still ringing in his ears that he passed to the great beyond. In a letter addressed to his friends shortly afterwards, Lloyd Osbourne gives us the details of these last moments:

"At sunset he came downstairs, rallied his wife about the forebodings she could not shake off; talked of a lecturing tour to America that he was eager to make, 'as he was now so well,' and played a game of cards with her to drive away her melancholy. He said he