Animals -- Juvenile fiction; Fantasy literature; Human-animal communication -- Juvenile fiction; Voyages and travels -- Juvenile fiction
Once only
Was his kindly countenance
Darkened by a deadly frown.
Woe to the wicked enemy
That dares attack
The tribe with Thinkalot for Chief!
VI
(_He Is Crowned King_)
The birds of the air rejoiced;
The Sea laughed and gambolled with her shores;
All Red-skins wept for joy
The day we crowned him King.
He is the Builder, the Healer, the Teacher and the Prince;
He is the greatest of them all.
May he live a thousand thousand years,
Happy in his heart,
To bless our land with Peace.
_THE SECOND CHAPTER_
THOUGHTS OF HOME
IN the Royal Palace Bumpo and I had a beautiful suite of rooms of our
very own—which Polynesia, Jip and Chee-Chee shared with us. Officially
Bumpo was Minister of the Interior; while I was First Lord of the
Treasury. Long Arrow also had quarters there; but at present he was
absent, traveling abroad.
One night after supper when the Doctor was away in the town somewhere
visiting a new-born baby, we were all sitting round the big table in
Bumpo’s reception-room. This we did every evening, to talk over the
plans for the following day and various affairs of state. It was a kind
of Cabinet Meeting.
To-night however we were talking about England—and also about things
to eat. We had got a little tired of Indian food. You see, none of
the natives knew how to cook; and we had the most discouraging time
training a chef for the Royal Kitchen. Most of them were champions at
spoiling good food. Often we got so hungry that the Doctor would sneak
downstairs with us into the palace basement, after all the cooks were
safe in bed, and fry pancakes secretly over the dying embers of the
fire. The Doctor himself was the finest cook that ever lived. But he
used to make a terrible mess of the kitchen; and of course we had to be
awfully careful that we didn’t get caught.
Well, as I was saying, to-night food was the subject of discussion at
the Cabinet Meeting; and I had just been reminding Bumpo of the nice
dishes we had had at the bed-maker’s house in Monteverde.
“I tell you what I would like now,” said Bumpo: “a large cup of cocoa
with whipped cream on the top of it. In Oxford we used to be able to
get the most wonderful cocoa. It is really too bad they haven’t any
cocoa-trees in this island, or cows to give cream.”
“When do you suppose,” asked Jip, “the Doctor intends to move on from
here?”
“I was talking to him about that only yesterday,” said Polynesia. “But
I couldn’t get any satisfactory answer out of him. He didn’t seem to
want to speak about it.”
There was a pause in the conversation.
“Do you know what I believe?” she added presently. “I believe the
Doctor has given up even thinking of going home.”
“Good Lord!” cried Bumpo. “You don’t say!”
“Sh!” said Polynesia. “What’s that noise?”
We listened; and away off in the distant corridors of the palace we
heard the sentries crying,
“The King!—Make way!—The King!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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