| Show RUNAWAY BLACK BOYS escaped samoatu slaves VV ho live in the thick boodt BOS sometimes run away from the plantations and live alone in the forest building little sheds to protect them aiom alie rain and sometimes planting little gardens for food but the most part live the best the can upon the nuts of the brets trets and the ams tint they dig with their hands out of the earth I 1 do not think there could be anywhere in the w orld people more wretched than these runaway s the cannot return foi they would only re turn to be punished the can never hope to see again their own people indeed I 1 do not know that they can hope but just to find enough bams yams e ery day to leep them from starvation and in the wet season of the ear which is our summer and our w inter when the rain falls da day far louder than the loudest thunder pump that eer fell in england and the room is so dark that the lean man is booe times glad to light his limp to write by I 1 can think of nothing ao dreary as the state of these poor runaways luna ways in the houseless bush you are to remember besides that the people of the island hate and fear them because the are cannibals sit and tell tales of them about their lamps at night in their own comfort ible lion ses and are some j afraid to lie down to sleep if there js a black bo v in the neighbor hood well now alick is of their ow n race and language he ia a little more luck because he has not lun away and how do on think that lie proposed to help thema lie asked if he might have a gun hat do you w ant w ith a gun alicke was asked lie answered quite simply and with his nice good natured smile that if he had a gun he would go up into the high bush and shoot black boys as men shoot pigeons he said nothing about eating them nor do I 1 think he really meant to I 1 think all he wanted was to clear the plantation of the vermin as game keepers at home kill weasels or rats the other day he was sent on an errand to the german company where many of the black boys live it was very late when he came home he had a white bandage round his head ilis eyes shone and he scarcely speak for excitement it seemed some of the black boys who were his enemies at home had attacked him one with a knife by his ow u account he had fought very well but the odds were heavy the man with the knife had cut him both in the head and back he had been struck down and if some black boys of his own side had not come to the rescue he must certainly have been killed I 1 am sure no christmas box could make any of you children so happy as this fight made alick A great part of the nest day he neglected his work to play upon the one stringed harp and sing songs about his great victory tory when he is gone upon his holiday he has announced that he is going back to the german firm to have another battle and another triumph I 1 do not think he will go all the same or I 1 should be uneasy for 1 do not want to have my alick killed and there is no doubt that if he begin this fight again he will be likely to go on with it very far robert louis stevenson in st nicholas |
