| Show RUNAWAY BLACK BOYS escaped samoan slaves who live in the thick woods wood boys boya sometimes run ran away from the plantations and live alone in the forest building little sheds to protect them from the rain and sometimes planting little gardens for food but the most part live the best they can upon the nuts of the trees and the yams bams that they dig dg with their hands bands out of the earth I 1 do not think there could be anywhere in the world people more wretched than these r runaways they cannot return for they would only return to be punished they can never hope to see again their own people indeed I 1 do not know that they can hops hope but just to find enough yams bams every day to keep them from starvation and in the wet season of the year which is our summer and your winter when the rain falls day after day far loud loader e r than the I 1 loudest thunder pump that ever fell in england and the room is so dark that the lean man is sometimes glad to light his lamp to write by I 1 can think of nothing so dreary as the state of t aliese ase poor runaways in the housely hou selcis ush lush L you are to remember besides that the people of the island irate and fear them because they are cannibals sit aud aad tell tales of them about their lamps at night in their own comfortable houses and are sometimes afraid to lie down to sleep if there is is a lurking linking black boy in the neighborhood well no now alick is of their own race and langu language agge only lie is a little more mom lucky because he has not run away and how do you think that he proposed to help them he asked if he might have a gun what do you want witt with a gun alick was asked he a answered n quite simply and with his nt nice i e good natured smile that if he had a gun un 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 hill aca sels or rats the other day he was sent on an errand to the german where many of the black boys live it was very late lat when ewhen he came cab home 11 he had a white bandage round his head his eyes shone and he could searce scarcely lyV seak eak for e excitement it seemed some of the black boys who were his enemies at home had attacked him one with a knife by his own account he had bad 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 so some T c black boys of his own side had n not 0 te ome come to the rescue he must cerl certainly ddn ly have been killed I 1 am sure no christmas box could malce any of you children so happy as this fight made alick A great part of the next nest day he neglected his work to play upon the one stringed harp and sing songs about his great victory today to day when he is gone upon his holiday he has announced that he is going back to the german firm to have another I 1 brittle battle and another triumph I 1 do not think he will go all the same or I 1 should be uneasy for I 1 do not want to have my alick killed and there is no doubt doubt that if he begin this fight again he will be likely to go on with it very far fan robert louis lonis stevenson in st nicholas |
