“He French—no good. Bunch of thieves. You want me punch him good?”
“It’s okay, Joe. He’ll be here only a short time.”
“I stay,” said Big Joe grimly. He settled himself on the gunwales and remained there until our visitor had returned to his jeep (the only one on the island) and driven out of sight.
Actually, Bora Bora was personified for us by Big Joe. He lived nearby with his wife and an “American” daughter of about Jessica’s age, in a compact house of woven side walls and a thatched roof, set high on stilts. Working together, he and his wife made a living by making the dance costumes of bleached fibers, elaborately decorated with hundreds of yellow and brown cowrie shells, which sell for $25 to $30 American in the tourist shops of Papeete. What Big Joe and his family made on the deal we never did find out, although we suspected that the Chinese storekeeper to whom they turned over their entire output managed to do very well on the transaction.
In our own case, I am able to quote the price exactly, for I ordered two of the outfits for Barbara and Jessica, complete with “grass” skirt, a brassière of fine bark cloth trimmed with shells, and the handsome crownlike headdress. When Joe brought over the completed costumes—and Jessica’s, at least, had been made to order, for it fitted her small size exactly—Big Joe waved away any mention of cost.
“But, Joe, you’ve got to tell me how much! We’re sailing tomorrow. If you don’t tell me how much to pay you for these, I can’t take them!”
“Aw—never mind money. What I do with money?”
“But there must be something you need?”
Joe thought that one over. At last he asked, hesitantly, “You maybe got an old pair pants? I could use pants. Or maybe old blanket?”
We had plenty of blankets on board—all bought at the Australian salvage depot for a couple of shillings apiece. I gave Joe a couple, plus a pair of pants that were hardly large enough for his vast size, and weighted the whole down with a carton of cigarettes.