“How beautiful!” I exclaimed.
“Yes, beautiful to you,” said young Russell, “but we see it all the time. We study and read about England and America and long to see the beautiful things there, isn’t that so, Sarah?”
“Yes, indeed,” replied the young girl. “How much I would like to see England, for in reality we are all English here.” The young girl paused and soon continued, “They tell me that the American girls are bright and beautiful. Is it not so?”
What could a great boy like myself say to a question like that? I think she meant to relieve me of my embarrassment, for she said cheerily,
“Tell me about the American girls—how they look and what they do?”
In my simple boyish way I tried to comply, but not very successfully; and I think she helped me out some by asking a second question before I could answer the first. Suddenly she broke out, “There are two things that girls do the world over—they sing and dance. I would like to hear your girls sing and see them dance. I suppose we all sing alike but we dance differently. We have a simple dance which came to us from our Tahitian grandmothers. Yours is different; you glide around in kind of circles, I think; but that would be impossible for me.”
I think that, if the girl had thought a moment, she would not have made this allusion to her large bare feet which had never known shoes. There was a troubled look to her eyes. Then there came a ringing laugh.
“But we girls can put our feet to a noble use. Swimming is as easy to us as it is to the water fowl. We take to it from infancy. Only yesterday I swam round the island.”
“Swam round the island!” I exclaimed.
“Yes, that is nothing,” she said. “It is only about five miles.”