“A tragedy of some sort—piracy and murder most likely. One of the natives named Rahili who went out to the vessel, was an ex-sailor, who spoke and could also read and write English well, and he noticed that although the schooner was much weather-worn as if she had been a long while at sea, there was a newly-painted name on her stern—Meta. That in itself was suspicious. I sent an account of the affair to the colonial papers, but nothing was known of any vessel named the Meta. Since then the child had lived first with one family, and then another. As I have said, she is extremely intelligent, but has a curiously independent spirit—'refractory' my wife calls it—and does not associate with the other native girls. One day, not long ago, she got into serious trouble through her temper getting the better of her. Lisa, my native assistant's daughter is, as I daresay you know, a very conceited, domineering young lady, and puts on very grand airs—all these native teachers and their wives and daughters are alike with regard to the 'side' they put on—and my wife has made so much of her that the girl has become a perfect female prig. Well, it seems that Pautôe refused to attend my wife's sewing class (which Lisa bosses) saying that she was going out on the reef to get crayfish. Thereupon Lisa called her a laakau tafea (a log of wood that had drifted on shore) and Pautôe, resenting the insult and the jeers and laughter of the other children, seized Mademoiselle Lisa by the hair, tore her blouse off her and called her 'a fat-faced, pig-eyed monster'.”
Marsh laughed. “Description terse, but correct.”
“The deacons expelled her from school, and ordered her a whipping, but the chief and I interfered, and stopped it.”
The trader nodded approval. “Of course you did, Copley; just what any one who knows you would expect you to do. But although I am quite willing to give the child a home, I can't be a schoolmaster to her.”
“Of course not. You are doing more than any other man would do for her.”
Twelve months had passed, and Marsh had never had reason to regret his kindness to the orphan. To him she was wonderfully gentle and obedient, and from the very first had acceded to his wish to dress herself in semi-European fashion. The trader's household consisted of himself and his two servants, a Samoan man named Âli (Harry) and his wife, Leota. For some years they had followed his fortunes as a trader in the South Seas, and both were intensely devoted to him. A childless couple, Marsh at first had feared that they would resent the intrusion of Pautôe into his home. But he was mistaken; for both Âli and Leota had but one motive for existence, and that was to please him—the now grown man, who eleven years before, when he was a mere youth, had run away from his ship in Samoa, and they had hidden him from pursuit. And then when “Tikki” (Dick) Marsh, by his industrious habits, was enabled to begin life as a trader, they had come with him, sharing his good and his bad luck with him, and serving him loyally and devotedly in his wanderings throughout the Isles of the Pacific. So, when Pautôe came they took her to themselves as a matter of duty; then, as they began to know the girl, and saw the intense admiration she had for Marsh, they loved her, and took her deep into their warm hearts. And Pautôe would sometimes tell them that she knew not whom she loved most—“Tikki” or themselves.
Matters, from a business point of view, had not for two years prospered with Marsh on Motumoe. Successive seasons of drought had destroyed the cocoanut crop, and so one day he told Copley, who keenly sympathised with him, that he must leave the island. This was a twelvemonth after Pautôe had come to stay with him.
“I shall miss you very much, Marsh,” said the missionary, “miss you more than you can imagine. My monthly visits to you here have been a great solace and pleasure to me. I have often wished that, instead of being thirty miles apart, we were but two or three, so that I could have come and seen you every few days.”
Then he added: “Poor little Pautôe will break her heart over your going away”.
“But I have no intention of leaving her behind, Copley. I am not so hard pressed that I cannot keep the youngster. I am thinking of putting her to school in Samoa for a few years.”