They tell a story of an inspector at a school examining the children in general knowledge.
“How many feet has a cat?” he asked smiling.
A row of black eyes looked at him stolidly.
He asked again, but still there was no dawning intelligence in those eyes. He began to wonder. Didn't they have cats in this place? Then the teacher stood up.
“How many foot puss hab got?”
And they answered as one.
I could wish that the schools were better equipped, for the negro patois, amusing as it is, is still but patois, and though negro voices can be soft and pleasant, often I have heard them talking among themselves with very ugly intonations indeed.
And yet it is a shame to complain, for though it is delightful to live amidst lovely scenery, it is always the people who add piquancy to life. And the Jamaican peasant was always adding to my joy. He didn't mean to do it. It was when he was most natural I got the best results.
On Kempshot Pen one day the head man came reporting that the men had—like men all over the world—struck for higher wages. But they chose the wrong time. Their mistress could do without them, and she did.
“Tell them,” she said, “they can go. I can manage.” And they set out to enjoy themselves. About an hour later she was aroused by a loud wailing, and in burst a man with his eyes starting out of his head and the lower part of his face a bloody pulp. She did not recognise one of her own men, and he could only gug—gug—gug, and splutter blood and broken teeth. But there were two shamefaced men at the gate who looked as if they had broken all the commandments, and expected to be well beaten for it.