Half an hour more and the party was in full swing. Native musicians, stationed on the landing, furnished the music, and Vivan, the Filipino Chesterfield, with sweeping bows to every one, was serving the refreshments. Padre Pastor, in his black gown, with his face all wreathed in smiles, was trying to explain to the schoolteacher’s wife that “stars were the forget-me-nots of heaven.” The young commissary sergeant had secured an alcove for the “Arizona babe,” and “Foxy grandpa,” taking a nip of something when his good wife’s back was turned, was telling his best anecdote of the southwest, “Ichabod Crane,” the big-boned Kansan—who had got the better of us all that afternoon in argument—swinging his arms, and with his head thrown back, was trying to herd the people into an old-fashioned reel. Grabbing the little daughter of the regiment together with the French constabulary officer—they loved each other like two cats—he shouted, “Salamander, there! Why don’t you salamander?” Entering into the fun more than the rest, the genial army doctor “kept the ball a-rolling.”
For the doctor was a southerner, as many of the army people are. In his dual function of physician-soldier, he could boast that he had killed more men, had more deaths to his credit, than his fellow officers. He was undoubtedly the best leech in the world. When off duty he assumed a Japanese kimono, which became him like the robes of Nero. Placing his sandaled feet upon the window-sill, he used to read the Army and Navy Journal by the hour. Although he had a taste for other literature, his studies were considerably hampered by a tendency to fall asleep after the first few paragraphs. He spent about four weeks on “Majorie Daw.” When he was happy—and he generally was happy—he would sing that favorite song of his, “O, Ca’line.” It went:
“O, Ca’line! O, Ca’line!
Can’t you dance da pea-vine?
O, my Jemima, O-hi-o.”
But he could never explain satisfactorily what the “pea-vine” was. His “Ring around and shake a leg, ma lady,” was a triumph in the lyric line.
We used to walk to Lobuc every afternoon to purchase eggs. The doctor’s “Duna ba icao itlong dinhi?” always amused the natives, who, when they had any eggs, took pleasure in producing them. It was with difficulty that I taught him to say “itlog” (egg) instead of “eclogue,” which he had been using heretofore. He made one error, though, which never could be rectified,—he always called a Chinaman a “hen chick,” much to the disgust of the offended Oriental, whose denomination was expressed in the Visayan by the word “inchic.”
I pause before attempting a description of the Oroquieta ball, and, like the poets, pray to some kind muse to guide my pen. To-night I feel again the same thrill that I felt the night of the grand Oroquieta ball. The memories of Oroquieta music seem as though they might express themselves in words:
“The stars so brightly shine,