“Master, me fastem head belong bat close under head belong me, then rub eye belong me along ashes and make fass (shut) eye belong me, and then me tink, and tink, and tink, then me like sleep....”
Jerope’s head had begun to whirl then—“Me all a same pidgeon.” The flying fox became a swift-winging god. “He catch me allesame pickaninny. Me hang on fass too much, then he go up and up and he go quick-feller too much. Him quick allesame nothing.
“Bym-by me come along place where Mamma belong me stop; this one place belong people who die finish.” Heaven was filled with Jerope’s dead kinsmen. “Master, this place he good feller too much. All man he got good feller garden, good feller house, plenty dog, plenty pig. Mamma belong me he come, he kiss me.” (Throughout he referred to Mamma as “he,” which is correct pidgin.) “Now me go inside along house belong him. Mamma he got good feller house too much, and yam he big one allesame tree. Suppose altogether people along Heaven he like kaikai fish, he tink, dass all, and good feller fish he must come along saucepan. Man dis place, Mamma dis place he no can work. Suppose Mamma like ’em something; he tink, dass all, and altogether something he tink, he must come.... Dis heaven belong Mamma him good feller too much!”
I made no attempt to deny anything, his whole tone was so convincing. He hadn’t been dreaming; he had been there and seen a worn old woman having the fine rewards that come by wishing.
CHAPTER VIII
I SAY IT IN PIDGIN
At last the time came when my vanity was tickled to the verge of hysteria; I had actually learned pidgin English. To the native English is pidgin, and if you do not speak it with classic exactitude he simply fails to understand you. Once I had thought that I could pick it up in a week or two, it sounded so like laundry Chinese. Studying it, I learned how iron-bound its rules of idiom and grammar actually are. Twice, before I had mastered the lingo, I had tried it on native audiences and had been, as the actors say, laughed off the stage. But I was tired of having my lectures hashed by casual interpreters; I knew that I must talk straight to the people in the trade language which was common over the larger part of Melanesia. It took a year of hard grinding to learn it. Superior natives, kindly missionaries and District Officers were my tutors.
I must be fair to the reader and show him a few of the simpler twists in the language, and interpret a few peculiarities. Otherwise, the forthcoming sample of what became my standard pidgin hookworm lecture might be difficult to understand.
The verb “go,” for instance. The future is “by-and-by me go,” and the past is “me go finish.” “Finish” is trickily used to express finality. When a boy is “dead finish” he is dead. When you bury a body you “plant ’im finish.” (When a houseboy says he is “killed” it merely means that his mistress has taken a stick to him.)
“Him” is masculine, feminine or neuter, generally pronounced “im,” but sometimes “um.” “Im” may be joined to a verb, as in “lookim,” or separated as in “look im,” (“look at him”).