It happened, fortunately, to be liberty week for the men, and whilst we were discussing his woes the voices of some of our crew came from the landing. The transition was marvellous. Dennis sprang to his feet, gazed inquiringly seaward for a moment, and then as the men's voices grew nearer and louder, he twisted his tail into the rigidity of a corkscrew and bounded beachward, where the liberty party was skylarking by the jetty under the palm-trees.
No need to describe the meeting or the subsequent festivities. Dennis followed each party that came ashore, trotting after them into the back country, sleeping in the bush, and I believe enjoying the holiday more than they did. He was the first to welcome the coming party, the last to speed the going, filling his part of host with a grace and dignity in town, and an abandon and a freedom in the country, that awoke in after-days the tender regrets of his companions.
The frolic of Dennis and his friends lasted a scant week, and when the last boat-load left the beach he turned mournfully shoreward, unheeding the re-echoing cheers they gave him, and crawled, swaying port and starboard in his grief, slowly towards the loneliness of his new home. He fell into gloomy ways; he lost his fat and dignity; he seemed on the verge of a decline; he took himself seriously as a persecuted exile in a far land. Finally it was thought best to send him afield to his new labors, and his master tried to woo him countryward, but in vain. He had won his way into this American's heart, for when force was suggested he declined to tie the pig's legs together, and throw him into a cart as he would have done with a pig of less degree. He declared that Dennis was a gentleman by instinct, a little low in his mind, but still a gentleman, and that he could wait until Dennis might, as if in the gayety of a holiday, idly stray with him on some early morning to the plantation inland. But Dennis was obdurate and unhappy; and so the day before the ship sailed for Apia his old master, the ship's cook, and the boatswain's mate were sent to him, for it was known he would follow the trill of the bosun's call. When he heard the familiar voices and saw the blue shirts of his shipmates, and caught the bird-like whistle of the mate, he jumped to his feet, gave an ecstatic grunt, and ran among the trees wildly, with the fire of youth rioting in his trotters.
A two-wheeled cart was brought to the door, the driver took the reins, the bluejackets seated themselves in the stern-sheets, and with Dennis trotting gayly at the tail-board, the merry company waved a farewell to me as they went slowly down the Purumu Road into the heart of the land.
Just beyond the last police station of the town two roads join, one curving shoreward and the other winding through a wilderness of cocoanut groves up the gentle inclines of the island. Here the cart stopped for a moment, while the men, trilling a bright ballad of the sea, dismounted to weave a chaplet of hibiscus for the decoration of the jocund pig.
Then remounting, the cart pushed forward merrily, rounded the bend where the shrubbery met the archway of the trees, and Dennis passed hillward out of my life forever.
[ROSE PETALS.]
BY EMMA J. GRAY.
