“Missus! Missus!” she shouted, “Topsy bin3 catch newfellow piccaninny boy, Topsy bin catch newfellow piccaninny boy,” and she sank down in a little breathless heap beside me.
Fast on her heels came some of the camp lubras bringing me an invitation to the christening party.
“You eye,” they gasped4, “him bin catch him alright,” and then they told me that Topsy, Sambo’s lubra, wanted me to come and see it, and christen it with a white man’s name. “Topsy bin talk, spose Missus come on, give piccaninny whitefellow name.”
Of course I went at once, taking a good supply of “chewbac” and a big red handkerchief, for we did not have a christening every day. Besides, I was curious to see this baby, for I had not yet seen a very tiny piccaninny.
Sambo met us at the creek, grinning widely with delight. We gave the proud father a new pipe and some “chewbac,” and he tried hard to grin a little wider in thanks, but found that even a blackfellow’s grin has its limits. Topsy was sitting among the lubras, and looked round when she heard us approaching, On her knee was her eldest5 son “Bittertwine,” a chubby6 little rascal7 about two years old. Beside her lay a coolamun, nearly filled with fresh green leaves and grass. As I came nearer she lifted up some of the leaves and showed me the tiniest, tiniest atom of a baby lying sound asleep; cool, and safe from flies, in its pretty leafy cradle.
I stood for some minutes, too astonished to speak, for instead of the shiny jet-black piccaninny I had expected, I found one just about the colour of honey.
“What name, Topsy?” I asked at last. “Him close up whitefellow, I think.”
“No more, Missus,” she answered, touching8 the little sleeping baby lovingly. “Him blackfellow alright. Look, Missus, him blackfellow alright,” she added, showing me one thin jet-black line running right round the mouth and others round the eyes and nails.
Then the lubras all joined in, and explained that a little black baby when it is first born, is always of a very light golden brown but with thin black lines, just as this baby had. They said that steadily9 and surely these lines would widen and spread till in a few days he would be like all other shiny black piccaninnies.
“All day likee that, Missus,” they assured me in chorus, so I put a handful of tobacco in the baby’s cradle, and spread a big red handkerchief on top. I said he was a man baby and Mr. Thunder Debbil-debbil would be delighted to see he had a nice red handkerchief. The lubras laughed merrily at this, and the old men smiled on the Missus with approval.
Then Topsy asked for a “whitefellow name” for her baby, and I said he should be called “Donald.”
“Tonald!” cried Topsy. “Tonald! Him good-fellow name, that one.”
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Every one repeated “Tonald” after her, and then called to each other. “Missus bin talk Tonald,” and the whole camp agreed it was a “goodfellow name alright.” For some reason, best known to themselves, the name pleased them.
Topsy said that her baby had a kangaroo’s spirit, and Jimmy was very pleased and important about it.
You see, Jimmy was head man of the Kangaroo-spirit family, and it would be his duty to see that “Tonald” was properly brought up, for he must be taught all the laws of his Totem, as well as how to throw his boomerang and use his throwing-stick. Jimmy was a sort of godfather to him, and Tonald would have to obey him even more than his own father and mother.
“By and by me make him grow, Missus,” said Jimmy, meaning that he would perform some very important ceremony to make the Debbil-debbils keep away so that Tonald could grow into a strong wise blackfellow. It was Jimmy’s duty to do this, and a blackfellow always does his duty to his tribe.
After the christening I passed round some “chewbac” and every one’s pipe was filled, and Tonald’s health was smoked. Every now and then an old blackfellow would nod his head and chuckle10.
“Tonald! Him goodfellow name that one.”
But Donald slept peacefully on, and Bittertwine sat on his mother’s knee, looking from me to the piccaninny, with big wondering eyes. Every little while he took his mother’s pipe out of her mouth, and put it in his own for a few sucks—smoking Donald’s health, I suppose.
Bittertwine was a wild little nigger boy or “myall,” and terrified of white men, but I don’t think it was the white man’s fault. I fancy his mother used to tell him that the white man would catch him if he were naughty. Just as some white mothers say “the black man” will catch their piccaninnies.
When we called on “Tonald” next morning I found that Sambo was wearing his handkerchief and that his friends had smoked his tobacco.
Topsy was very proud of her piccaninny. “Look, Missus,” she said. “Him close up blackfellow now.” So he was, and a day or two afterwards he was black all over, all excepting the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet. These would be a pale grey all his life.
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There was a visitor in the camp, quite a civilized11 blackfellow called Charlie, who was a great authority on christenings, for he had once been in a Catholic Mission School. He told us that when a white piccaninny got a name that “whitefellow chuck em water longa piccaninny.” He had been christened himself once, and water had been “chucked” on him, and he seemed to think he knew all about it. The priests used to tell a great joke about him. Charlie had been taught that he must not eat meat on a Friday, but one Friday he was found with a piece of beef.
“Charlie,” said the priest sternly, “you are eating meat.”
“No more,” said Charlie, seriously. “This one fish alright.”
The priest then said it was very wicked to say what was not true, but Charlie insisted that his beef was fish.
“Yes,” he said, arguing it out. “This one fish alright,” and then he told the priest that they had christened him with water, and called him Charlie, so he had christened his beef with water and called it fish. “You bin chuck ‘em water longa me, you bin call me Charlie. Alright me bin chuck ‘em water longa beef, me bin call fish,” and he quietly went on eating his fish.
Charlie came up to the house a few days after the christening, and very rudely demanded a “big mob of chewbac.”
I felt very angry with him for coming to me like this when he knew I was alone, so I said as quietly as I could—
“Very well, I’ll give you a big mob of something, Charlie,” and before he quite knew what had happened he was looking at my revolver, as I pointed12 it straight at him.
Poor Charlie, he could hardly be seen for the dust he made, in his hurry to get out of revolver range. That was the first and last time I had to take my revolver to a blackfellow, but Charlie was supposed to be civilized, you see. You cannot change a blackfellow into a white man, if you try; you only make a bad cunning sly old blackfellow. I don’t mean you can’t make a blackfellow into a better blackfellow. I know that can be done, if he is kept a blackfellow, true to his blackfellow instincts.
After this I expected that Charlie would keep out of my way, but he didn’t; he now seemed to consider himself a very special friend of mine.
“My word, Missus! you cheeky fellow alright,” he said next morning, when I went down to the camp, and he sat in front of a little circle of blackfellows, looking up at me in admiration13.
“My word!” echoed the old fellows, for Charlie had told his story, and my old friends, being blackfellows, were full of reverence14 for any one who was a “cheeky fellow.”
As we sat talking, Charlie told us that God made everything a white man has—trains and watches and horses, and that He showed him how to know miles. A blackfellow can see nothing to mark a mile, and wonders how the white man can. “Me plenty savey,” said Charlie, “me savey count all about,” and he began to count his fingers. He kept getting mixed, and that meant beginning at his thumb again, and it was not till after many struggles that he managed to count to five.
“My word!” everybody said, and Charlie swelled15 with pride. You see a blackfellow only counts up to two. His arithmetic is very simple, just—One, Two, Little Mob, Big Mob, so it was no wonder we were all amazed at Charlie.
He then told us in confidence that a little Debbil-debbil “sat down” inside the telegraph wire, and ran messages “quickfellow,” from one telegraph station to another. “Me savey,” he said wisely; “me bin hear him talk-talk longa Daly Waters.” Then, looking gravely round, he added: “Him bite alright, that one little fellow Debbil-debbil.”
I laughed at this, and the old men giggled16 nervously17, for we all knew that he had done what nearly every nigger has done—he had climbed up a telegraph pole to break off a piece of wire for a spear, and had found out that the Debbil-debbil could bite when he got an electric shock! He said it didn’t bite the white man because he was its master. The very fiercest dog never bites his master, you know!
Charlie knew all about that telegraph line. It was really a fence to keep the kangaroos in. That was why it was so high—too high for them to jump over. Unfortunately, the white man used up all the wire he had for the two top rails, and couldn’t finish it. When the little Debbil-debbil “jumped in,” he made him run messages “quickfellow” for him.
“My word, whitefellow plenty savey,” said Jimmy.
Billy Muck agreed with him, but said he was a “big-fellow fool” when he rounded up a big mob of cattle, and worked hard day and night only to brand them and let them go again. If Billy owned cattle he would kill them all and invite his friends to the feast. Somehow as I sat looking at the generous, honest, simple, unspoiled, blackfellow—absolutely free from vice18 or care—I felt that perhaps he was right, and the white man is a “bigfellow fool,” after all.
Charlie didn’t like Billy’s getting so much attention, and offered to count his toes, but I was tired of Charlie and his civilized ways, so called Bett-Bett and went home.
Bett-Bett was fascinated with Tonald and asked all sorts of questions about white piccaninnies. Were they born white? Did they wear clothes? and so on.
To amuse her, I made a rag doll, and painted a face on it, and dressed it like a baby. She looked at it for a long while, feeling it carefully all over, then she said with a chuckle—
“Him gammon piccaninny I think, Missus!”
All the first day she carried it in her arms, and Charlie told great tales of “gammon piccaninnies” that broke if they fell down.
The next day she said that “gammon piccaninnies” were “silly fellow.”
The day after that, Sue and the station pups had a tug-of-war with it, and the last we saw of it was when Sue was “going bush” with it in her mouth, and the pups in full chase after her.
Bett-Bett took no notice of the fate of her “gammon piccaninny.” She had found something much more interesting—a nest of little kittens under the raised floor of the bath-room—and for several days we saw very little of her, except the soles of her feet, as they stuck out from under the bath-room floor.
When the kittens were big enough, I sent Billy Muck with one of them to my next-door neighbour. With a bottle of milk and a saucer under one arm, and the kitten under the other, he started for his hundred-mile walk as cheerfully as though he were just going round the corner, and in two days reached the Katherine, his journey’s end.
On his return I asked him why he had hurried so.
“Milk close up finissem,” was all he said.
Good kind old Billy Muck! He wouldn’t let even a kitten suffer from hunger or thirst, if he could help it.
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1
scampering
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| v.蹦蹦跳跳地跑，惊惶奔跑( scamper的现在分词 ) | |
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2
creek
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| n.小溪，小河，小湾 | |
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3
bin
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| n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件 | |
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4
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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5
eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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6
chubby
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| adj.丰满的，圆胖的 | |
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7
rascal
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| n.流氓；不诚实的人 | |
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8
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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9
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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10
chuckle
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| vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑 | |
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11
civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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12
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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13
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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14
reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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15
swelled
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| 增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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16
giggled
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| v.咯咯地笑( giggle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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17
nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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18
vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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