Beche's Toys
By A. Hyatt Verrill
Mr. Verrill has lived for
several years in the West India
Islands and through his
books has introduced hosts of boys and girls to the
friendly people living there. As
this magazine goes to press Mr. Verrill is leaving for another trip to the
Islands and will secure new stories and
pictures of Beche, who is a real Carib boy.
BECHE was an Indian, although at first sight
you would have thought him a Mongolian,—a Chinese, Korean, or Japanese boy,—for
his face was round and chubby, his short black hair was coarse and straight, and
his soft brown eyes were almond-shaped and quite oblique. He lived on the little West Indian island of Dominica
in a little hut built entirely of palms: timbers of palm-wood, walls of dried
palm-buds, and roof of palm-leaves.
Beche's father was a chief, and the
handful of Caribs whom he ruled were the
last of their race in the islands which they
had once owned and where they had
once numbered hundreds of thousands. In the
olden times they had been fierce,
brave, warlike people, and in their
great dugout canoes had swooped down upon the
natives of the other islands, returning with many captives whom they killed and ate, for the
Caribs were cannibals and loved human flesh. Indeed the
natives who alarmed old Robinson Crusoe and brought his Man Friday to his
island were Caribs, and the scene of
Crusoe's story was the island of Tobago.
With the
coming of the white men to the Caribs' lands the
Indians were driven back from the
coasts and took refuge in the
mountains and forests; and while they
fought desperately, and often successfully against the
white strangers, yet in the end they were overcome and all were killed or captured
save a few on St. Vincent and Dominica.
Here they dwelt quietly and in peace
until the great eruption in St.
Vincent destroyed the few on that
island, and only the little
settlement on Dominica
remained of all the great race that
once fished, hunted, and fought among the
beautiful islands.
Little Beche knew of all the past greatness of his tribe, but history or the sad fate of his people troubled him very little,
for he was well fed, happy, and good-natured, and found the
warm tropical sunshine, the deep
cool forest, and the bright torquoise
sea furnished his every need and gave him plenty of amusement.
He did not even speak the language of his people, and while he knew there was a Carib tongue and often heard his father and the
old men speak it, yet he found the
soft Creole French of the colored
natives far easier and much more useful.
He sat upon a smooth rock beneath the
nodding, rustling palm-trees close to the
breaking surf, looking idly out to sea where the
white-sailed fishing canoes bobbed up and down upon the
waves; and as he gazed seaward it occurred to him that it would be fun to sail
a toy canoe of his own. Of course Beche could not ask his father for money to buy a toy boat, and even if he had
the money he could not buy one, for there was no toy store for miles and miles across the island. But Beche knew that close at hand were
countless toy canoes to be had with little trouble, for above his head the coco-palms spread their
graceful fronds, and on every tree grew canoes by the
dozen.
This may sound very funny to
you and you may think I am joking when I speak of toy canoes growing on trees,
but little Beche the Carib boy knew
it was so, and once his mind was made up he lost little time in climbing a tree
to secure the toys he wished.
If you had watched him climb the trees you certainly would have been surprised
and amused, for Beche did not "shinny up" like an American boy, but,
grasping the smooth, round trunk of
a tree in his hands, placed his feet against the
bark and easily walked up the
tree in the oddest way you could
imagine. When he reached the great
plume-like leaves, he sat down among the
leaves and fruit and drew his sharp machete and with a few quick strokes cut
off a bunch of the big green nuts
which fell crashing to the sand. Then
he pushed aside a bunch of the queer
sweet flowers and, reaching underneath, cut off the
polished wood-like sheaths of the
bud, and having done this he quickly slid back to the
ground. The exertion of climbing had made him thirsty, and, cutting off the end of a nut, Beche took a long, deep drink of the creamy cold milk, and then
gathered up the
buds scattered on the sand. Each of these bud-covers was fifteen or eighteen inches in
length, pointed at one end and tapered at the
other and with the two edges curling up until they almost met. With a sharp thorn from a near-by
bush Beche made small holes through the
two sides of a bud-cover at one end, and with fine roots of the trees he stitched them
together. Then cutting some little
twigs from a bush he forced them
between the sides of the bud, and behold, he had a beautifully modeled
little canoe all complete save for sail and rudder.
Half a dozen of the buds were thus treated and then little sticks were set in them for masts, broad leaves were attached to the sticks, tiny pieces of bark were affixed for
rudders, and with his little fleet in his arms Beche ran to the edge of the
sea. His only clothing was a ragged shirt, so it didn't make any difference if
he did get wet, and without hesitation he waded into the
white surf until he reached the
quiet water beyond the breakers.
Then he placed one of the palm-bud
canoes upon the water, and, as the brisk trade-wind caught the
leaf sail, the little craft keeled
over and sailed rapidly off to the
west. Up and down on the little
waves it danced, gracefully it rode the
long rollers, and Beche jumped about in the
water and cried out in glee as he watched it sail bravely out of sight. One
after another the
boats were launched until all had disappeared, and Beche returned to the sandy shore to think of other
ways of amusing himself until the
fishing fleet came in with its load of fish. He was tired of making boats to
sail away and decided that to fly a kite would be much better fun. He had no
paper nor cloth nor twine with which to make one, but that didn't trouble him
in the least, for he knew that in
his country kites as well as boats grew on trees. As soon as he had fully made
up his mind to have a kite, he picked up his machete and started on a run for the forest. It was not far, and in a few minutes he
was among the gigantic trees and
looked about for the tree from which
to gather his kites. Very soon he
espied one, and hurrying toward it searched upon the
ground beneath and picked up several great smooth oval leaves a foot or more in
length and six inches wide. In shape the
leaves were very much like some American boys' kites, and all that Beche now
required was the string with which
to fly them.
String grew on every hand,
for nearly every tree was hung and festooned with trailing vines, and Beche
knew that these vines or
"lianas" were as tough and strong as rope. Some were as big as ships'
cables and the Carib boy hunted for
some time before he found a tree with vines light and fine enough to serve as
kite-string. Climbing nimbly up on a large vine to the
tree-tops Beche cut a number of the
fine lianas, and then slid back to
earth, and, gathering the vines in his hands and picking up his tree-grown
kites, returned to the beach.
In a few minutes he had
attached a line to a large leaf, and, running along the
sand, soon had the strange kite
flying gaily into the air. Higher
and higher it soared, and Beche tied length after length of the vine together
until at last the leaf was far up in
the sky and all his line was
exhausted. Beche wondered if the
kite would sail out of sight completely if he had a longer string, and was just
thinking of going to the forest for
more when he heard a shout behind him, and turning saw the
first fishing-boat being drawn far up the
beach by its crew. Instantly the
kite lost its attractions, and, dropping the
lianas, the little Carib scampered
off to help land the catch of fish,
while the little leaf-kite fluttered
for a moment high in air
and then fell swiftly into the sea.
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