This series of articles is a great find by
Alan. He recognized that the names
of these children and their ages were similar to Hyatt Verrill and Kathryn’s
children; I missed the connection
five times. Family has confirmed!
THE DIARY OF TWO REAL GIRLS ON A REAL TRIP
Part 1 of 5
By Lola and Valerie
From Everyland magazine, January 1917, researched by
Alan Schenker, digitized by Doug Frizzle, March 2012.
WE
are two little girls, Lola fourteen years old and Valerie twelve, and we are
just as happy as we can be. We are on the
steamer Guiana with our father
and mother, bound for a trip to the West Indies and South
America.
We
used to live on one of these islands
when we were too young to remember much about it. This time I, Lola, am going
to keep a journal and Valerie has a camera, so we will be sure to remember
every interesting thing that happens.
We
have passed the Statue of Liberty
and are way down the bay with New York far behind. We
are stopping a moment to let the pilot, who always takes the
ship out of New York,
get off into his little boat which has come
alongside. We have given him our farewell letters and now he is climbing down the ladder and as soon as he reaches his boat he
waves his hat, the passengers cheer,
the captain on the bridge gives his signal to the engineer and the
Guiana starts again.
We
just love our little stateroom right
across from father
and mother. It has a big round
porthole for a window and an electric fan and two cunning berths and such dear
little curtains around them. I have the lower one and Valerie has the
upper, for she likes to climb.
The
dining-room has small tables
everywhere just like a hotel, and the
big social hall has a piano and graphophone,
and I am glad I brought my music. There is also a nice library, but we are
sorry they do not sell ice-cream
soda and candy.
The
captain asked us to come up on the bridge at noon and see him shoot the sun. Valerie said some
one else must have shot it already for it looked very dull. I ran to father and asked him what "shooting the sun" meant and he told me all about it.
When the captain took us up with him
later I surprised him by knowing that the
instrument he used was a sextant and that he had to figure out just where we
were at noon every day after looking through it.
We
have been way down in the engine room with the
chief engineer. My, how hot and noisy it was! but you would never know the ship was moving when down there.
We felt sorry for the firemen who do
nothing all day and night but shovel coal into the
huge furnaces. They burn nearly ten tons of coal a day.
The
wireless room is Valerie's favorite
place. The second operator has taught her a great deal about sending and
receiving messages and what the dots
and dashes mean. She is quite proud of knowing how to send the S.O.S. call if no one else was able.
It
is warm enough now to wear summer clothes,
for we are in the Gulf
Stream and see flying fish which fly just from
wave to wave but not in the air, as
we had expected. We also see great patches of yellow Gulf-weed.
The
doctor says he has ordered a school of porpoises to have recess tomorrow so we can see them
at play when we pass. I know he is jollying me but father
says we are likely to see some at
any time.
Later
we had a great joke on the doctor.
We sent him a hurry call to come up
on deck as he was wanted at once. Then we showed him his "patients,"
— dozens of porpoises turning somersaults
in the air; leaping so near the ship that we hoped that one would jump on board,
but none did and soon the ship had left
them far behind.
This
is our fourth day from New York. We rose at
daylight to catch our first view of a West Indian island. I remember that these islands looked just like little dots in our
geography and we were so surprised to see this one covered with high green
mountains rising out of the sea.
A
few hours after sighting land we reached the
harbor and dropped anchor and waited for the
port officer and doctor to come on
board. Saint Thomas
Island belongs to Denmark
and everywhere we see Danish flags flying,—red with a white cross.
Swarms
of boats of all kinds came out from
shore, boats full of the queerest
looking vegetables and fruits and odd-looking necklaces, bracelets, belts and
bags made from bright-colored shells
and seeds. Everybody is colored. The diving boys are very funny. They beg you
to toss them pennies and then dive down into the
beautiful clear blue water to get them.
It is great sport watching them and
some of the
smartest can go down on one side of the
ship, dive under the keel and come up on the
other side and catch a penny before
it touches bottom.
It
seems strange to see palm trees everywhere, looking like great feather dusters. We are going ashore after breakfast in
a small boat named "Laughing Sally." The ship stays here all day so
we will have plenty of time to see all the
sights.
We
had a beautiful time on shore. Valerie took her camera and got some fine snapshots. It seems queer to have such hot
weather in midwinter when a week ago
we were shivering in New York.
We felt like Alice
in Wonderland — everything was so different. The first thing that took our
fancy was a funny pink fort with wooden-looking Danish sentinels just like a
toy fort and tin soldiers. We walked up the
main street and saw only colored people everywhere. The women
wore bright-colored dresses and turbans and carried huge bundles and baskets on
their heads. We went right to the market place and bought some
sugar cane, which we liked very much, and we tried all sorts of odd fruits;
mangos,—which are so squashy they
ought to be eaten in a bath tub, and taste of turpentine,—custard apples, sapodillos,
pawpaws and sour-sops; but none tasted as
good as our apples, pears, and peaches.
We
walked up a steep street made into steps, to visit Blackbeard's Castle on top
of a hill. The people say an old pirate of that name once lived there. We saw banana trees with big bunches of
bananas on them, and a native boy
walked up a coconut tree to get us a green or jelly coconut. He really walked
up, too, and we took a picture of him doing it. We also saw bay trees growing
and went to a bay rum factory and bought some
bay rum, for the best bay rum in the world is made in Saint Thomas.
We saw,
in one of the stores, several pairs
of ice skates hanging by the door,
and were amused to have the
proprietors tell us that they were
used to advertise the fact that the winter season had begun and holiday goods were
on sale; and this with the thermometer
between 80 and 90 degrees the year
around!
A
dear old negro "mammy" followed us about, waiting for a chance to ask
if we knew a nice American family named Philips who had taken her daughter
Freda to New York
last year as nurse for their
children. These people all think that New York
and America
are as small as their islands and
that every one knows everybody else just as they
do in the islands.
We
are back on board the steamer taking
a last look at the pretty town on the three hills as we are leaving the harbor and some
time to-morrow will be in the
English island of
Saint Kitts.
(To
be continued)
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