Polly's Southern Cruise

He received the same reply as that given to the first driver. The second man could curse even more fluently than the one who had sent Mrs. Fabian scurrying away. But Mr. Ashby quietly took one step forward and caught the whip from the darky’s hand. Instantly he cowered and bobbed as if in apology.

Then came Mr. Dalken’s equipage, with Ruth and Nancy in mortal dread of being killed before the man would stop his horse.

“Where is Jack and the other girls?” asked Mr. Dalken, looking around in wonderment. He had fully expected to find them all there.

Before any one could reply, the wrangling over the fares began again. Each driver claimed four times the usual fee, but Mr. Dalken understood them, and when at last he had settled for the regular price of a dollar a trip, they smiled politely and drove away.

“You see, in these isles, one must never pay the price demanded. The native holds the highest regard and esteem for those who know the ropes and stick to one price – generally it is four to five times less than that asked. Remember this when you go shopping, ladies,” said Mr. Dalken.

“But what will you do about Polly and Nolla – and the two lost boys?” asked Ruth, anxiously.

“We will go over on the verandah and order long cool drinks of orangeade and wait for them. They will come, all right, when the driver hears that they wish to stop at this hotel,” said Mr. Dalken.

“Aren’t you a little worried?” asked Mrs. Courtney.

“No, not in Kingston. It would have been different in Havana or Hayti. Here, every one is as honest as the drinks – and they are temperance and pure. No synthetic orangeade for your money.” The laughing tone and reassuring manner of their host made his friends feel confident that soon the lost members of their party would arrive with varied tales of adventures.

Meanwhile young Baxter had managed to cause such a drag on the horse, to which he clung like grim death, that the animal stopped on a side lane where the blinding dust measured at least ten inches in depth. Natty Jack, in his once immaculate white flannels and silk shirt, looked for all the world as if he had been purposely caked with Jamaica dust an inch thick. Even his hair and eyebrows stuck out in yellow thickness. As the horse stopped Jack let go and sat down upon the ground with a heavy sigh.

“Aigh, you-all pays me free dollahs!” demanded the driver.

The owner of the animal now stood over Jack and scowled fiercely. “Mebbe dat hoss goin’ to git heaves f’on all dis hawd wu’k. Mebbe you’se got’ta pay foh my hoss, too!”

This was too much for poor Jack! He sprang up and there, in the isolation of that Jamaica lane shadowed by over-hanging palms, he started a regular fight with the driver. The astonished man, never thinking of striking back, went flat upon his back in the same dust where his victim had been seated a moment before.

Jack jumped into the front seat of the hack, whipped up the nag with the same whip the driver had brandished over him just a minute previously, and before the amazed fellow could think, his vehicle had passed out of sight around a corner of the lane.

While this went on, Ray sprinted as swiftly as if he was running a Marathon, but he was no match for the whipped horse which carried his friend to only goodness knows where. But Ray could not keep up the pace overlong, so he quietly subsided in front of a fruit stall and paid for a reviving drink of green cocoanut milk, thereby earning himself a stool upon which to sit and rest from the frightful strain in a tropical temperature.

While he sat there slowly sipping the cooling beverage, the carriage with Polly and Eleanor seated within drove past the fruit vendor’s booth. Ray was too exhausted to jump up and follow, but he decided that the girls were on their way to the Spring Hotel. Hence he turned his attention again to the drink.

The driver of the surrey in which the two girls had climbed, had no intention of taking his fares to the well-known Spring Hotel, because he was paid extra for every guest he could deposit at a small and practically new boarding house of third-rate class. Naturally this landlady found great difficulty in securing guests, and she found it necessary to pay the hack drivers a commission for their collaboration.

Polly and Eleanor saw themselves whisked along mean streets lined on both sides with a bungalow type of houses; these dwellings apparently were filled to overflowing with people of varied shades of black and brown, down to a pale yellow. Every now and then the driver of the vehicle had to swerve out of the way for a tramcar track at street crossings. At such crossings the girls saw the business street, down which the cars had their tracks, busy with tourists and shop keepers who called from their emporiums to attract attention to their wares on sale.

“For all the world like the East Side in New York, isn’t it?” asked Eleanor, as both girls gazed with interest at all they saw.

After driving his “fares” in and out of many byways, the hack man brought his horse up before a shabby house of somewhat larger dimensions than any bungalow the girls had yet seen. Here he opened the broken-hinged door of his surrey and bowed to let them know they were to step out and pay their bill.

Several indolent guests, who plainly showed their plane of life, sat upon the rickety chairs on the narrow verandah which hung desperately to the front of the “Hotel.” The landlady, a great bulk of light yellow tint, came out to greet her new guests.

Polly glanced over the place in amazement, and Eleanor felt inclined to double up in laughter. She had to cover her mouth with her hand in order to choke back the wild shout of amusement that would demand a vent.

“Why, what do you call this place?” demanded Polly of the driver, frowning upon him in stern anger.

“Dis am de ho-tel you wants to come to,” replied he.

“I told you to drive us to the Spring Hotel, and this never is it!”

“No’m, you’se says foh me to drive you-all affer dat man what cotched hoi’ of dat hoss’s head. Well, dat hoss and man done runned away somewhere, so I jus’ brings you to the fust-class place I knows of,” explained the driver.

Eleanor now screamed with laughter at the funny experience, and was unable to help Polly in her cross-examination of the man.

“You get back in that seat and take us to the Spring Hotel, or I will hand you over to the police!” threatened Polly, but she could not help wondering if Kingston ever had a police force!

“Ef I has to take you-all another trip, it’s goin’ to cost more money,” bargained the fellow, not knowing the nature of the girl he thought he had at a disadvantage.

Polly leaned out from the door of the hack. “You get in that seat in double-quick time or you’ll find out where I came from! Did you ever hear of Colorado people who know how to shoot a fly from a swinging street lamp forty feet away? Well, that’s me!” Polly’s tone was that of a hangman’s, her expression similar to that of an Empress who is judging a criminal, her sudden wave of the hand that of a western hold-up man. The driver, never having had such a “fare” with which to deal, obeyed like a whipped puppy. He climbed back into his seat and drove away midst the jeers and hoots of the loafers on the hang-too verandah. Even the landlady of the house jeered at him.

By this time Eleanor found herself able to gasp forth a cheer for Polly. But Polly turned blazing eyes upon her friend and said: “A fine assistant you will make in time of need!”

“Oh, Polly, what could you expect of me in such a ridiculous predicament? You looked too surprised and shocked for anything!”

But Polly was really offended this time, and she would not reply to Eleanor’s attempts at making up. Not until the meek driver turned into the beautiful avenue that brought them up in front of the Spring Hotel, where all but Jack and Ray lounged in great comfortable wicker chairs and sipped orangeade, did she forgive Eleanor.

Polly gave one glance at her friends and stiffened up. “Well! Is that the way you-all trouble over the safety of Nolla and me? We might have been offered up on the altar of the voodoo worshippers for all you cared!”

“We knew you would be perfectly safe in this town – no such menace as voodooism here,” laughed Mr. Dalken, coming down the three steps to welcome his charges.

“Two sov’ren’s, please,” now demanded the driver.

“Two what?” shouted Mr. Ashby, who had joined his friend.

With not so much bravado the hackman said: “I druv dese ladies all over Kingston tryin’ to keep up wid dere young man. Now I got’ta be paid foh all dat trouble.”

“Dalky, he never did! He took us way off to a dump of a house where he tried to make us believe you would come to board. I actually had to threaten to shoot him, as we do out west, before he would condescend to bring us here,” explained Polly, her color rising ominously as she glared at the man.

“I’ll pay you exactly what all fares are from the wharf to this hotel – here’s a dollar a fare, and that makes two dollars. Now begone before this young sixshooter gets out a gun and wings your ear!” Mr. Dalken tossed the man two dollars and waved him away.

The driver caught the money with one hand, caught hold of the iron rail of the front seat with his other hand and swung himself up. In another moment he was whipping his horse and whizzing off out of range of that gun. He had never in his life delivered a fare who had such spirit as that western girl expressed, and he began to ponder whether the life of a hackman was the most delightful one now that women in the States had suffrage and could carry guns!

A coal-black waiter brought more cooling drinks to the parched guests, and when Polly had emptied a long thin glass filled with iced orangeade, she felt better. Then she explained.

The interested audience laughed, but when she demanded: “What did you do with Jack and Ray?” no one could reply.

“I’m here to answer for myself,” came a weak, quavering voice from the road. Every one jumped up and ran to the steps, and there stood poor Jack, still coated with heavy dust and painfully clambering out of the one-sided carriage.

Such a ludicrous picture did dandy Jack present to his friends that they could not restrain a shout of laughter. He looked hurt but shook his head hopelessly. “I knew what sort of friends I had!” he muttered as he limped up the steps and dropped into a chair. As he fell into its cushioned depths a choking cloud of dust rose from his form and floated over the group that now surrounded him.

Before Jack had concluded his narrative Ray came up to the steps of the hotel and joined his friends. With his appearance the others called for an explanation of his clean-looking summer garb, his cool-looking face, and the smile that told he had not had such disturbing experiences as the other three wanderers in an unknown town.

“I saw a driver whisking Polly and Eleanor past my resting place, but they went too fast for my speed.” Ray laughed as he remembered again the perplexed girls in that hack.

“Well, now that we are reunited, children, let us celebrate with another flagon of orangeade,” laughed Mr. Fabian, calling the waiter to take the order.

As they all sipped another gallon of cooling drink, they planned what to see after they had recovered from the strenuous trip from the quay to the Hotel.

“You know, we won’t be able to visit every point of interest in Jamaica, but at least we shall see those which are most worth while,” explained Mr. Dalken. Then turning to Jack, he said, “You’ve been here before, Jack – where do you advise us to take the party?”