ead and he started little calves to his legs; and last of all he
began to get quite saucy and impudent, so that we could know what sort
of a fellow he really was when he was no longer afraid of being
thrashed. He is really what you ought to call a young man, though I
suppose nobody in the whole wide world has any idea of his age; and, as
far as his behaviour goes, you can only think of him as a big little
child with a good deal of sense. When Austin built his fort against the
Indians, Arick (for that is the black boy's name) liked nothing so much
as to help him. And this is very funny, when you think that of all the
dangerous savages in this island Arick is one of the most dangerous. The
other day, besides, he made Austin a musical instrument of the sort they
use in his own country, a harp with only one string. He took a stick
about three feet long, and perhaps four inches round. The under side he
hollowed out in a deep trench to serve as sounding box; the two ends of
the upper side he made to curve upward like the ends of a canoe, and
between these he stretched the single string. He plays upon it with a
match or a little piece of stick, and sings to it songs of his own
country, of which no person here can understand a single word, and which
are very likely all about fighting with his enemies in battle, and
killing them, and I am sorry to say cooking them in a ground oven and
eating them for supper when the fight is over.

For Arick is really what you might call a savage, though a savage is a
very different person in reality, and a very much nicer, from what he is
made to appear in little books. He is the sort of person that everybody
smiles to, or makes faces at, or gives a smack to as he goes by; the
sort of person that all the girls on the plantation give the best seat
to, and help first, and love to decorate with flowers and ribbons, and
yet all the while are laughing at him; the sort of person who likes best
to play with Austin, and whom Austin perhaps (when he is allowed) likes
best to play with. He is all grins and giggles, and little steps out of
dances, and little droll ways, to attract people's attention and set
them laughing. And yet when you come to look at him closer, you will
find that his body is all covered with scars. This was when he was a
child. There was a war, as is the way in these wild islands, between his
village and the next, much as if there were war in London between one
street and another; and