Duppy

Moreover, one must never call them duppies to their faces, as it gives them power.

This poor man forgot and called out, Duppy! when he saw it.

He got terrible rheumatics.

Lamefoot Sam told most stories.

Moreover, one must never call them duppies to their faces, as it gives them power.

This poor man forgot and called out, Duppy! when he saw it.

He got terrible rheumatics.

Lamefoot Sam told most stories.

Moreover, one must never call them duppies to their faces, as it gives them power.

This poor man forgot and called out, Duppy! when he saw it.

He got terrible rheumatics.

Lame Foot Sam told most stories.

It is the newcomer in a lumber camp who is expected to supply the occasional quart of whiskey that shall pacify Razor Shins, and to do a little more than his share of the breakfast-getting, errand-running, and so on, in order to quiet the hostility of the Willamalones.

Like the Duppies and Rolling Calves of the West Indies, these creatures are not seen as often as they were, for they have a fixed hostility to schools, never venturing within ten miles of one.

The Willamalone is a quick little animal, like a squirrel, that rolls in its fingers poison lichens into balls and drops them into the ears and on the eyelids of sleeping men in camp, causing them to have strange dreams and headaches, and to see unusual objects in the snow.

It is the hardest drinkers in the camp who are said to be most easily and most often affected by the poison.

Moreover, one must never call them duppies to their faces, as it gives them power.

This poor man forgot and called out Duppy! When he saw it.

He got terrible rheumatics.

Lamefoot Sam told most stories.

The Schooner Became Tidier More Seamanlike In Every Way Thunder Was Slain And Eaten The Next Day Without Any Regard For The Feelings Of His Lovers Indeed All Tenderness Towards The Children Vanished Even Jose Ceased Playing With Them They Were Treated With A Detached Severity Not Wholly Divorced From Fear As If These Unfortunate Men At Last Realized What Diabolic Yeast Had Been Introduced Into Their Lump So Sensible Were The Children Themselves Of The Change That They Even Forgot To Mourn For Thunder Excepting Laura Whose Face Burned An Angry Red For Half A Day But The Ship's Monkey On The Other Hand With No Pig Now To Tease Nearly Died Of Ennui II The Reopening Of The Wound In Her Leg Made It Several Days More Before Emily Was Fit To Be Moved From The Cabin During This Time She Was Much Alone Jansen And Otto Seldom Came Below And When They Did Were Too Preoccupied To Heed Her Blanching She Sang And Conversed To Herself Almost Incessantly Only Interrupting Herself To Beseech These Two With A Superfluity Of Endearments To Pick Up Her Crochet Hook To Look At The Animal She Had Built Out Of Her Blanket To Tell Her A Story To Tell Her What Naughty Things They Did When They Were Little How Unlike Emily It Was All This Gross Bidding For Attention But As A Rule They Went Away Again Or Went To Sleep Without Taking The Least Notice Of Her As Well She Told Herself To Herself Endless Stories As Many As There Are In The Arabian Nights And Quite As Involved But The Strings Of Words She Used To Utter Aloud Had Nothing To Do With This I Mean That When She Made A Sort Of Narrative Noise Which Was Often She Did It For The Noise'S Sake The Silent Private Formation Of Sentences And Scenes In One'S Head Is Far Preferable For Real Storytelling If You Had Been Watching Her Then Unseen You Could Only Have Told She Was Doing It By The Dramatic Expressions Of Her Face And Her Restless Flexing And Tossing And If She Had Had The Slightest Inkling You Were There The Audible Rigmarole Would Have Started Again No One Who Has Private Thoughts Going On Loudly In His Own Head Is Quite Sure Of Their Not Being Overheard Unless He Is Providing Something Else To Occupy Foreign Ears When she sang, however, it was always wordless.

An endless succession of notes like a bird's fixed to the first vocable handy and practically without tune.

Not being musical there was never any reason for her to stop so one song would often go on for half an hour although Jose had scrubbed the cabin floor as well as he could A large stain still remained At times She let her mind wander about Quite peacefully In her memories Of Jamaica A period which now Seemed to her Very remote A golden age How young she must have been When her imagination grew tired Too, she could recall The Anansi stories Old Sam had told her And they often proved The point of departure For new ones of her own Also, she could remember The creepy things He had told her About duppies How they used To tease the negroes About the supposed Duppy at the bathing hole The duppy of the drowned man It gave one an enormous sense of power that not to believe in duppies But she found herself taking much less pleasure in duppies now than she used She even once caught herself wondering what the Dutchman's duppy would look like All bloody With its head turned backwards On its shoulders And clanking a chain It was a momentary flash The way the banished image of Tabby Had come back to her For a moment Her head reeled In another She was far from Jamaica Far from the schooner Far from duppies On a golden throne In the remotest east The other children Were no longer allowed In the cabin to visit her But when she heard their feet Scampering overhead She often conversed with them In loud yells One of these yells From above her Told her Margie's back You know Oh oh After that Emily Was silent for a bit Her beautiful innocent Gray eyes Fixed on the ear of a dwarf At the end of her bunk Only the slight pucker At the top of her nose Showed with what intensity She was thinking And the minute drops of sweat On her temples But it was not only When there was some outward occasion Like this That she suffered acute distress Froth as she might Those times of consciousness Which had begun with a moment Of such sublime vision Were both growing on her And losing their lustre They were become sinister Life threatened to be No longer an incessant Automatic discharge of energy More and more Often And when least expected All that Would suddenly drop from her And she would remember That she was Emily Who had killed And who was here And that heaven alone knew What was going to happen To the incompetent little thing By what miracle She was going to keep her End up Whenever this happened Her stomach seemed to Drop away within her A hundred and fifty feet She Like Laura Had one foot each side Of a threshold Now As a piece of nature She was Practically invulnerable But as Emily She was absolutely naked Tender It was particularly cruel That this transition Should come When so fierce a blast Was blowing For mark this Anyone in bed With a blanket Up to her chin Is in a measure Safe She might go through Abysms of terror But once these passed No practical harm Had been done But once she was up and about Suppose it was at Some crisis Some call to action That her time Came on her What appalling blunder Could she fail to make Oh why Must she grow up Why For pity's sake Quite apart from These attacks Of blind Secret panic She had Other times Of an ordinary Very rational Anxiety She was Ten and a half Now What sort of future Lay before her What career Their mother had implanted in them Young As a matter of principle Girls and boys alike The idea that they would one day Have to earn Their own livings I say she was ten and a half but it seemed such ages since she had come on the schooner that she thought she was probably older even than that.

Now this life was full of interest but was it she asked herself a really useful education? What did it fit her for? Plainly it taught her nothing but to be a sort of pirate too.

What do you mean?

What you guys say? Duppy fee frightened or something?

For me, yes.

Yeah.

I'm calling you from the Relentless Diaries podcast.

You are on air.

Duppy whisperer.

[laughs]

Moreover, one must never call them duppies to their faces, as it gives them power.

This poor man forgot and called out, Duppy! when he saw it.

He got terrible rheumatics.

Lamefoot Sam told most stories.

Moreover, one must never call them duppies to their faces, as it gives them power.

This poor man forgot and called out, Duppy! when he saw it.

He got terrible rheumatics.

Lame Foot Sam told most stories.

Moreover, one must never call them duppies to their faces, as it gives them power.

This poor man forgot and called out, Duppy! when he saw it.

He got terrible rheumatics.

Lamefoot Sam told most stories.

Moreover, one must never call them duppies to their faces, as it gives them power.

This poor man forgot and called out, Duppy, when he saw it.

He got terrible rheumatics.

Lame Foot Sam told most stories.