I first met him on Market Street in San Francisco.It was a wet and drizzly afternoon, and he was striding along, clad solely in a pair of abbreviated knee-trousers and an abbreviated shirt, his bare feet going slick-slick through the pavement-slush.At his heels trooped a score of excited gamins.Every head--and there were thousands--turned to glance curiously at him as he went by.And I turned, too.
Never had I seen such lovely sunburn.He was all sunburn, of the sort a blond takes on when his skin does not peel.His long yellow hair was burnt, so was his beard, which sprang from a soil unploughed by any razor.He was a tawny man, a golden-tawny man, all glowing and radiant with the sun.Another prophet, thought I, come up to town with a message that will save the world.
A few weeks later I was with some friends in their bungalow in the Piedmont hills overlooking San Francisco Bay."We've got him, we've got him," they barked."We caught him up a tree; but he's all right now, he'll feed from the hand.Come on and see him." So Iaccompanied them up a dizzy hill, and in a rickety shack in the midst of a eucalyptus grove found my sunburned prophet of the city pavements.
He hastened to meet us, arriving in the whirl and blur of a handspring.He did not shake hands with us; instead, his greeting took the form of stunts.He turned more handsprings.He twisted his body sinuously, like a snake, until, having sufficiently limbered up, he bent from the hips, and, with legs straight and knees touching, beat a tattoo on the ground with the palms of his hands.He whirligigged and pirouetted, dancing and cavorting round like an inebriated ape.All the sun-warmth of his ardent life beamed in his face.I am so happy, was the song without words he sang.
He sang it all evening, ringing the changes on it with an endless variety of stunts."A fool! a fool! I met a fool in the forest!"thought I, and a worthy fool he proved.Between handsprings and whirligigs he delivered his message that would save the world.It was twofold.First, let suffering humanity strip off its clothing and run wild in the mountains and valleys; and, second, let the very miserable world adopt phonetic spelling.I caught a glimpse of the great social problems being settled by the city populations swarming naked over the landscape, to the popping of shot-guns, the barking of ranch-dogs, and countless assaults with pitchforks wielded by irate farmers.
The years passed, and, one sunny morning, the Snark poked her nose into a narrow opening in a reef that smoked with the crashing impact of the trade-wind swell, and beat slowly up Papeete harbour.Coming off to us was a boat, flying a yellow flag.We knew it contained the port doctor.But quite a distance off, in its wake, was a tiny out rigger canoe that puzzled us.It was flying a red flag.Istudied it through the glasses, fearing that it marked some hidden danger to navigation, some recent wreck or some buoy or beacon that had been swept away.Then the doctor came on board.After he had examined the state of our health and been assured that we had no live rats hidden away in the Snark, I asked him the meaning of the red flag."Oh, that is Darling," was the answer.
And then Darling, Ernest Darling flying the red flag that is indicative of the brotherhood of man, hailed us."Hello, Jack!" he called."Hello, Charmian! He paddled swiftly nearer, and I saw that he was the tawny prophet of the Piedmont hills.He came over the side, a sun-god clad in a scarlet loin-cloth, with presents of Arcady and greeting in both his hands--a bottle of golden honey and a leaf-basket filled WITH great golden mangoes, golden bananas specked with freckles of deeper gold, golden pine-apples and golden limes, and juicy oranges minted from the same precious ore of sun and soil.And in this fashion under the southern sky, I met once more Darling, the Nature Man.
Tahiti is one of the most beautiful spots in the world, inhabited by thieves and robbers and liars, also by several honest and truthful men and women.Wherefore, because of the blight cast upon Tahiti's wonderful beauty by the spidery human vermin that infest it, I am minded to write, not of Tahiti, but of the Nature Man.He, at least, is refreshing and wholesome.The spirit that emanates from him is so gentle and sweet that it would harm nothing, hurt nobody's feelings save the feelings of a predatory and plutocratic capitalist.
"What does this red flag mean?" I asked.
"Socialism, of course."
"Yes, yes, I know that," I went on; "but what does it mean in your hands?""Why, that I've found my message."
"And that you are delivering it to Tahiti?" I demanded incredulously.
"Sure," he answered simply; and later on I found that he was, too.
When we dropped anchor, lowered a small boat into the water, and started ashore, the Nature Man joined us.Now, thought I, I shall be pestered to death by this crank.Waking or sleeping I shall never be quit of him until I sail away from here.
But never in my life was I more mistaken.I took a house and went to live and work in it, and the Nature Man never came near me.He was waiting for the invitation.In the meantime he went aboard the Snark and took possession of her library, delighted by the quantity of scientific books, and shocked, as I learned afterwards, by the inordinate amount of fiction.The Nature Man never wastes time on fiction.
After a week or so, my conscience smote me, and I invited him to dinner at a downtown hotel.
He arrived, looking unwontedly stiff and uncomfortable in a cotton jacket.When invited to peel it off, he beamed his gratitude and joy, and did so, revealing his sun-gold skin, from waist to shoulder, covered only by a piece of fish-net of coarse twine and large of mesh.A scarlet loin-cloth completed his costume.I began my acquaintance with him that night, and during my long stay in Tahiti that acquaintance ripened into friendship.
"So you write books," he said, one day when, tired and sweaty, Ifinished my morning's work.
"I, too, write books," he announced.