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Journal of Katherine Mansfield

Indoo Weather: A Dream

Indoo Weather: A Dream.

“It's what you might call indoo weather,” said the little man.

“Oh, really…. Why that?” said I, vaguely.

He did not answer. The two polished knobs of his behind shone as he leaned over feeding the black seams of the boat with a brown twist.

The day was dull, steaming; there was a blackness out at sea; the heavy waves came tolling. On the sea grasses the large bright dew fell not. The little man's hammer went tap-tap.

L.M. snorted, threw up her head, stamped her feet on the wet sand, scrambled to a boulder, tore at some sea-poppies, dug them in her hat, held the hat away, looked, scornful, wrenched them out again.

I looked and felt vague as a king.

“Spades and buckets is round the point with page 126 the lobster catch.” The hammer tapped. He explained that all the lovers would be sent away alive in sacks if they were not given a sharp stang with one of these. It was an ordinary grey and red garden trowel. L.M. went off to save their lives, but not joyfully. She walked heavy, her head down, beating the trowel against her side.

We were alone. The watcher appeared. He stood always in profile, his felt hat turned up at the side, a patch on the eye nearest us. His curved pipe fell from his jaws.

“Hi, Missy,” he shouted to me. “Why don't you give us a bit of a show out there?”

The little man remonstrated. The sea was like a mass of half-set jelly. On the horizon it seemed ages fell.

“Come on, Missy!” bawled the watcher. I took off my clothes, stepped to the edge and was drawn in. I tried to catch the stumps of an old wharf, but slime filled my nails and I was sucked out. They watched.

Suddenly there came, winnowing landward, an enormous skinny skeleton of a Hindoo, standing upright. A tattered pink and white print coat flapped about his stiff outstretched arms. He had cloth of the same with a fringe of spangles over his head. He stood upright because of the immense sweeping broom of wood growing waist-high. “Help! Help!” I called.

The noise of the hammer came, and I felt the watcher's patched profile. A huge unbreakable wave lifted him, tipped him near. His shadow lay even, on the surface of the dusty water—a page 127 squat head and two giant arms. It broadened into a smile.