Sadie Thompson

The Brief History of Sadie Thompson

THIS is the sort of thing that should never be written.

In the first place, everybody—except the Italians —knows there is a war going on, and the thing to do is to talk about the war.

And maybe you will agree that it should never be written after you’ve hit your head against a few dangling ver bals, and split yourself on some choice infinitives. But the thing we mean is that nobody should ever write about such a thing as Sadie Thompson in “PIM.”

Because, in the first place, everybody, except some Australian Ministers, reads “PIM”; and, when they read it, they begin with the palm tree on the cover and go straight through to Mr. Carpen ter’s address at the bottom of the last advertisement. Everybody, that is, except a few bridge-playing Americans on Tahiti, who somehow don’t give two whoops about the quotations on Bulolo gold, and so skip that. And, anyway, Sadie Thompson is not a Pacific Islands subject, really.

As we want to talk about Sadie Thompson, who was not a lady, but a dog, the thing that will happen is this: Everyone from Carnarvon to Clipperton will think about some dog he wants to tell about; and the next thing we know, the editor of “PIM” will become an FRCS instead of an ERGS, the C stand ing for Canine.

So you just wait and see.

But meanwhile, and in spite of the war, did anyone ever see such dogs as there are in the Pacific Islands?

In Rooseveltland, and parts of the Curtin Commonwealth, people know whether a dog’s parents were up to no good or whether, shall we say, they were out to maintain the White Australia policy.

But this Pacific Island animal life has us going.

Now, to start the aforementioned con troversial roll bawling—or rather the ball rolling—let’s talk about Sadie Thompson, a canine that didn’t vary from the jumble that Polynesian dogs have worked themselves into.

WE called her Sadie because she had, very obviously, weathered many loves. She was almost the mellow brown that distinguishes German police dogs (not the Gestapo type). Of course, Sadie had a few white spots here and there, and a few black and blue spots hither and yon, but she was mostly a mellow brown.

Her nose had been borrowed from an English bull. Her tail had started to be short, only to change its mind several times in the darndest places. It had fin ally decided to go on at great length, leaving little kinks each time its mind had changed. Sadie’s ears wouldn’t have been bad at all, if they had matched. One of them resembled the leaf of the banana tree, while the other was not unlike a burnt waffle.

And her chassis! Well, maybe that’s why we called her Sadie Thompson. The whole back half of Sadie’s torso was rheumatic, and she dragged it around after her as though she was ashamed.

Everytime anybody looked she would sit on it. And between the middle and the end, there was a whole extra joint! Sadie looked like the Lord had finished her and then tacked on a caboose.

She was at least 25. She sagged in the middle like the Wairope bridge, and her skin was so wrinkled there was enough room for five kangaroos.

Sadie’s children were of three cate

gories, if not distinct categories, and they roamed the Tahitian neighbourhood like a green-clad Jap might try to pick out the best tree in Timor. They begged people at back-doors to crack them a coconut.

WELL, only a few weeks ago we dis covered that Sadie was due to become a great-grandmother—or whatever it is they become when they are united in unholy wedlock with the step-father of their grand-niece.

Suddenly the old girl disappeared. We looked everywhere. A week passed.

Then, one day, a native came down from the mountains with a load of fei, and told us he had seen her. She was high up in the valley, digging her grave.

And that was the last of Mrs. Thompson.

She was an exception to Tahitian dogs only in personality. Had she lived to be one hundred, Sadie still would have been the favorite of all the boys in the dis trict. Most dogs here don’t have per sonalities, They just bark at everything and never bite anything.

Sadie never barked. Maybe she was afraid a good strong bark would capsize her.

But there’s no doubt about it, South Sea dogs are something very, very spe cial. If not for their often ghastly appearance, certainly for the food they eat. For where, in the rest of the world, could one find dogs that live almost exclusively on coconuts?

Now, as we began by saying, we’ll move over and you can tell us about your dog.

And to heck with the war!

R.P.D