"Seems Getting A Bit Mixed," Dan Said, And Matters Were Certainly
Complicated.
If we were to reckon from the twenty-first, Easter was in March, but if
from the twenty-fifth, in April - if the moon came in on Monday, but March
in either case if the full was on the twenty-sixth.
Dan suggested "giving it best." "It 'ud get anybody dodged," he said,
hopelessly at sea; but the Maluka wanted to "see it through." "The new
moon should clear most of it up," he said; "but you've given us a teaser
this time, little 'un."
The new moon should have cleared everything up if we could have seen it,
but the Wet coming on in force again, we saw nothing till Thursday
evening, when it was too late to calculate with precision.
Dan was for having two Easters, and "getting even with it that way"; but
Sam unexpectedly solved the problem for us.
"What was the difficulty?" he asked, and listened to the explanation
attentively. "Bunday!" he exclaimed at the finish, showing he had fully
grasped the situation. Of course he knew all about Bunday! Wasn't it so
many weeks after the Chinaman's New Year festival? And in a jargon of
pidgin-English he swept aside all moon discussions, and fixed the date of
"Bunday" for the twenty-eighth of March, "which," as Dan wisely remarked,
"proved that somebody was right," but whether the Maluka or the Dandy, or
the moon, he forgot to specify. "The old heathen to beat us all too," he
added, "just when it had got us all dodged." Dan took all the credit of
the suggestion to himself.
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