The Second Return
Voyaging back to California in time for Jack to attend the High Jinks of the Bohemian Club at their Grove, which is within a few miles of the Ranch, we spent a gay summer and fall, with a continuous house party making merry upon Sonoma mountain-side. Jack’s 7,000,000-gallon reservoir impounded behind his new dam, of summer-warm water encircled by redwood and madrono forest, made it possible to keep up our Waikiki swimming condition. Too often, however, I could not but notice that he sat and watched the rest swim, or, in bathing-suit, paddled guests about in the canvas canoe or the larger skiff—items of Snark outfit that had never got aboard.
As the autumn wore, again he turned to Hawaii. “Why not spend our winters there?” he suggested. “We’ll take the whole household down.” He thereupon set the wires vibrating, to the end that when we arrived in Honolulu, December 23 of the same year, 1915, on the Great Northern, by way of Hilo and the volcano, we went right into a delightful house, 2201 Kalia Road, around the corner from our former cottage on Beach Walk.
Our place at Waikiki, adjoining the grounds of the quiet Hau Tree Hotel of old, now the Halekulani, had once been the property of one of the Castles, and next of Judge Arthur Wilder, cousin of James and Gerrit Wilder, whose suicide at the Beach in the fall of 1916 shocked the Islands. It was now owned by a Chicago millionaire.
Mr. Ford met us at the wharf, but before getting away, we must shake hands and condole with our old friend Mr. Kawewehi, of Keauhou memory, just returning to the Big Island from burying his sweet life-partner.
Jack, so frequently and viciously misrepresented, found he had dived full tilt into a cool wave of hostility in Army and Navy circles, due to the recrudescence of a canard which for years he had vigorously denied, and which had occasioned endless annoyance at most inopportune moments. This canard, “The Good Soldier,” purported to be an address by Jack London to the youth of America who might have a mind to enlist, exhorting such, in no uncertain terms, to avoid military service.
“If the Army and Navy men would only take the trouble to read their own official sheets,” Jack would fume. “But they don’t know their own papers. How am I going to tell them all, separately, that I didn’t write a word of the thing! I deny, and deny, and deny, until I am tired, and what good does it do, when they don’t see the denials?” For in the Army and Navy Register, as well as the Journal, and in the general press, he had repeatedly disclaimed authorship of the canard.
Also I found a silly impression persisting among the Army women:
“Your husband does not like us,” they voiced their belief. “He made derogatory remarks about Army women in ‘The House of Pride.’”
Jack fairly sizzled, with despairing arms flaying the air: “Don’t mind my violence—I always talk with my hands—it’s my French, I guess.—But these people make me tired. If they’d only really read what they think they’re reading. Because I have a bloodless, sexless, misanthropic, misogamistic mysogynist disapprove of décolleté and dancing, and all and every other social diversion and custom, I myself am saddled with these unnatural peculiarities. A merry hell of a lot of interesting characters there would be in fiction if they all talked alike and agreed with one another and their author!—What’s a poor devil of a writer to do, anyway?” he repeated his wail of nine years earlier, at Pearl Lochs when “The Iron Heel” had been rejected of men. “Of course I like Army women—just as I like other women!”
On New Year’s Eve, we attended a reception in the Throne Room of the old Palace, where Queen Liliuokalani sat at Governor Pinkham’s right hand. “And it’s the first time in over twenty years that Her Majesty has received in this room,” he whispered his satisfaction with what he had been able to bring about.
Followed a great military ball in the Armory, dinner and dance at the Country Club, and a wild night of fun at Heinie’s. Nowhere in the world could there be such a New Year as in this subtropical paradise. Rain it did, and bountifully—a tepid torrent of liquid jewels in the many-colored lights of the city streets, which kept no Pierrot nor Pierrette indoors. The very gutters ran colored streams, what of the showers of confetti.
“Can you surpass it?” Jack murmured when, at dawn, the machine threshed hub-deep in water down our long driveway under vine-clambered coco-palms, to the ceaseless rhythmic impact of a big gray surf upon our sea wall.
Carnival Week was in February—a succession of pageantry opening with the Mardi Gras. No one with steamer-fare in pocket should forego Carnival season in Honolulu. It grew originally out of Washington’s Birthday observance, and has become an institution.
Polo, the best in the world, automobile races, equine races, took place at Kapiolani Park, with Diamond Head spilling unwonted waterfalls down the unwontedly green truncations of its steep flanks; and there were aquatic contests at the harborside, where Duke Kahanamoku added more emblems to his shield than he lost, and where Mayor Lane’s slim kinswoman, Lucile Legros, won over Frances Cowells from the Coast. And Jack and I could not refrain from working, with every nerve of desire, on behalf of our Hawaiians in their own waters!
The military reviews were especially imposing. The showing of the national guard, rated as second to none in the union, surpassed that of the regulars; while it was declared that the cadets of the Kamehameha School for Hawaiians, founded by Mrs. Bernice Pauahi Bishop, put both regulars and militia in the shade. The work that had been done with the Boy Scouts was evidenced by the orderly discharge of their Carnival duties in maintaining order. That fabled red hill, Punch Bowl, sprouted with verdure, its shallow crater now become the cradle of Boy Scout encampments, their staunch khaki bringing together unnumbered nationalities into the fine automatic usefulness and courtesy of a discipline one dreams of some day belonging to civil rather than military procedure.
In Punch Bowl, I must say in passing, has been found an excellent potter’s clay; and this, combined with the founding of an Academy of Design in Honolulu lends still a new allure to the Paradise of the Pacific.
Pa’u riders turned out in full panoply, as did floats of wondrous construction and significance; and there were historical pageants at Kapiolani Park that left little to be desired in illustration of old sports. Especially impressive was the spear-throwing done by descendants of warriors, who had not allowed their valorous traditions to rust. And at Aala Park, in another part of the merry metropolis, an excellent “Midway Pleasance” furnished entertainment that was anything but historical, but enjoyable nevertheless.
In train came a succession of balls, civic as well as military, in the enormous Armory. Every moment was filled and packed down, and little did Honolulu sleep that week. Jack relinquished all work and accompanied me throughout the whole gay rout, sitting the long night sipping soft drinks and an occasional “small beer,” while he talked with our many friends and shed his ever benignant, bright approval upon my delight in dancing.
Hawaii’s mixed population, aided and abetted by her romantic climate, are the means of encouraging out-of-door exhibitions of various kinds, bearing upon historic events. Balboa Day, September 25, 1916, observed in many Pacific lands, in Hawaii was combined with the first great Pan-Pacific Union celebration, which lengthened into several days of veritable carnival, with pageantry that surpassed any that Honolulu had ever before carried out. Guests from every country of the western hemisphere attended. And each adopted nationality in its own way of picturesqueness took part in the colorful entertainment. The preponderance of Oriental talent along the lines of decoration insures a magnificence of display in the matter of floats and processions. But of deeper interest, and no less beauty, is the stately resurrection of old-time Hawaiian custom and costuming. These must be correct in every detail, and an afternoon spent in watching the dramatic revival of savage royalty, its ceremonial and its sports, as well as of humbler occupations, is worth a voyage to the Islands.
That their forefathers and the rich old traditions may not be forgotten by descendants and the world at large, associations have been formed, such as Daughters of Hawaii, Daughters and Sons of Hawaiian Warriors, and others. These commemorate certain historic dates or events. The most conspicuous and general of these is Kamehameha Day, a national holiday, when the several native societies join in decorating their mighty hero’s imposing statue, and conducting musical exercises in the palace park, now the executive grounds. A grand parade is a feature. The day is participated in by many other orders, such as the mystic Shriners and the fraternal body of Foresters, to say nothing of the Ad Club and the Rotary Club.
The program of Kamehameha Day also includes an exciting regatta in the harbor, and horse-racing at the park.
Kamehameha’s second son, Kauikeouli, who reigned as Kamehameha III, also has his day, which falls on St. Patrick’s March 17. He is remembered for his unselfish patriotism, the liberal constitution granted his people, and for his gift of the right to hold lands in fee simple. Alexander says: “While there were grave faults in his character, there were also noble traits... He was true and steadfast in friendship. Duplicity and intrigue were foreign to his nature. He always chose men of tried integrity for responsible offices, and never betrayed secrets of state, even in his most unguarded moments.”
I cannot refrain from diverging once in a while, to point out the qualifications of such a man, whole-Hawaiian, of whom one may speak lightly as a savage!
A week in April, 1920, saw the celebration of the Hawaiian Missions Centennial, which was attended by many distinguished guests from the mainland and from foreign countries. On the second day H. R. H. the Prince of Wales dropped in, off the Renown.
(1) Queen Lydia Kamakaeha Liliuokalani. (2) Governor John Owen Dominis, the Queen’s Consort. (3) A Honolulu Garden—Residence of Queen Emma.
Although this memorable week saw all the pageantry and sport that was possible to crowd into it, to many minds the greatest charm of it was in the more specific services devoted to the Centennial itself, one of the most beautiful exercises being the song contests of the churches from the different islands. The Hawaiians take the keenest interest in this expression of themselves.
Lavish entertaining, after the manner of Honolulu, we did that spring and summer in the old house at Waikiki—luncheons, dinners, dances, card-parties, teas under our hau tree, with ever the swimming between whiles. Sometimes, after the day’s round of social events, winding up with dancing, our guests and we trooped out of the spacious, half-open bungalow, through the great detached lanai roofed with a jungle-tangle of blossomy hau trees old in story; across the lawn bordered with young Samoan coco-palms planted by Arthur Wilder; and along the sea-wall right-of-way to a tiny beach two gardens away toward Diamond Head. Here we slipped into the sensuous lapping waters under a rust-gold moon, or the great electric-blue stars, and swam for a wonderful hour.
“The Southern Cross rides low, dear lass... and the old lost stars wheel back,” Jack would paraphrase softly while we timed our strokes for the diving float in the channel. “What shall it be, Twin Brother? The house over there is for sale. Shall I buy you it, now, for the first of our string of island homes?—or a sweet three-topmast schooner after the War, to do it all over again, only better—though never more sweetly than in the dear little old tub—and sail on round the world as we love to plan?”
What other choice for me, who had heard and answered “the beat of the offshore wind”? The three-topmast schooner, by every wish, with all it implied of resumed adventure overseas. Our dreams had been rudely cut midmost by ill health. But those we had realized, instead of seeming true, were still wrapped as in a blue and rose glamor of untried desires. “Which way I feel goes to prove,” I wound up somewhat of the above to Jack, “that the becoming of them, as far as they went, was in excess of the anticipation.” And he, to withhold me from the verge of sentimentality, made the shocking rejoinder: “You mean to say—am I right?—that the young fuzz has not worn off your enthusiasms! Never did I see woman who wanted to go to so many places!”
Ah yes, Jack had learned full well to “loaf” in the tropics. With his comprehensive knowledge, mastery of his implements, and his alert sense of form and color, those inexorable thousand words a day consumed little energy; and there was scant exertion in his habit of life in the palm-furnished, breezy bungalow of wide spaces, and the deep gardens of hibiscus and lilies. Too little exertion. Too seldom was the blue-butterfly kimono changed for swimming-suit or riding togs; too often, from the water, I cast solicitous eyes back to the hammock where, out of the blue-figured robe, a too white arm waved to show that he was watching me put to use the strokes in which he had coached me. “Oh, yes—no—yes—no, I think I’ll hang here and read,” he would waver between two impulsions. Or, “No thank you—I’ll read instead—all this war stuff I want to catch up on. I’m glad you asked me, though,” half-wistfully, “—you forgot, yesterday, and went in alone.” Forgot, no! Never once did I forget. I was avoiding all approach to the “nagging” we still never permitted in our family of two.
And ever the Great War pressed upon spirit and brain and heart. But this is a book on Hawaii, not a biography; and besides, I have written and published the Biography proper, which relates all the inwardness of the last phases of Jack London’s life.
All during those last months, there was in Jack the widening gratification that he was advancing in his conquest of the heart and understanding of Hawaii’s people, Hawaii-born Anglo-Saxon and part-Hawaiian, and the all-Hawaiians themselves.
Then, one day, we met Mary Low—Mary Eliza Kipikane Low—a connection of the Parker family. At a midday luau in a seaside garden at Kahala, on Diamond Head, we came together with Mary and, as if it had been foreordained, were forthwith adopted by her capacious heart. Like a devoted elder sister, she assumed a sort of responsibility for us twain with her people. Only an eighth-Hawaiian, no malihini would be competent to detect her Polynesian affinity. But, to us, the royal arches of the black eyebrows on her broad forehead, and the high aquiline nose and imperious lift of her small, fine mouth, expounded the quintessence of Polynesian aristocracy as we had come to know it here and under the Equator.
Already Jack was in the way of becoming ineffaceably associated with the interests and affections of Hawaii—was there not more than a hint of intention to enshrine him in the inner circle of that seclusively exclusive lodge, Chiefs of Hawaii?—and he was bound in good time to come into his own with them all; but Mary, bless her forever, hastened the day, else he might have faded back from the world ere he had known the “Kamaaina” that had begun to form upon their lips.
At this poi-luncheon, as a noonday luau is now called, demand was made of Jack for a speech. “My Aloha for Hawaii” was his topic, and he gave a glowing brief résumé of the history of that aloha nui in his life. And then Prince Cupid, in a brilliant and logical address, delivered a tribute to the gifts Jack had brought to the Islands with his discerning brain that had interpreted to the world much of the true inwardness of misunderstood aspects of the country and its life and people.
Upon a later occasion, a luau at the home of the Prince and Princess, Mayor Lane humorously declared, to hearty applause, that he should like to nominate Jack London to succeed him in office. For often Jack, rare genius of previsioning, and with the added advantage perspective, had thought a step in advance of the dwellers in the Islands, and had fearlessly expressed his earnest convictions. A few Hawaiian-born Americans have realized this. One or two have even gone the extraordinary length of consulting his opinions upon how best to apply their millions to benefit their sea-girt land which they love better than mere personal gain. In time; as in case of Jack’s protest on the idleness of the Federal Leprosarium, his ideas and protests had been substantiated; and none so ready as these people to proclaim him right.