Thus Jack on his unsuccessful and very expensive novel. Whereupon he shrugs his wide shoulders under the blue kimono, girds the fringed white obi a little more snugly, picks up a note-pad and long sharp pencil, and makes swift, sprawling notes for a Klondike yarn on which he has been working, “To Build a Fire.” I catch myself holding back tears of disappointment in his disappointment, and hoping he knows the half of how sorry I am. When I turn to look at him again, he is shaking uncontrollably in a fit of giggles over a cartoon in Life.
Perspiring this afternoon even in the thick shade of the gnarled algarobas, we watched the “dear old tub” swirl on her chain cable in stiff little squalls, and noted with satisfaction that her anchors seem to have taken firm hold despite the reputed “skaty” bottom of this part of the harbor.
After the exertion of a vociferous rubber of cribbage, the crisp sage-green wavelets on the reef invited us to come out and play. So fine was the water that, once at the outer edge of the coral, I decided to venture as far as the yacht.
Martin, who vanished Honolulu-ward yesterday, returned this morning laden with an assortment of produce—all he could carry. His ambition was to be photographed rampant in the midst of tropical plenty for the wonder and envy of his Kansan acquaintance. The fruity properties for the tender scene cost him all of five dollars. A mainlander might naturally conjecture Hawaii to be a land of almost automatic abundance; but the price Martin paid is illustration of the not economical cost of living. Meat is very high, and even fish, as this morning when Tochigi had to pay twenty-five cents for three small mullet, Hawaii’s best “meat that swims” (that is Jack’s) peddled by a Chinese fisherman. And everything else is in proportion.
Unfortunately the papaia on our trees is not yet ripe. Jack is wild about this fruit, and has it for every breakfast. I like it, too, but the larger part of my pleasure is in looking at it, especially on its tree, which is too artificially beautiful to seem a live plant. Never have we read nor heard any adequate description of a papaia tree; but it is the most remarkable we have ever seen. The trunks of our papaias are six or seven inches in diameter, rise perfectly straight without a branch nearly to the top, where the fruit clusters thick and close around the carven hole, for so the ash-colored wood appears with its indented markings. Among the “melons” and above them are very soft large palmated leaves, some close to the trunk and some on slender stems. And then there are the blossoms, on the axils of the leaves, twisting and twining where the fruit comes later, little flowerlets not unlike orange blossoms in appearance and odor. The trunk is said to be hollow; and there are male and female trees, which should be planted in company to insure a good yield—for both share in bearing. The young trees are not so tall but one can easily reach the fruit; but the trees at Miss Johnson’s call for a stepladder, or stout hands and knees for climbing. Papaia faintly resembles cantaloupe and muskmelon, although more evenly surfaced; and it tastes—how does it taste? We have about decided upon “sublimated pumpkin, very sublimated, but sweeter.” For the table, it is cut in half, lengthwise, its large canary-yellow interior scraped of a fibrous lining and a handful of slippery black seeds coated with a sort of mucus, that look like caviar, and is then set in the ice box before serving with lemon. In conjunction with beauty and flavor, the fruit has strong peptonic virtues, and some one told us it would disintegrate a raw beefsteak overnight.
So Martin had us “snap” him, properly alert amidst his Pacific plentitude, banked under an algaroba at the waterside—cocoanuts, watermelons, pineapples, oranges, lemons, mangoes (real mangoes but tastelessly unripe), guavas, and bananas; not to mention papaias and taro, and a homely cabbage or two for charm against nostalgia. After which nothing would do for him but he must pose Jack and myself. Martin can now be heard developing films in our bathroom, his principal noise a protest at the warmth of the “cold” water.
May 23.
Beginning to wonder why Tochigi was so late laying breakfast on the end of the long table that holds the phonograph and the typewriter, our surprise was sweet when with a flush on his olive cheeks he led us out to where he had set a little table under the still trees. It was strewn with single red hibiscus and glossy coral peppers from a low hedge that trims the base of the cottage. He served a faultless meal of papaia, shirred eggs, a curled shaving of bacon, and fresh-buttered toast, with perfect coffee brewed in the Snark’s percolator.
Breakfast over, for an hour we lingered at table reading aloud snatches of books on Hawaii, and laughing over some of the freaks of her mythology, which are not in the main so dissimilar from those of other races, including the Caucasian, as entirely to justify our superior mirth.
All the time I am conscious of a wish that is almost a passion to share, with any who may read this diary, the loveliness of this smiling garden so green and so sweet-scented when little winds wake the acacia laces of the umbrageous algarobas; where nothing really exists beyond our red wicket, but dreams may be dreamed of mirage-like mountains shimmering in the tropic airs across the fairy lagoon.