After a while the dancing lagged, and we sensed it was time to relieve these kind people of our more or less restraining presence. They had done so much, and to wear out such welcome would have been a crime against good heart and manners.
Having neglected to ask the obliging Tony to wait his dummy, down the track we footed, listening to small noises of the night, among which was the sighing of water buffalo, those grotesque gray shapes that patiently toil by day in the rice fields.
Pearl Lochs, June 14.
At luncheon to-day Miss Johnson introduced us to a girl from Maine, and it was a unique experience to sit in the hot-house air, gazing out upon the hot-house vegetation, the while we conversed in “down-east” colloquialisms. “Did you see her jump at the sound of that falling leaf!” Jack laughed on the way home, for the young stranger had been not the only one startled when a twenty-foot frond let go its parent palm and crashed to earth.
Our captain of the roseate name is painting the Snark, and she floats, a boat of white enamel, in the still blue and silver of the morning flood; while for frame to the fair picture a painted double-rainbow overarches, flinging the misty fringes of its ends in our enraptured faces. From the shell-pink dawn, through the green and golden day, to sunset and purple twilight and starshine, we move in beauty. “What a lot of people must have been shanghaied here by their own desire!” Jack ruminates. And truly, Hawaii is sufficient excuse for never going home.
One of our pleasures, of a Sunday, is watching the yachts from Honolulu sail into Pearl Harbor and slant about on the crisping water, for a look at the Snark. Last Sunday came a corps of young engineers from the Iron Works, who had offered to give their holiday for the fellow who wrote “The Game” and “The Sea Wolf.” Jack was much touched; and especially pleased at the tribute to “The Game,” which novel is a favorite of his own.
Last evening we had opportunity again to come in contact with the Hawaiians, receiving a party in our sylvan drawing- and music-room. Miss Johnson had told us that Judge Hookano (Ho-o-kah-no), the native district judge at Pearl City, wished to bring his wife to call. To our prompt invitation they responded with the large immediate family as well as more distant relatives. One of these, who dislikes Americans, during a conversation with Miss Johnson concerning the Londons, remarked: “Oh, yes, the English are always very nice.” “But the Londons are American—very American!” Miss Johnson straightened her out. However, the dusky lady was cordial enough when our meeting took place, as were all the party. The Judge proved an intelligent and kindly soul, and Mrs. Hookano whom we had long admired at a distance, is a magnificently proportioned woman with the port of a queen, always attired in stately lines of black lawn or silk.
None of our visitors had heard Hawaiian music on the phonograph and clapped their shapely hands over the hulas like joyous children. But those merry hands folded devoutly when the Trinity Choir voices rose on the night air, and all joined in singing the harmonies of “Lead, Kindly Light” and the several other beautiful hymns. The spirit of these folk is so sweet, so guileless; I know I shall love them forever. Manners among them are gentle and considerate, so courteous in every conventional observance, prompted by their simple, affectionate hearts. Hookano means proud, and these who bear the name demonstrate a blending of pride and gentlehood that is altogether aristocratic.
While Jack manipulated the talking-machine, I lay happily with head in a friendly lap, while satin-brown fingers caressed face and hair; looking high through the lacy foliage to where big stars hung like bright fruit in the branches. Jack ended the machine-made concert with the Hawaiian National Anthem, and the Judge removed his hat and stood, the others rising about him. Then we cajoled them into contributing their own music, and after some hesitation, untinged by the faintest unwillingness, they settled dreamily to singing their melodies—brown velvet maids with laughing, shining eyes, who warbled in voices thin and penetrating as sweet zither-strings, softly, as if afraid to vex the calm night with greater volume.
At parting we walked to the gate, arms around the shoulders of our new friends, their own Aloha nui on our lips. And every aloha spoken or sung in Hawaii is the tender tone-fall of a dying bell, tolling for the olden Hawaii Nei.