Kaukura alone had nearly a thousand inhabitants. Its lagoons were the richest in pearl of all the group. Being one of the nearest of the Paumotus to Tahiti, it had been much affected by the proselytizing and commercializing spirits of that island—spirits often at variance but now and again joined, as on a greater scale trust magnates capitalize and direct missions and religious institutions with the left hand, while their right takes toll of life-killing mill and mine.
The village was as attractive as a settlement could be in these benighted islands, the houses stretching along one or two roads, some in gala color. A small, sprightly white man was donning shirt and trousers on the veranda of the best residence at the end of the street. He was about forty years old, with a curiously keen face, a quick movement, and an eye like an electric light through a keyhole.
“Hello,” he said, briskly, “by golly, you’re not an American, are you? I’m getting my pants on a little late. We were up all hours last night, but I flatter myself God was glad of it. Kidd’s my name; Johnny Kidd, they call me in Lamoni. I’m glad to meet you, Mr. ——?”
“O’Brien, Frederick O’Brien, of almost anywhere, except Lamoni,” I replied, laughingly, his good-natured enthusiasm being infectious.
He looked at me, inquiringly.
“Not in my line, are you?” he asked, with an appraising survey of me.
My head bleeding and aching, my body quivering with the biting pain of its abraded surface, I still surrendered to the irony of the question. I guessed that he was a clergyman from his possessive attitude toward God, but he was so simple and natural in manner, with so little of a clerical tone or gesture, that I would have thought him a street-faker or professional gambler had I had no clue to his identity. I remembered, too, the oft-quoted: “In my Father’s house are many mansions.”
“I’m merely a beachcomber,” I assured him. “I take a few notes now and then.”
“Oh, you’re not a sky-pilot,” he went on, in comic relief. “You never can tell. Those four-flushing Mormons have been bringing a whole gang of young elders from Utah to Tahiti to beat us out. I’m an elder myself of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. They usually call us the Josephites. In these islands we are Konito or Tonito. We’ve been having a grand annual meeting here. Over sixty from Tahiti, and altogether a thousand and seventy members. They’ve been gathering from most of the Paumotus for weeks, coming with the wind, but we’re about over now.”
“But I thought the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was the Mormons,” said I, puzzled.