CHAPTER IX
THE LONELY DAYS OF WIDOWHOOD
As the slow, empty days passed, the weight of her sorrow bore more and more heavily upon her and she grew steadily weaker. Finally, the doctors said the only thing was change, so, in April, 1895, she set sail with her family for San Francisco.
On the way a stop was made in Honolulu, where Mrs. Stevenson was deeply distressed to find the provisional government in control and her old friend, Queen Liliuokalani, imprisoned. The deposed queen was kept in Iolani Palace under close guard, and ostensibly debarred from all visitors, but one must presume the guard not to have been so strict as it seemed, for Mrs. Stevenson was able to gain entrance and secure an audience with the royal prisoner through the not very dignified avenue of the kitchen-door of the palace. When she gave expression to her profound sympathy and indignation at the turn affairs had taken, Liliuokalani replied that she wished she had had Louis to advise her in her dark hours.
A summer without special incident was spent in California—a grey summer for her, for her son and daughter tried in vain to interest her in things there. Her health improved, but she cared for nothing outside of Samoa and only yearned to go back and be near the grave on Mount Vaea, so in the autumn they again turned their faces toward the Pacific Isles.
When they left San Francisco they had added another member to their party—a small donkey named Dicky, given to Mrs. Stevenson by one of the Golden Gate Park commissioners, which she intended to use in driving about the plantation to a little Studebaker cart she had had made especially for the purpose. A little stable was put up on deck for Dicky and a bale of hay provided for him, but it was not long before the little fellow had become such a pet with the carpenter and his mates that he was taken into the forecastle to live with them and share their mess, eating his meals out of a tin plate. The men taught him many amusing tricks, and it got to be quite the thing for the cabin passengers to make trips down to the forecastle to see him do them and to feed him chocolate creams. At Waikiki Beach, where they lived in a cottage attached to the Sans Souci Hotel during their stay of several months in Hawaii, Mrs. Stevenson often drove about the park in the little cart which was just fitted to Dicky. She was surprised at first to find that he would only make short trips and then come to a dead stop, from which it was impossible to budge him. Nothing would make him go on until his mistress got out and in again, and then he would pick up his little feet and trot on for another five minutes, when the same performance would have to be repeated. At last they realized that he had been trained to make five-cent trips at Golden Gate Park, and that nothing would ever break him of it. When they left Honolulu for Samoa they had difficulty in getting him on board the steamer, for although there was a belt and tackle to hoist him up, they could not drag him to it. One man—then two—then finally six men were hauling at him, while the ship waited, with all passengers on board and surveying the scene with intense amusement. The captain suddenly shouted through a megaphone: "Pull him the other way!" They did so and he immediately backed right up to the tackle and was hauled on deck amid the plaudits of the multitude. At Samoa he was a great pet; the native girls loved him and took him with them when they went to cut alfalfa for the cows. They made a pretty picture coming through the forest—the girls in leaves and flowers and Dicky a walking mountain of green, with only his long ears sticking out and his bright eyes gleaming through the foliage.
Honolulu brought back to Mrs. Stevenson many poignant memories of other days, of which she wrote to her mother-in-law in these words:
"As you suppose, this has been a sad season with me. People say that one gets used to things with time, but I do not believe it. Every day seems harder for me to bear. I say to myself many comforting things, but even though I believe them they do not comfort me. Everything here reminds me of Louis, and I do not think there is one moment that I am not thinking of him. People say: 'What a comfort his great name must be to you!' It is a pride to me, but not a comfort; I would rather have my Louis here with me, poor and unknown. And I do not like to have my friends offer me their sympathy—only you and one or two who loved him for what he was and not for what he did.... As to his Christianity his life and work show what he was. I know that whether or not he always succeeded in living up to his intentions, he was a true follower of Christ, a real Christian, and not many have come as close as he; and I believe that not many have tried as honestly and earnestly. In this place everything reminds me of him, and I feel that I must see him. I cannot believe that all these months have passed since he left us. Perhaps the whole time will not seem so long until we meet again. It gives me a sharp shock when I hear him spoken of as dead. He is not dead to me—I cannot think it nor feel it. He is only waiting, I seem to feel, somewhere near at hand."
After a winter spent in Hawaii, during which the marriage of her son took place, Mrs. Stevenson and her daughter sailed, in May, 1896, for Samoa. In these various trips between San Francisco and the islands she usually sailed on the Mariposa, and because she had so much baggage Captain Morse and the other officers took to calling the ship "Mrs. Stevenson's lighter."
Their home-coming, being unexpected, was rather forlorn. They reached Vailima in the evening and went to bed rather drearily in the empty house, Mrs. Strong having determined to get breakfast as best she could the next morning and then send out word to their former Samoan helpers. After their long journey she slept late, and, springing from her bed somewhat guiltily, ran to the window. What was her astonishment to see smoke coming out of the cookhouse chimney, Talolo at the door, and Iopu, the yard man, coming up with a pail of water—all the business of the place, in fact, going on like clockwork, just as though they had never been absent for a day! Running into her mother's room, she found her sitting up in bed just finishing her breakfast, which had been brought up on a tray by Sosimo. The news had gone forth the night before that they had returned, and every man of the Vailima force was at his post at break of day.