Then there was more noise, and Laka, looking up from the trench, saw that the clearing around him was all filled with a crowd of little men. They came where the tree lay, and they tried to move it. Then Laka jumped out of the trench, and he laid hands upon one of the little people. He threatened to kill him for having moved away the trees he had cut.
As he jumped up all the little people disappeared. Laka was left with the one he held.
“Do not kill me,” said the little man. “I am of the Me-ne-hu-ne, and we intend no harm to you. I [[163]]will say this to you: if you kill me, there will be no one to make the canoe for you, no one to drag it down to the beach, making it ready for you to sail in. If you do not kill me, my friends will make the canoe for you. And if you build a shed for it, we will bring the canoe finished to you and place it in the shed.”
Then Laka said he would gladly spare the little man if he and his friends would make the canoe for him and bring it down to the shed that he would make. He let the little man go then. The next day he built a shed for the canoe.
When he told his grandmother about the crowd of little men he had seen and about the little man he had caught, she told him that they were the Me-ne-hu-ne, who lived in hollow logs and in caves in the mountains. No one knew how many of them there were.
He went back, and he found that where the trunk of the tree had lain there was now a canoe perfectly finished; all was there that should be there, even to the light, well-shaped paddle, and all had been finished in the night. He went back, and that night he waited beside the shed which he had built out on the beach. At the dead of the night he heard the hum of voices. That was when the canoe was being lifted up. Then he heard a second hum of voices. That was when the canoe was being carried on the hands of the Me-ne-hu-ne—for they did not drag the canoe, [[164]]they carried it. He heard a trampling of feet. Then he heard a third hum of voices; that was when the canoe was being left down in the shed he had built.
Laka’s grandmother, knowing who they were, had left a feast for the Me-ne-hu-ne—a shrimp for each, and some cooked taro leaves. They ate, and before it was daylight they returned to the mountain where their caves were. The boy Laka saw the Me-ne-hu-ne as they went up the side of the mountain—hundreds of little men tramping away in the waning darkness.
His canoe was ready, paddle and all. He took it down to the sea, and he went across in search of his father. When he landed on the other side he found a wise man who was able to tell him about his father, and that he was dead indeed, having been killed by a very wicked man on his landing. The boy never went back to his grandmother’s. He stayed, and with the canoe that the Me-ne-hu-ne had made for him he became a famous fisherman. From him have come my fathers and your fathers, too, O my younger brothers.
And you who are the youngest and littlest of all—gather you the ku-kui nuts as we go down; to-night we will make strings of them and burn them, lighting the house. And if we have many ku-kui nuts and a light that is long-lasting, it may be that I will tell more stories. [[165]]