"It is the way of white people," said Pola, philosophically.
It was through my little chief that we learned of a bit of fine hospitality. It seems that pigs were scarce in the village, so each house-chief pledged himself to refrain from killing one of them for six months. Any one breaking this rule agreed to give over his house to be looted by the village.
Pola came up rather late one morning, and told me, hilariously, of the fun they had had looting Tupuola's house.
"But Tupuola is a friend of ours," I said. "I don't like to hear of all his belongings being scattered."
"It is all right," Pola explained. "Tupuola said to the village, 'Come and loot. I have broken the law and I will pay the forfeit.'"
"How did he break the law?" I asked.
"When the high-chief Loia, your brother of the four eyes, stopped the night at Tanugamanono, on his way to the shark fishing, he stayed with Tupuola, so of course it was chiefly to kill a pig in his honor."
"But it was against the law. My brother would not have liked it, and Tupuola must have felt badly to know his house was to be looted."
"He would have felt worse," said Pola, "to have acted unchiefly to a friend."
We never would have known of the famine in Tanugamanono if it had not been for Pola. The hurricane had blown off all the young nuts from the cocoanut palms and the fruit from the breadfruit trees, while the taro was not yet ripe. We passed the village daily. The chief was my brother's dear friend; the girls often came up to decorate the place for a dinner party, but we had no hint of any distress in the village.