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and who made invidious remarks about our ancestors banqueting on
Captain Cook--which was historically untrue, and, besides, our
ancestors hadn't lived in Hawaii.
"I was three years at Mills Seminary, with trips home, of course,
and two years in New York; and then Dad went smash in a sugar
plantation on Maui. The report of the engineers had not been
right. Then Dad had built a railroad that was called 'Lackland's
Folly,'--it will pay ultimately, though. But it contributed to the
smash. The Pelaulau Ditch was the finishing blow. And nothing
would have happened anyway, if it hadn't been for that big money
panic in Wall Street. Dear good Dad! He never let me know. But I
read about the crash in a newspaper, and hurried home. It was
before that, though, that people had been dinging into my ears that
marriage was all any woman could get out of life, and good-bye to
romance. Instead of which, with Dad's failure, I fell right into
romance."
"How long ago was that?" Sheldon asked.
"Last year--the year of the panic."
"Let me see," Sheldon pondered with an air of gravity. "Sixteen
plus five, plus one, equals twenty-two. You were born in 1887?"
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"Yes; but it is not nice of you."
"I am really sorry," he said, "but the problem was so obvious."
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27
"Can't you ever say nice things? Or is it the way you English
have?" There was a snap in her gray eyes, and her lips quivered
suspiciously for a moment. "I should recommend, Mr. Sheldon, that
you read Gertrude Atherton's 'American Wives and English
Husbands.'"
"Thank you, I have. It's over there." He pointed at the
generously filled bookshelves. "But I am afraid it is rather
partisan."
"Anything un-English is bound to be," she retorted. "I never have
liked the English anyway. The last one I knew was an overseer.
Dad was compelled to discharge him."
"One swallow doesn't make a summer."
"But that Englishman made lots of trouble--there! And now please
don't make me any more absurd than I already am."
"I'm trying not to."
"Oh, for that matter--" She tossed her head, opened her mouth to
complete the retort, then changed her mind. "I shall go on with my
history. Dad had practically nothing left, and he decided to
return to the sea. He'd always loved it, and I half believe that
he was glad things had happened as they did. He was like a boy
again, busy with plans and preparations from morning till night.
He used to sit up half the night talking things over with me. That
was after I had shown him that I was really resolved to go along.
"He had made his start, you know, in the South Seas--pearls and
pearl shell--and he was sure that more fortunes, in trove of one
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sort and another, were to be picked up. Cocoanut-planting was his
particular idea, with trading, and maybe pearling, along with other
things, until the plantation should come into bearing. He traded
off his yacht for a schooner, the Miele, and away we went. I took
care of him and studied navigation. He was his own skipper. We
had a Danish mate, Mr. Ericson, and a mixed crew of Japanese and
Hawaiians. We went up and down the Line Islands, first, until Dad
was heartsick. Everything was changed. They had been annexed and
divided by one power or another, while big companies had stepped in
and gobbled land, trading rights, fishing rights, everything.
"Next we sailed for the Marquesas. They were beautiful, but the
natives were nearly extinct. Dad was cut up when he learned that
the French charged an export duty on copra--he called it medieval--
but he liked the land. There was a valley of fifteen thousand
acres on Nuka-hiva, half inclosing a perfect anchorage, which he
fell in love with and bought for twelve hundred Chili dollars. But
the French taxation was outrageous (that was why the land was so
cheap), and, worst of all, we could obtain no labour. What kanakas
there were wouldn't work, and the officials seemed to sit up nights
thinking out new obstacles to put in our way.
"Six months was enough for Dad. The situation was hopeless.
'We'll go to the Solomons,' he said, 'and get a whiff of English
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28
rule. And if there are no openings there we'll go on to the
Bismarck Archipelago. I'll wager the Admiraltys are not yet
civilized.' All preparations were made, things packed on board,
and a new crew of Marquesans and Tahitians shipped. We were just
ready to start to Tahiti, where a lot of repairs and refitting for
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the Miele were necessary, when poor Dad came down sick and died."
"And you were left all alone?"
Joan nodded.
"Very much alone. I had no brothers nor sisters, and all Dad's
people were drowned in a Kansas cloud-burst. That happened when he
was a little boy. Of course, I could go back to Von. There's
always a home there waiting for me. But why should I go? Besides,
there were Dad's plans, and I felt that it devolved upon me to
carry them out. It seemed a fine thing to do. Also, I wanted to
carry them out. And . . . here I am.
"Take my advice and never go to Tahiti. It is a lovely place, and
so are the natives. But the white people! Now Barabbas lived in
Tahiti. Thieves, robbers, and lairs--that is what they are. The
honest men wouldn't require the fingers of one hand to count. The
fact that I was a woman only simplified matters with them. They
robbed me on every pretext, and they lied without pretext or need.
Poor Mr. Ericson was corrupted. He joined the robbers, and O.K.'d
all their demands even up to a thousand per cent. If they robbed
me of ten francs, his share was three. One bill of fifteen hundred
francs I paid, netted him five hundred francs. All this, of
course, I learned afterward. But the Miele was old, the repairs
had to be made, and I was charged, not three prices, but seven
prices.
"I never shall know how much Ericson got out of it. He lived
ashore in a nicely furnished house. The shipwrights were giving it
to him rent-free. Fruit, vegetables, fish, meat, and ice came to
this house every day, and he paid for none of it. It was part of [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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