Hawaii - James Michener [104]
Nevertheless, and not by plan, the morning did end on a note of high religious emotion, for Jerusha Hale unexpectedly moved forward and in her fawn-colored coat and lively poke bonnet stood before Reverend Thorn, saying in a clear voice so that all could hear, "I speak to you not as my Uncle Eliphalet, nor as Reverend Thorn of Africa, but as an officer of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. We place our futures in your hands. The eleven men here take no money with them, only those things required for life on a savage island. It would not be proper for me to take worldly wealth, either, and so I turn over to the Board the small inheritance I received from my loving aunt. It was to have been spent on my marriage, but I have married the work of the Lord." And she handed Reverend Thorn a packet containing more than eight hundred dollars.
Penniless, uninformed, ill at ease with their suddenly acquired partners, but strong in the Lord, the missionaries climbed aboard the brig Thetis, and Captain Janders cried, "Break out the sails!" and the tiny ship flung aloft her nine new sails and began moving slowly toward the open sea. Standing on the port side of the vessel, Abner Hale had the distinct premonition that he would never again see America, and he uttered a short prayer which invoked blessing for all those who lived on that bleak, ungenerous little farm in Marlboro, Massachusetts. If he had been asked at that solemn moment what mission he was setting forth upon he would have answered honestly, "To bring to the people of Hawaii the blessings that I enjoyed on that farm." It could never have occurred to him--as indeed it never did--that a better mission might be to bring to Hawaii the blessings that characterized the solid white home facing the village common in Walpole, New Hampshire, for although he had said nothing about this to anyone, he could not believe that the levity, the profane music, the novels and the deficiency in grace that marked the Bromley home were in any sense blessings. In fact, he rather felt that in bringing Jerusha onto the Thetis he was somehow saving her from herself.
She was now tugging at his arm and saying, "Reverend Hale, I think I'm going to be sick." And he took her below and placed her in one of the short berths, where she was to stay for most of the time during the first four months. Abner, to everyone's surprise, proved a good sailor, for although he constantly looked as if he were about to vomit, he ate ravenously and never did.
It was he, therefore, who led prayers, did the preaching, studied Hawaiian with Keoki Kanakoa, and frequently took care of eighteen or twenty seasick missionaries. Some of them came ungenerously to detest the wiry little man as he moved briskly among their sickbeds, assuring them that soon they would be up like him, eating pork, biscuit, gravy, anything. And yet grudgingly they had to admire his determination, particularly when Captain Janders began to rail against him.
Janders started with his first mate. "Mister Collins, you've got to keep that pipsqueak Hale out of the fo'c's'l."
“Is he bothering the men?"
"He's trying to convert "em."
"Those monsters?"
"He's got his dirty little fangs into Cridland. I found the boy weeping last night and I asked him what was wrong, and he told me that Reverend Hale had convinced him that death and eternal hellfire were the lot of everyone on this ship who did not confess and join the church."
"Maybe he's right," Collins laughed.
"But in the meantime we have to run a ship."
"Have the men complained, sir?"
"No, that they haven't. Cridland says they sort of like to have the little squirt around. Makes them feel as if someone was interested in 'em."
"I'll tell him to stay clear of the men," Mister Collins promised.
Captain Janders knew precisely when the message was delivered, for two minutes later Reverend Hale, sputtering with