Hawaii - James Michener [174]
"But Iliki is only a child!" Jerusha protested.
"First law of the sea, ma'am. If they're big enough, they're old enough," and he looked out into the channel, where the girls' pleased squeals filled the air.
Appalled by this indifference, Jerusha ran over to an old Hawaiian woman who sat on a rock guarding the four mission dresses which the girls had discarded. "Aunty Mele," Jerusha pleaded, "how can we get those girls back?"
"You stop one time. Bimeby ship go," Aunty Mele assured her. "Wahine come back, same like always."
In frustration, Jerusha grabbed at the besmirched mission dresses, as if to take them home with her, away from the contaminated waterfront, but Aunty Mele held onto them grimly, saying, "Hale Wahine! Bimeby wahine come back, I make ready dress for dem." And like the good friend she was, she remained on the rock, holding the girls' apparel until such time as they might need it once more for resumption of their missionary lessons.
That night it was a gloomy mission household that reviewed the day's defeats. "I cannot understand these girls," Jerusha wept. "We give them the best of everything. Iliki in particular knows what good and evil are. Yet she runs off to the whaling ship."
"I brought the matter up with Malama," Abner reported in deep confusion, "and she said merely, 'The girl is not an alii. She can go to the ships if she likes.' So I asked Malama, "Then why were you so angry when the three sailors tried to take Noelani to their ship.' And Malama replied, 'Noelani is kapu alii.' As if that explained everything."
"Abner, I shudder to think of the evil that flourishes in Lahaina," Jerusha replied. "When I left the waterfront, where nobody would do anything, I went into the town to ask for help, and at Murphy's grog shop I heard a concertina. And girls laughing. And I tried to go in to stop whatever was happening, and a man said, 'Don't go in there, Mrs. Hale. The girls have no clothes on. They never do when the whalers are in port.' Abner! What is happening to this town?"
"For some time I have known it to be the modern Sodom and Gomorrah."
"What are we going to do about it?" "I haven't decided," he replied.
"Well, I have," Jerusha said firmly. And that very night she marched down to Malama's palace and said in her able Hawaiian, "Alii Nui, we must stop the girls from going out to the whaling ships."
"Why?" Malama asked. "The girls go because they want to. No harm is done."
"But Iliki is a good girl," Jerusha insisted.
"What is a good girl?" Malama asked. "Girls who do not swim out to ships," Jerusha replied simply. "I think you missionaries want to stop all fun," Malama countered. "Iliki is not engaging in fun," Jerusha argued. "She is engaging in death." And this Malama knew to be true.
"But she has always gone out to the ships," she said sadly.
"Iliki has an immortal soul," Jerusha said firmly. "Exactly as you and I."
"You mean to claim that Iliki . . . wahine i Pupali . . . like you or me?"
"Exactly like you, Malama. Exactly like me."
"I cannot believe it," Malama said. "She has always gone to the ships."
"It is our job to stop her. To stop all the girls."
Malama would do nothing that night, but on the next day she assembled the alii then in residence, and Reverend and Mrs. Hale presented their arguments, with Jerusha pleading: "You can tell a good town by the way it protects its babies and young girls. You can tell a good alii by the way in which he protects women. You are not good alii if you permit your own daughters to go out to the ships. In London the good alii try to stop such things. In Boston, too."
Kelolo contradicted this assertion by pointing out: "Kekau-ike-a-ole sailed on a whaler and he got to both London and Boston and he has often told us of how there were special houses filled with girls. Everywhere he went there were such houses."
"But the good alii in all cities try to control