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By Root 4449 0

She greeted each bruised skipper with personal warmth and commiserated with him over the rude behavior of her people. She fed the captains well, offered them fine whiskey, and then proposed: "Our lovely church is burned. It was an accident, I am sure. Naturally, we want to rebuild it, and we will. But before we do, we want to do something for the fine Americans who come to Lahaina. Therefore we are going to build a little chapel for sailors. It will give them a place to read, and pray, and write letters home to their dear ones. Will you kind men set the example and give a few dollars for the chapel?" And by her daring charm she wheedled more than sixty dollars from the astonished captains, and another of Abner Hale's dreams, one that he had entertained since that day off the Four Evangelists when the sailors went swinging through the arcs of heaven, was realized: the Seamen's Chapel at Lahaina.

BY 1828 it seemed that Abner's world was at last beginning to be well organized. He had a rude desk and a whale-oil lamp by which he translated the Bible. He had three schools functioning with increasing success, and the day seemed not too far distant when Iliki, Pupali's youngest and loveliest daughter, would be married in church to one or the other of the established Hawaiian men who were trying with increasing regularity to peek into Jerusha's school. Captain Janders' return to Lahaina and his announced decision to settle down as a ship chandler, with his wife and children coming out from New Bedford, gave Abner a polished mind with whom he could conduct discussions; while the captain's happy knowledge that young Cridland, the devout sailor from the Thetis, was footloose in Honolulu, where the ship's company had been disbanded, encouraged Abner to direct a letter to the youth, asking him to throw in his lot with the Seamen's Chapel, so that Cridland was now employed there, giving guidance to the younger sailors who arrived in Lahaina on the rapidly increasing whaling fleet--45 whalers in 1828; 62 in 1829.

Malama was rapidly approaching a state of grace, so that it seemed assured that she would be accepted into the rebuilt church when it was dedicated, and there were really only two difficulties looming on the broad and lovely horizon at Lahaina. Abner had anticipated the first, for when it came time to rebuild the church, Kelolo announced that the kahunas wished to consult with Abner again, but he replied, "The door will stay where it was. All this talk in the community that the kahunas knew the church would be destroyed irritates me. Some drunken sailors burned it and that's that. Your local superstitions had nothing whatever to do with it."

"Makua Hale!" Kelolo protested gently. "We did not wish to speak about the door. We know your mind is made up, and we know that your church will always be unlucky. But there is nothing we can do about that."

"What did the kahunas want to see me about?" Abner asked suspiciously.

"Come to the church," Kelolo begged, and when Abner met with the wise old men they pointed to the two-third walls and the absent ceiling and made this proposal: "Makua Hale, it has occurred to us that the last church was very hot indeed, what with more than three thousand people huddled on the floor and no wind to cool them off."

"It was warm," Abner agreed.

"Would it not therefore be a wise thing if we did not build the destroyed walls any higher? Would it not be better, indeed, if we could pull them down even farther? Then we could erect high posts and raise the ceiling as it was before, so that when the church is finished, the winds will move across us and cool us as if we were on the shore."

It took some minutes for Abner to comprehend this radical suggestion and he tried to piece its various components together in his mind. "You mean, tear the present walls down to here?"

"Even lower, Makua Hale," the kahunas advised.

"Well . . ." Abner reflected. "Then raise the pillars as before?"

"Yes, and hang the ceiling from them, as before."

"But you wouldn't have any walls," Abner protested.

"The wind would