Hawaii - James Michener [194]
"You got any money to put into the venture?" Janders asked warily.
"My family comes to you with absolutely nothing," the handsome dark-haired doctor, then twenty-nine, replied. "We have these clothes, picked from the rag bag, and that is all. I have no medicine, no tools, no luggage. Certainly I have no money. But I have a knowledge of these islands that no other man on earth has, and that's what I offer you."
"Do you speak the tongue?"
"Perfectly."
Janders thought a moment, then stuck out his rugged hand. "Son, you're my partner. On the Thetis, when you asked so many questions, I remarked you."
"I have only one request, Captain," Whipple said. "I want to borrow enough money . . . right now . . ."
"We'll fix you up with clothes and a place to live."
"Enough money to buy my own medical outfit. And anyone who wants medical advice from me can get it free. For I am a servant of the Lord, but I am determined to serve Him in my way, and not some other."
By the end of the week the Whipples had moved into a small grass shack, which Kelolo gave them along with a substantial square of land in return for medical care for Malama, whose exertions on behalf of the new laws had taxed her strength, and at the start of the next week the first of many signboards that were to become famous throughout Hawaii appeared on the dusty main streets of Lahaina: "Janders & Whipple.
ABNER'S DISTURBING EXPERIENCES in Honolulu, where both Abraham Hewlett and John Whipple had challenged the missionary board, confirmed his natural suspicion that there was inherent danger from too close relationships with the Hawaiian savages, and it was under the impetus of this fear that he built a high wall around his entire establishment, leaving an extra gate at the rear through which Jerusha could exit to her girls' classes, held in an open shed under the kou trees. Within the wall not a word of Hawaiian was spoken. No Hawaiian maid was allowed to enter unless she knew English, and if a deputation of villagers came to see Abner, he would carefully close the door leading to where his children were, and he would take the Hawaiians to what he called "the native room," where their voices could not be heard by the little ones.
"We must not learn the ways of the heathen!" Abner constantly warned his family, for what Abraham Hewlett had suggested in Honolulu regarding all missionaries was particularly true of Abner: he loved the Hawaiians, yet he despised them. He was therefore not in very good humor when Kelolo came to visit him one night, which forced him to close off the children's room, lest they hear Hawaiian being spoken.
"What is it you want?" he asked testily.
"In church the other day," Kelolo said in Hawaiian, "I listened to Keoki read that beautiful passage from the Bible in which this man begat that man, and the other man begat another man." The big chief's face was radiant with pleasant memory of the Biblical message which Hawaiians loved above all other. "The Begats," they called it among themselves.
Abner had long been curious about this partiality for the chapter in Chronicles, for he felt sure the Hawaiians could not understand it. "Why do you like that passage so much?" he probed.
Kelolo was embarrassed, and looked about to see if anyone was listening. Then he confessed somewhat sheepishly, "There is much in the Bible we do not understand. How could we? We don't know the many things the white man knows. But when we hear "The Begats,' it is like music to our ears, Makua Hale, because it sounds just like our own family histories, and for once we can feel as if we, too, were part of the Bible."
"What do you mean, family histories?" Abner asked.
"That is what I came to see you about. I see you at work translating the Bible into my language, and we appreciate your hard work. Malama and I were wondering, if before she dies . . . No, Makua Hale, she is not well. We wondered if you would write down for us in English our family history. We are brother and sister, you know."