Hawaii - James Michener [213]
"Sure!" Janders agreed. "I bought her, but did you see how fast I sold her? On an earlier trip I had watched Kelolo's mouth watering for such a ship, and I knew I could turn a quick profit. Me operate a ship on my own responsibility? Never!” And he pointed to the rotting hulk that still hung on the reef. "Whenever you want to buy a ship, John, always remember the Thetis."
Still Whipple was not satisfied, for he argued, "Somebody makes money on ships. I thought it might as well be us."
Janders agreed, in part, for he said, "I grant that properly handled a ship can make a little money, but if you and I learn how to manage the business and the lands right here, John, we'll make a fortune that will stagger the shipowners. Own nothing, control everything."
In the fields Captain Janders had determined to control, he was a master trader, sending meat to Oregon, picking up furs for Canton-sending hides to Valparaiso and tallow to California. He made a quick profit on each exchange and was always on hand when men were in trouble, for then money was free. Gradually, the whalers found that they could trust him with any transaction, and he became their agent. If a ship's captain wanted to risk the dying sandalwood trade having heard that Captain Janders had made his fortune on it, J & W gladly accumulated the precious cargo and provided letters of introduction to the Canton merchants who would buy it If another felt convinced that he could turn a handsome profit running fresh beef to Oregon, then ice to California, J & W would supply the live cattle, sending the crazy young cowboys of Lahaina up into the hills to lasso the wild animals that had been introduced into the islands by Captain Vancouver in 1794.
To win the good wishes of the mariners, J & W also provided many free services. If a sailor wanted to marry a native girl, there was no point in applying to Reverend Hale to conduct the ceremony, for he frowned on such alliances and invariably spent at least an hour praying with the sailor and pointing out that God had long ago warned against the sin of whoring after the heathen. Dr. Whipple, however, had been given the right by Kelolo to solemnize such marriages, and many families who were destined to live in Hawaiian history, producing the powerful half-caste politicians who organized the islands, sprang from marriages which started in the J & W store, where Reverend Whipple used Amanda, Captain Janders and his wife Luella as witnesses. Abner, of course, held that all participants in such marriages were living in whoredom, and he told them so.
J & W also served as mail drop for the fleet, and sometimes musty letters would lie in their bins for years before sailors came rolling up the wooden stairs and along the porch, shouting, "Any mail for me?" The wiry wanderer would sit in one of the J & W chairs and read of family affairs that had transpired forty months ago. Then he would ask John Whipple for a piece of paper, and the doctor would explain, "That building at the corner. It's a writing room for sailors, and if you ask for Mr. Cridland, he'll take care of everything."
Frequently, ship captains would transmit from the distant whaling grounds requests to J & W for a half-dozen replacements for their crews, to be picked up when the ship reached Lahaina. Captain Janders knew that whalers preferred stout Hawaiian boys, and he provided them at five dollars a head, but when none were available, he would visit Kelolo and tell the one-eyed, toothless police marshal, "Round up eight or ten deserters for next month," and Kelolo would move his men through the countryside, dragging in as worthless a lot of murderers, cowards, ship-jumpers, adulterers and hopeless drunks as any nation of the day could have provided. No American deserter could be so degenerate or worthless but that some kind Hawaiian family would give him refuge; they even fought the police to keep the murderers from arrest, but when the rogues were finally lodged in jail, Mr. Cridland, from the Seamen's Chapel, would move among them, explaining,