Hawaii - James Michener [236]
In later years it would become fashionable to say of the missionaries, "They came to the islands to do good, and they did right well." Others made jest of the missionary slogan, "They came to a nation in darkness; they left it in light," by pointing out: "Of course they left Hawaii lighter. They stole every goddamned thing that wasn't nailed down."
But these comments did not apply to Jerusha Hale. From her body came a line of men and women who would civilize the islands and organize them into meaningful patterns. Her name would be on libraries, on museums, on chairs of medicine, on church scholarships. From a mean grass house, in which she worked herself to death, she brought humanity and love to an often brutal seaport, and with her needle and reading primer she taught the women of Maui more about decency and civilization than all the words of her husband accomplished. She asked for nothing, gave her love without stint, and grew to cherish the land she served: "Of her bones was Hawaii built." Whenever I think of a missionary, I think of Jerusha Hale.
In the hours following Jerusha's death, the Americans in Lahaina held long discussions as to what should be done with the four Hale children, and it was tentatively agreed that Mrs. Janders should take them until such time as a ship could be found to carry the youngsters back to the Bromleys in Walpole, but since these plans had been worked out without consulting Abner, they were obviously not binding on him, and to the general surprise he announced, when Mrs. Janders offered to take the children, that he would continue to care for them; and they stayed inside the mission wall--Micah, aged thirteen; Lucy, ten; David, six; Esther, four--while their father tended their needs. In this he was much aided by Micah, a sallow, serious child who read voraciously and who had a vocabulary even greater than his erudite father's, for often while the Whipple and Janders children were roustabouting near the mission grounds, Micah Hale, with nothing better to do, sat hunched inside the wall reading for pleasure either a Hebrew dictionary or Cornelius Schrevelius' Greek-Latin Lexicon. The two little girls were dressed as Abner thought appropriate, in fitted basques with full-length sleeves, plain flowing skirts, pantaloons to the ankle, and flat straw hats with ribbon streamers, all dredged up from the bottoms of the charity barrels, and they too became extremely fast readers with vocabularies that astonished their elders. Only on Sundays did the general population see the Hale children, for then their father washed and polished them, easing them one by one into their best apparel and leading them solemnly behind him to the big church. At such times many mothers in the community observed, "They are so pallid. Like their mother."
All might have gone well, however, for Abner was a father who demonstrated deep love for his children, except that in the spring of 1837 the Carthaginian put into Lahaina on a routine visit to pick up Janders & Whipple furs for an intended run to Canton, and while the handsome ship was loading, Captain Hoxworth idly roamed the tree-lined streets of the town; suddenly he snapped his fingers and asked a Hawaiian, "Where is Mrs. Hale buried?" Stepping briskly, the tall, powerful captain strode to the cemetery, stopping only at a wayside house to buy some flowers; and his intentions were peaceful, but when he reached the grave he had the great bad luck to find Abner Hale there, tending the grass that had grown up beside Amanda Whipple's improvised marker; and when the whaler spotted Abner, the author of his constant grief, he flew into a dark and savage rage, shouting, "You