Hawaii - James Michener [245]
Micah blushed and stammered, "I had planned to visit San Francisco for some days."
"We won't wait!" Hoxworth boomed, in his calculated impression of a robust older friend. "We're making so much money running food from Lahaina to the gold fields that a day lost is a fortune foundered."
"You can see San Francisco later," Malama said winsomely, and when Micah looked into her deep Polynesian eyes he felt logic pass into confusion, so that even though he had hiked three thousand miles to see the phenomenon of the west he said weakly, "I'll move my things aboard . . . even though it is the Sabbath."
On the Carthaginian, Micah did not spend much time discussing America with Captain Hoxworth or Hawaii with his wife. Instead, he tagged along wherever Malama moved, and with her he watched the stars and the dolphin and the changing clouds. The first days were cold, and she wore an Oregon fur that framed her face in caressing beauty, and once when the night wind was blowing the edges of fur about her eyes, Micah felt positively impelled to raise his hand and brush the fur away, whereupon she accidentally leaned upon his fingers, and he felt how remarkably soft her skin was, and he kept his hand near her cheek and then almost unknowingly allowed it to slip around behind her neck, pulling her lips to his. It was the first time he had kissed a girl and he felt for a moment as if a family of dolphin had struck the ship, and he drew back amazed, at which the tall island girl laughed and teased: "I do believe you've never kissed a girl before, Reverend Hale."
"I haven't," he admitted.
"Did you enjoy it?" she laughed.
"It's something that should be saved for a starry night aboard ship," he said slowly, taking her properly into his arms.
Rafer Hoxworth, who had planned these events, watched with gratification as young Micah Hale became increasingly entangled with Malama. Nevertheless, he experienced contradictory emotions toward the boy: he despised him and wanted to hurt him in some tormenting way; yet at the same time he saw constantly how much the young minister, resembled Jerusha Bromley, and when at meals the young fellow, spoke so intelligently of America's destiny, Hoxworth was proud; so that on the seventh day he announced unexpectedly to his wife, "By God, Noelani, if the boy wants to marry Malama, I'll say, 'Go ahead.' We could use him in the family."
"Don't intrude into the Hale household again," his wife pleaded. "Besides, what would you do with a minister in the family?"
"This one won't be a minister long," Hoxworth predicted confidently. "Too much get-up-and-go."
That afternoon Captain Hoxworth called his daughter to his book-lined cabin and said, "Malama, you intending to marry young Hale?"
"I think so," she replied.
"My blessing," Hoxworth said, but when his daughter brought her suitor, trembling, into the cabin to plead for her hand, Hoxworth subjected the young man to a humiliating examination, focused primarily on money and the inevitability that a clergyman would never have enough of it to support a ship captain's daughter, particularly one who had expensive tastes, and after about fifteen minutes of this, Micah Hale, who had boxed at Yale and who had worked hard in the wagon train crossing the prairies, lost his temper and said, "Captain Hoxworth, I didn't come in here to be insulted. A minister has a fine, good life, and I will hear no more of your abuse."
He stamped out of the cabin and ate his next three meals with the crew, and when Malama, in tears, came to find him he said proudly, "I'll come back to your table when the captain of this ship personally apologizes." After another day had passed, during which Noelani and her daughter cajoled Captain Hoxworth with assurances that Micah had acted correctly, the gruff captain surrendered, rammed a cigar into his teeth, and of his own accord sought out the young minister. Thrusting forth a huge hand he said with