Hawaii - James Michener [296]
The Chinese generally felt that this was but one more evidence of the hard life they were to have on the plantations, and much indignation resulted from the old man's unexpected attack. Asked the Chinese, Punti and Hakka alike: "Don't the white men respect gods?" And the divergence between the Chinese and the Caucasian increased.
To the white men, the incident at the Buddhist temple was deplorable, and planters both on Maui and on other islands quickly got together small sums of money which they handed to the offended Chinese, so that some of the damage growing out of the attack was rectified. Dr. Whipple, as spokesman for the planters, went personally to Maui to mollify the laborers, and after a period of tension, reasonably good relations were restored, and all whites who employed Chinese took special pains to assure the strangers that they were free to worship as they pleased. Thus, in the mid-1860's a true religious freedom was established in the islands: Congregationalists, Catholics, Episcopalians, Mormons, Buddhists and Confucianists worshiped side by side in relative harmony.
When peace among the Chinese had been restored, the white planters took up the problem of wizened Abner Hale, and younger offspring of the old families, men like the Hewletts, the Whipples and the Hoxworths, convened in Honolulu to see what to do about the old man. Reported one of the Hewletts, honestly: "That pitiful fanatic, bursting in that way with his cane and his shouts of 'Abomination! Corruption!' almost ruined everything we've accomplished with the Chinese. We've got to make the old fool behave."
Years ago he did the same thing with the Hawaiians, as I understand," Bromley Hoxworth explained. "One famous night when my mother was getting married to her brother, he burst into the ceremony and lashed about with his cane, destroying idols and raising merry hell. He still thinks he's fighting the old Hawaiian gods."
"Somebody's got to advise him that things have changed," one of the Whipple boys insisted. "Knocking down Hawaiian idols when it does no harm is one thing, but destroying Buddhas when we're trying to keep our Chinese help happy is quite another."
The group turned to David Hale and suggested: "Can you talk to him, Dave?"
"I'd rather not," the alert young man evaded. "I've never been able to make much sense with Father."
"What we really ought to do is to get him off Maui altogether," Brom Hoxworth proposed. "Truly, he oughtn't to be there alone. He messes up the Seamen's Chapel and interferes with the Chinese. He's really a dreadful nuisance, and I agree with the others, Dave, that you've got to talk with him. Convince him that he ought to live in a little house here in Honolulu . . . where we could watch him."
"I've tried that. So has Micah. The old man simply won't listen to any proposal which requires his leaving Maui. If you raise the question, he says stubbornly, 'My church is here, and my graves are here.' And that's that."
"Whose graves?" Brom Hoxworth asked.
"My mother's grave, and your grandmother's," the intense younger Hale explained. "He plays gardener for them, and insists now and then upon preaching in the old stone church that he built. But I'm sure the minister would be delighted to see him get out of Maui."
One of the Whipple boys spoke: "Looking at the whole thing frankly, the fact that he's left alone on Maui reflects on all of us, really. It looks as if we had cut the old man off ... didn't want him, because he's sort of wandering in his mind. Now, I know that's not the truth. I happen to know definitely