Hawaii - James Michener [300]
"That night I had a clear premonition that I had done an un-Christian thing in passing your father by, and once I started to see if he had gotten home correctly, but I failed to do so, but on my morning walk I stopped by his house to wish him well, and he was gone. I hurried out to the cemetery, expecting to find him fallen along the way, but as I explained, he had died at the grave.
"Mr. Hale, I'll not mince words. There were, as you are well aware, harsh comments made concerning your father's death alone in Lahaina, but I know and all like me know how hard you tried to make his last days easier. He was an obstinate man and would permit no kindness. I suffered from his sharp tongue, so I know. I want to reassure you that the true facts are known, and only the fools of the city condemn you."
As I have said, there was profound grief in the four Hale houses, for the children could remember how their father had cared for them, and loved them, and taught them, and changed their sheets when they had fevers and sacrificed his life for them, that they might be worthy children. They could see him, a father of terrible wrath, keeping them tightly confined to the small, walled-in garden; and they remembered his dreadful lamentations when Reverend Eliphalet Thorn took them away from his care. From that day on, each of the four Hale children had tried vainly to return to his father the love he had spent on them, but he would not accept it. He rejected his oldest son Micah for having married a part-Hawaiian. He scorned David for refusing to become a minister. He despised Lucy for having married young Hewlett, who although he was pure white was nevertheless half-brother to half-castes. And he ignored Esther, his baby, for having married a Whipple who had publicly made fun of missionaries. The sorrow of his four children was deep.
But they were also New Englanders, and when the Honolulu community whisperingly condemned them for having abandoned their poor old dim-witted father, allowing him to die in a filthy shack in distant Lahaina, the Hales felt it imperative that they appear in public. They accepted the scorn and walked proudly as if there were no whispers following them. When aggravating hostesses tempted them with invitations, to see how they were bearing up, they accepted, and they moved normally in Honolulu society, grimly bearing the charges made against them. It was their duty.
But the Chinese servants, seeing this, were more perplexed than ever, and in the stores they added to the whispers: "Li Lum Fong told me that last night Micah Hale and Mrs. Hewlett and Mrs. Whipple all went to a party. Now please tell me, please explain how a family that allows their poor old father to die in poverty, untended, can be so shameless as to appear in public, drinking alcohol and laughing? Even before the first year of mourning has ended."
"You will never understand these heartless people," the Chinese agreed.
WHEN MUN KI'S SON Asia started growing into a bow-legged, chubby-faced little toddler, he was promptly joined by the Continent of Europe and later Africa, who rioted around the kitchen floor as their parents prepared meals for the Whipples; and with the coming of these children a curious transformation occurred in the relationship between Mun Ki and his wife. Many centuries earlier Confucius had pointed out that the harmonious existence of husband and wife was most difficult to sustain: "Between the two let there be respect."
It was common, therefore, in Chinese families for a husband never to hand his wife anything, for to do so seemed to imply: "I wish to give you this. You must take it." Instead, he placed the object near his wife and she picked it up at her own time. Some ignored this particular convention, but there was another that all observed. As the scholar at the Punti store had explained to Dr. Whipple, a respectful husband never spoke his wife's name, neither in public nor at home. As soon as a girl married she became simply Mun Ki's wife; that was her profession and her personality. But when children arrived, special