Hawaii - James Michener [315]
Quickly Rafer Hoxworth swung himself down into the fo'c's'l, grabbed his grandson by the arms and said hurriedly, "Once you leave this harbor, Whipple, that evil-tempered man topside has the absolute power of life and death over you. His word is law, and he's no puny Yale professor. He's a tough, cruel man, and you'll get no sympathy from either him or me if you play the coward.
"Now, Whip, if you get into a fight, and you will, remember one thing. Fight to kill. There's no other rule. And when you've got a man fairly licked and on the deck, always kick him in the face so that when he gets up he can't contend that he almost had you down. Bruise him, scar him, mutilate him so that he can never forget who's boss. And when you've done this, help him up and be generous.
"Whip, you've tasted Chinese girls and Spaniards. There are a thousand more to sample. Try 'em all. That's the one thing you'll do in life that you'll never regret. Whip, I want you to come home a man."
As the fleeting seconds passed, the youth wished vainly that he could prolong this moment endlessly, for he felt deeply attached to this wild old grandfather of his, but the last question he asked was so surprising both to himself and to his grandfather that Rafer Hoxworth fell back a few steps: "Grandfather, if you liked the girls at Iwilei so much, how did you feel about Noelani? I can't get this straight."
There was a moment of silence, and then Rafer said, "When Noelani's mother died she weighed close to four hundred pounds. Your great-grandmother. And every day her husband crawled into her presence on his hands and knees, bringing her maile chains. That's a good thing for a man to do."
"But how can you love a lot of girls and one woman, too? At the same time?"
"You ever study the skies at night, Whip? All the lovely little stars? You could reach up and pinch each one on the points. And then in the east the moon rises, enormous and perfect. And that's something else, entirely different."
He shook his grandson's hand and scrambled topside, waved to the surly captain, and leaped down onto the dock. The old whaler creaked and groaned as her ropes were loosened. A fresh wind came down off the mountains in back of Honolulu, and a voyage was commenced.
When it was discovered what Hoxworth had done with his grandson, the entire community was outraged. Bromley Hoxworth and his brothers-in-law talked for a while of dispatching one of the H & H ships to intercept the dirty old whaler and take the boy off, but Hoxworth pointed out: "He signed papers, and if you know the captain of that ship, the only way that boy will ever get off is either to die at sea and be buried feet-first under a scrap of canvas, or serve his time properly like a man."
Later, Honolulu softened toward the resolute old captain and the citizenry began to speak of him with amused affection, recognizing him for what he was: the leading resident of the islands. If he entered a bank, he was treated with deference. In church he was bowed to by the pastors, and at the library, which he had always supported with generous gifts, he was accepted as the patron saint of learning. The Chinese of Honolulu referred to him as "that courtly, sweet old man."
He died in June, 1877 full of years and public acclaim. At his deathbed were Hales and Whipples and Janderses and Hoxworths-- the leaders of Hawaii--but the surviving mortal on whom his thoughts rested was his grandson Whip, happily bedded down in a Manila brothel with an agile little Cochinese lately imported from Saigon.
ON THE AFTERNOON of Captain Rafer Hoxworth's funeral, Dr. John Whipple, then seventy-one years old but spare and well preserved, returned from the cemetery to his home, where he found the pregnant Nyuk Tsin waiting for him, and he supposed that finally she had surrendered her prejudices and had come to ask his medical advice upon her condition, but that was not the case. She said, "Mun Ki him sore leg, you help," and she requested a medicine to stop the itching that had arisen from her husband's work in the taro patch. Dr. Whipple