Hawaii - James Michener [338]
There were, of course, still no organized houses in the leper settlement, and over half the afflicted people slept year after year under bushes, with no bedding and only one change of clothing. These naturally died sooner than even the ravages of leprosy would have dictated, and perhaps this was a blessing, but even the most horrible crawling corpses somehow longed for homes of their own, a shack with a grass roof where they could preserve the illusion that they were still human beings.
Therefore, in June, 1871, Nyuk Tsin, after five weeks of living inside the community, but on the bare ground, decided: "Wu Chow's Father, we are going to build ourselves a house!" Her shattered husband had already begun to lose his toes and fingers and could not be of much help, but she made believe that it was he who was doing the work, and to keep his interest focused on the future, she discussed each step of the building with him. Daily she trudged, to a ruined Hawaiian house built a century before and hauled back heavy stones, standing with them in her arms while he decided exactly where they should be placed. In time a wall was built, and the two shivering Chinese had at least some protection from the winds that howled across Kalawao in the stormy season.
Next she sought the ridgepole and the few crossbeams that were essential for the roof, but this was a difficult task, for the government in Honolulu had consistently forgotten to ship the lepers expensive lumber, which had to be imported all the way from Oregon; for although the leaders of the state were practicing Christians and although their consciences bled for the lepers, they instinctively thought: "Those with mai Pake will soon be dead. Why, really, should we waste money on them?" So to get her precious timbers Nyuk Tsin stationed her husband along the shore, where he prayed both for the arrival of driftwood and for the speed to grab it before someone else did. Once he hobbled proudly home with a long piece of timber, and the ridgepole of the roof was slung into place. Now, when the two Chinese lay in their house abuilding, they could look up through the storm and see that promising ridgepole and think: "Soon the rains will be -kept away."
While her husband guarded the shore, Nyuk Tsin taught herself to climb the lower cliffs that hemmed in the leper peninsula, and after a while she became as agile as a goat, leaping from one rock to another in search of small trees that could be used as crossbeams; but goats had roamed these cliffs so long that few trees survived where once forests had stood; but wherever the agile Chinese woman spotted a fugitive she climbed for it, as if she were racing the goats for treasure.
These were days of alternate exhilaration and despair. It was good to see Mun Ki taking an active interest in life, such as it was, and Nyuk Tsin often felt a surge of personal pride when she uprooted a tree high on the cliffs; but in the afternoons when the couple gathered pili grass and braided the panels for their future roof, exasperation would overcome them, and Mun Ki often cried, "We have the grass panels finished but nowhere can we find the crossbeams on which to tie them." Those were the days when the missionary advisers to the king, in Honolulu, argued: "We must not waste money on Kalawao."
One day a whole board, long enough if carefully split to provide crossbeams for an entire roof, washed ashore from some distant wreck, and for a moment Mun Ki thought that he had secured it for himself, but a big man named Palani, whose feet were still sound, rushed down and captured it. So the Chinese continued to sleep under the open roof, with the rain upon them night after night; but they were luckier than many, and they knew it, for they had side walls to protect them from the wind; they had the