A MODERNEVANGELINE
A MODERN EVANGELINE
Thesun was sinking behind the purple hills in a little village in Madeira as a tall, swarthy Portuguese hurried to his little home.
“Ah, Manuel,” he cried as an older man came out of a little side street, “have you heard the latest bit of news?”
“Não, Gabriel, what is it?”
“A man from the Sandwich Islands has come here, offering to give us free passage to Honolulu provided we work for three years on the sugar plantations. He promises us twenty-two dollars a month together with a house and free water. I, for one, intend to go. Twenty-two dollars a month! Why, fourteen is all I can make here, working from early morning ’til late at night. What say you; will you be one of the company?”
“That I will. I have a brother there and my wife has a sister. We shall tell the man that we will go to his plantations, and then when we get to the capital, I march up to my brother’s, while the rest of you can go and till the soil. I am a carpenter, and none of that dirty work for me. A free trip! ha, ha, ha; I’ll beat the American at his own game.”
“I do not consider that fair,” was Gabriel’s response. “The American expects us to keep our word. Furthermore, he is offering a reduced passage rate to those who want to pay their way.”
“That won’t do for me. Why, even at the smallest possible rate, it would be an utter impossibility for me to take one child, let alone fourteen!”
Gabriel laughed. “Well, I am going to those islands, but it is to work on a plantation. Three years is but a short while, when you stop to consider it, and by the end of that time, I will have saved enough to get married on.”
“Do as you want to, boy, but I tell you frankly that you are a fool. You are an excellent mason; why throw away the gift which the blessed virgin gave you, to kill yourself on an old plantation for the sake of sentiment. It is expected that there will be some that will take advantage of this free trip idea, and you mayas well be one of those as not. But we’ll not quarrel over the matter.”
They walked on in silence for some moments until they came to a neatly white-washed cottage. There were vines over the front and in the little garden in the back, neat garlic patches shared the space with cabbages.
“Will you come in?” Manuel asked.
“No, I have much to do yet tonight. The ship leaves in two or three days and I must leave my affairs in something like decency.Boa noite.”
“Boa noite, Gabriel, come over tomorrow and let us make our plans.”
“All right,” and Gabriel continued on his way, while Manuel turned into the cottage. He was met at the door by his daughter, Maria da Cruzs. He had eight daughters and all eight were named Maria—of something or other. Of course they all had middle names and occasionally they were called by their middle names to avoid confusion.
“Who was that you were just speaking to,” she asked him.
“What! Did you fail to recognize the voice? It was that of your own Gabriel.”
Maria da Cruzs blushed violently as she said, “He is not my Gabriel.”
Her father laughed at his daughter’s discomfitureand added teasingly, “He leaves for the Sandwich Islands very soon.”
“For the Sandwich Islands? Why, they are so many, many miles away. Has he enough money to pay his passage?”
“No; an American has arrived offering us free passage to Honolulu, provided we promise to work on the sugar plantations for three years.”
“Oh, father! Let us go.”
“I thought it was but yesterday that you said nothing could induce you to leave Madeira.”
“Yes,” she said slowly, “but—”
“But you didn’t know then that Gabriel was going away,” her father supplied. “Well, I have almost decided to go myself, but not to work on an old plantation, mind you. I am a carpenter, and none of your dirty work on a field for me.”
While they talked, Gabriel appeared in the doorway.
“I came back to tell you,” he said, after he had greeted Maria, “that if you decide to go, you must send in your names tomorrow. The man has been here for some time but in this out of the way place, news travels slowly, so that I but heard it yesterday when I went to Senhor Marques’ house to repair his wall, which fell in the last wind storm.”
“Yes, I believe I shall send in my name tomorrow,” said Manuel slowly, rising from his comfortable position on the floor and going out to the kitchen where his wife was preparing the dinner for her hungry family, leaving Gabriel and Maria da Cruzs together.
“Ah, Maria,” he said, “to think that we shall soon be able to get married. In that blessed paradise, I can surely make enough money to support both of us. Then, too, our house will be free of rent; and that is quite a saving.”
Maria was silent, but Gabriel could read in her silence that she, too, was pleased with the prospect which he was painting.
“Had we better get married before the boat sails, or shall we wait until we get to Honolulu?” he asked.
“Oh, let us wait until we get to the Islands, and then we can tell better what lies before us.”
“Let it be as you say,” Gabriel responded, inwardly well pleased that Maria was as enthusiastic about the islands as he was.
“I must go now,” he said finally, “but I shall see you again in the morning.Boa noite minha querida,” and he disappeared into the darkness.
The next morning, Manuel rose earlier than his usual early hour, and waited for Gabriel.
“Ah, my boy,” he said walking toward the road as Gabriel finally made an appearance, “if you are as slow as that on the plantation, your boss will hurry you up with his big black whip.”
“The bosses do not use whips any more,” Gabriel responded.
“They do not? How do you know?”
“The American said so.”
“The American lies. I have a brother there who went over with the first lot of Portuguese, which left on thePriscillanearly twenty-five years ago, to Honolulu. The tales which he used to tell me, when he came back, of how the bosses, lunas, they call them there, used to treat them, would simply scare you. No, sir, no plantations for me, sir; and if you knew what I know, you would say the same thing.”
“Yes, I know what you know; how the lunas used to take up the hoes which the men were using, and bang them on the head with the handles just because they felt like it. I know, too, that they used to tie the men up to the fence and whip them with their snake whips just because the men were a trifle slow, and I know, too, that things have changed within the lastyears. With the coming of Annexation, the plantation laborer does not suffer what he used to, so to the plantations for me.”
“Well, I am sure you have my permission, but let us hurry; the sun is getting quite high and we have a number of miles to go yet.”
They quickened their pace and were soon in town where they found a crowd of men and women gathered around a large building.
“That is where the American has his office,” said Gabriel, “he is now receiving the names of those who want to go. Come, let us enter.”
They walked in together and awaited their turn to book.
“Your name,” asked the clerk finally of Manuel.
“Manuel Gomes da Silva.”
“How many children have you?”
“Quartorze.”
“How many is that?” asked the “Americano.”
“Fourteen.”
“Fourteen! Good! That means fourteen families some day to make their homes in Hawaii. Fourteen different families to work on the plantations. Good!”
Manuel did not understand what the American was saying, but he made a very good guess and smiled knowingly at Gabriel as he walked up to the registrar.
“Married or single?” he was asked.
“Single. I intend to marry Manuel’s eldest daughter as soon as we get in Honolulu.”
His remark was translated to the American, who rubbed his hands gleefully. “Better and better,” he said. “There goes a man who will make Hawaii his permanent home. In years to come he will be able to vote and for all we know, some of his children may serve in our legislature.”
The interpreter laughed. The idea of a son of a plantation hand being a Senator or even a Representative appeared ludicrous to him, and he said so.
“It has been done before,” he was told, “so why can’t it be done again.”
“Done before?” asked the interpreter, “do you mean to tell me that any of your public men have had parents who worked on the plantations?”
“Sure,” was the response.
The interpreter shook his head. “It is unheard of here.”
“Here, yes; but in America and in Hawaii, no. Our school system accounts for that—but here comes another man.”
All day the men booked, and when night came, word was given to get ready immediately as the boat sailed in three days.
Manuel and Gabriel stayed in town that night and were taken to the wharf to see theSuveric, the boat which was to take them to the Paradise of the Pacific.
The remaining days were ones of excitement and bustle. For the two friends, however, there was not much to do. No furniture was brought as they could get furniture cheaply in Honolulu.
“I am going to look at the old house once more before I go,” said Gabriel on the day the ship was to leave.
“Better not,” advised Manuel; “you might miss the boat.”
“There is no danger of that. The boat sails at five this evening and it is now three in the morning. All of my things are on board, so I shall have nothing to do when I come back.”
“Oh, don’t go,” saidMaria; “the ship might go earlier than they say, and what would I do without you!”
“Don’t worry,” he said, “I want to put some fresh flowers on my parents’ graves, before I leave this island, never to return.”
She respected his sentiment and let him go without a murmur, but not without misgivings on both her and her father’s part.
“If he misses this boat, it will be a terrible thing for him. All his clothes are aboard and I have his money in my note,” Manuel said.
“Oh, he will have time to go and return,” spoke up João Mello, who was Gabriel’s friend.“Gabriel is a fast walker and could go much further than that in the same time.”
“It isn’t that,” returned Maria, “suppose the boat should leave earlier than we were told it would?”
“I hadn’t thought of that. If I had,” he added thoughtfully, “I wouldn’t have let him go. But let us hope for the best,” he added cheerfully, seeing that Maria was about to cry.
“Captain,” said the first mate of theSuvericto his superior officer a few hours later, “the tide is going out. Hadn’t we better take advantage of it, and leave this morning instead of tonight?”
“What do you say?” asked the captain of the Americano.
“Well, the people are all here, so I don’t see any objection to sailing now, if you want to. I’ll pass along the word. Here, Francisco, tell these people to get on board. We leave pretty soon.”
“Pretty soon?” cried Maria as she heard the order, “why, Gabriel will not be here until night. Oh, why did I let him go!” And the unhappy girl indulged her grief in shrieks of the most heart-rending nature.
“Oh, never mind,” said theAmericano, when he heard the reason for her shrieks. “He can come later. She will have learned some English words by that time, and will have an advantage over him in that she will be able to teach him what she knows.”
But Maria was inconsolable. “I want my Gabriel,” she moaned; “Ou meu Gabriel.”
But crying and wishing for him did not bring Gabriel to her, and the long, hard voyage to Honolulu was endured without him.
True to the plans which he had made in Madeira, Manuel did not go on a plantation, but remained in the city, where he soon obtained employment at a much better wage than he had been accustomed.
Maria was fairly good looking, and the young men of Honolulu were not slow in finding that fact out, and many a suitor she had had before she was in town many months. But she met them all with the same answer, “I am waiting for Gabriel.”
One day, news arrived that theKumeric, with another load of Portuguese, was coming, and Maria was overjoyed.
“My Gabriel will surely come,” she told her father.
“Your Gabriel?” he replied, “why, when you were in Madeira, you said that he wasnotyour Gabriel.”
“That was in Madeira,” she said.
While they talked on the subject one morning, three loud blasts from a whistle interrupted their conversation, and soon they heard that theKumerichad been sighted.
“Oh, let us hurry to the wharf,” Maria said.
“No hurry at all. It will take her two hours to come in, so we will have plenty of time.”
But Maria was impatient and finally persuaded her father to “go immediately.”
The wait was long, but finally the vessel was tied to the wharf. No one was allowed aboard her, and no one was allowed to leave her, so those on the wharf had to content themselves with picking out from the mass of humanity huddled along the side of the ship, faces which they recognized.
Maria peered anxiously at the people on board, but she saw no Gabriel.
Disappointed, she was almost ready to give up and go home, when her attention was attracted by a tall man violently waving his cap at her.
It was Gabriel, and with a cry of delight, she rushed up closer to the side of the ship.
“Maria minha,” Gabriel shouted.
“Good morning my dear,” she replied in English.