The reason for this was that they were not _malahinis_. They belonged.
In other words, or, rather, in the potent Islands-word, they were
_kamaaina_. Kamaaina men and women of forty remembered Lee Barton from
their childhood days, when, in truth, he had been a _malahini_, though a
very young specimen. Since that time, in the course of various long
stays, he had earned the _kamaaina_ distinction.
As for Ida Barton, young matrons of her own age (privily wondering how
she managed to keep her figure) met her with arms around and hearty
Hawaiian kisses. Grandmothers must have her to tea and reminiscence in
old gardens of forgotten houses which the tourist never sees. Less than
a week after her arrival, the aged Queen Liliuokalani must send for her
and chide her for neglect. And old men, on cool and balmy _lanais_,
toothlessly maundered to her about Grandpa Captain Wilton, of before
their time, but whose wild and lusty deeds and pranks, told them by their
fathers, they remembered with gusto—Grandpa Captain Wilton, or David
Wilton, or “All Hands” as the Hawaiians of that remote day had
affectionately renamed him. All Hands, ex-Northwest trader, the godless,
beach-combing, clipper-shipless and ship-wrecked skipper who had stood on
the beach at Kailua and welcomed the very first of missionaries, off the
brig _Thaddeus_, in the year 1820, and who, not many years later, made a
scandalous runaway marriage with one of their daughters, quieted down and
served the Kamehamehas long and conservatively as Minister of the
Treasury and Chief of the Customs, and acted as intercessor and mediator
between the missionaries on one side and the beach-combing crowd, the
trading crowd, and the Hawaiian chiefs on the variously shifting other
side.
Nor was Lee Barton neglected. In the midst of the dinners and lunches,
the _luaus_ (Hawaiian feasts) and _poi_-suppers, and swims and dances in
_aloha_ (love) to both of them, his time and inclination were claimed by
the crowd of lively youngsters of old Kohala days who had come to know
that they possessed digestions and various other internal functions, and
who had settled down to somewhat of sedateness, who roistered less, and
who played bridge much, and went to baseball often. Also, similarly
oriented, was the old poker crowd of Lee Barton’s younger days, which
crowd played for more consistent stakes and limits, while it drank
mineral water and orange juice and timed the final round of “Jacks” never
later than midnight.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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