The Breath of the Gods. Sidney McCall

Japanese, Chinese, Hawaiians, and Yankees. All the vegetable stands were owned by Chinese, all the fruit by Kanakas. Dodge insisted on the fact as eloquent of racial tendencies. In this magic climate the growth of vegetables is accompanied by an even more fervid growth of weeds, and so requires patient vigilance. Fruit, on the other hand, cultivates itself. "All the lordly Hawaiian has to do," said Dodge, "is to stand or sit under the tree, and let it fall into his lap." Gwendolen took the value from this last remark by indicating a heap of horny "jackfruit,"—a thing the shape and size of a watermelon, which grows out of the trunk, apparently, of live oaks, and asking, scornfully, how much Kanaka would be left when one of those had fallen.

      The fish dealers' department gleamed with iridescent color. Shrimps and crabs seemed fashioned in Favrille glass. Lobsters wore polka-dots of blue. None of these crustacea had claws, but whether deprived of them by man or nature was never ascertained.

      As they drove up the narrow avenues, the unique mixture of the population became more apparent. Chinese evidently formed the inferior caste of laborer, content with a daily wage. Cleverer Japanese bustled about newly opened shops of foreign wares, or hung out professional signs of doctor, lawyer, or notary public. The Yankee strolled about with a half-disdainful glance; but the lordliest was not so proud as the ragged sons of Kamehameha, who, preëmpting shady nooks in doorways, stared disapprovingly on the passer-by. In the grounds of the former "palace," members of a present legislature lolled on the green, and nibbled peanuts. Pert Kanaka girls, in New York shirt-waists and automobile veils, minced by the side of fat mamas in Mother Hubbard gowns, generally of red, with huge ruffles about the yoke.

      "Stop, Cy! Tell the man to stop. There's a druggist! I have several things to get!"

      "And look! next to it a book-store advertising the latest novels," supplemented Gwendolen. "Doesn't that seem a joke? We must get some. I see souvenirs, and photographs, and—"

      "I'll tell you what we'd better do. You women-folks get out and shop. Le Beau will stick to Yuki, I guess; while Dodge and I take this carriage around to the post-office—I've heard there was one—and try to find out the latest news about the war," cried Mr. Todd.

      In a quarter of an hour they were back, breathless. "War's coming, and it's coming soon!" panted the senator.

      "Yes, that's the ticket. Japan has called, and Russia must show her hand or crawfish," supplemented Dodge.

      "But not really, really—yet begun?" whispered Yuki, who had turned very pale.

      "What does the young man mean?" asked Mrs. Todd, anxiously, of her spouse. "I can't believe in irresponsible war rumors. I sha'n't believe them. Why, only two days before we left Washington, Prince Breakitoff assured me solemnly that the difficulty would never be allowed to reach the point of war."

      Mr. Todd winked toward his secretary. "Well," he said solemnly, "Prince Breakitoff ought to know more about the facts of the case than a Hawaiian newspaper."

      "He certainly ought to," said Dodge, ambiguously.

      "War! Who dares to hint of war?" cried Pierre. "Look at this sky above us, and that tangle of sun and shower dragging rainbow echoes across a peacock-colored bay! Who could be found to fight on such an earth? Do you not say so, too, my Yuki?"

      Yuki started slightly, and hesitated, as if to form her words. Before she could speak, Dodge had interrupted: "As long as we are so close, would you-all mind walking one more block on foot? The prettiest sight in the town is just to the left of that jutting brick wall down there." He pointed. Mrs. Todd was off. Yuki slipped in close to Gwendolen, and clung to her friend's arm. She did not want to think, just now, of war. Past new American shops they went, ice-cream "parlors," dry-goods displays of underwear—"marked down" sales, of course—and windows of ready-made gowns on insipid waxen dummies. Dodge had taken a few feet in advance. He now turned sharply, facing into a narrow street, one of the old native thoroughfares, bordered by walls of brick and stone where moss spread and dampness oozed. On an absurdly narrow pavement squatted a row of fat and shapeless beings, presumably women, half buried in wreaths and coils of strange flowers.

      "Behold the far-famed lei sellers of Hawaii!" announced Dodge, with an histrionic gesture.

      "I see no hens," said Mrs. Todd, through raised lorgnettes.

      "These are a different brand of lei," explained Dodge, without a smile; "flower-wreaths that are to the hat of the Hawaiian dandy what an orchid or a gardenia is to the button-hole of a Fifth Avenue sport."

      The sellers had sprung instantly into kneeling postures, all as if pulled by a single wire. Brown arms went forth, like those of crabs, flower hung. "Lei, lei, Honolulu lei! Prettie flower! Prettie ladees! Dollar—Fufty cents! Here, ladee, prettie lei, twunty-fi' cents!"

      "Offer a quarter for three, and see them hustle," said Dodge.

      "Oh, what visions of beauty!" breathed Gwendolen, and flung down silver coin at random. "See, ropes of carnations! Pink oleanders threaded into regular cables! And oh, the lovely yellow things—my color—golden acacias, I believe. I shall loop myself like an East Indian idol in these fragrant necklaces. And what are those purple things, and those? Why, why, I don't know the others at all. I thought I was friends with every flower. They smell like heaven!"

      "Frangipani, ylang-ylang, stephanotis, plumaria, acacia," rattled Dodge, in the tone and manner of a professional guide.

      "What a delightful courier you would make, Mr. Dodge!" cried saucy Gwendolen. "I think I'll bespeak your services, now, for my wedding journey."

       "I'm jolly well apt to be along on that particular trip, you know," retorted the young man, with such cool assurance that all laughed—except Mrs. Todd. That good lady had begun to view, with some apprehension, the over-confident tactics of the attaché. Gwendolen, after an unsuccessful attempt to stare him "down," bent flushed cheeks and laughing eyes to the flowers. "We must all wear lei, of course," she cried, a trifle unsteadily. "It's positively the only thing to do on such a day! Yuki, pink carnations will be ravishing on your little white sailor-hat, and also, by a happy coincidence, on Pierre's new Panama. Dad, you and mother must have this divine stephanotis, mixed with a little smilax, for a green old age. Just think of buying strung stephanotis by the yard! And, Mr. Dodge—last and not least, Mr. T. Caraway Dodge!—" Mockingly she caught up a string of magenta-colored "bachelor buttons," and would have offered them with a curtsey; but already Dodge had carefully wound his helmet in coils of acacia flowers until it had become, in shape and size, an old-fashioned beehive made of gold.

      This time she presented her back squarely. The others withheld laughter until they should have read the expression on the chaperon's face. But she, oblivious apparently of this new bit of daring, had lorgnettes at her eyes, and was studying carefully a closely written list—a composite of suggestions, made up for her by admiring ship friends. "Punch Bowl Crater, The Bishop Museum, Banana Plantations, Waki-ki Beach—note colors on the shoals—House where R. L. Stevenson resided," she was murmuring, as though to fix each in her memory. Suddenly she looked up. "Cyrus, the carriages! I doubt whether we can get them all in, but I intend to do my best."

      "Mother!" began Gwendolen, in a note of protest. Yuki was smiling, and Pierre also. As long as they were together, nothing else mattered. The countenance of Dodge, however, had an acrobatic fall from elation to horrified disappointment. At sight of this, Gwendolen actually glittered mischief.

      "Certainly, mother dear," she hastened to answer. "Let us take everything in—even a little more, if possible. We all need our minds improved—and some of us our manners!" Dodge, darting a look into her face, found only trustful innocence. The carriages had arrived. With great ostentation he assisted Mrs. Todd into her place. "I think I shall be able to supply one or two interesting spots not down on that list," he suggested, with a tentative look at the empty cushion beside her. "Claus Spreckels' house, the Infirmary, the Honolulu University with miles of hedges made up of volcanic stone overgrown with night-blooming cereus—you mustn't miss that!" Dodge's eyes and his smile were frankness embalmed and irradiated. Mrs. Todd perforce smiled in reply. "Jump in," she said cordially. "You're quite a treasure in travelling, Mr. Dodge."