A tall, bronzed man, erect and broad of shoulder, strode slowly,
meditatively, hands clasped behind him, back and forth on the wide porch
of a rambling, palm-shaded one-story Hawaiian bungalow. He had the
unlined countenance of a man of forty-five who had lived most of his
life in the open; but his silvered, almost white, hair and mustache,
might well have given at first glance, the impression that he was older.
He was clad in white linen, although it was the day before Christmas.
December in Hawaii! There is nothing in the whole world to compare with
it. The sun shone in serene splendor from a cloudless sky of the
intensest indigo. The fronds of the towering palms stirred with a
soothing sibilance under the light touch of fragrant whispering zephyrs.
Surrounding the bungalow were many unfenced acres rioting in the myriad
hued flowers of the tropics; thence, from where the welter of blossoms
ceased, on all sides, as far as the eye could see, stretched miles of
sugar-cane in growing, with its unmatchable tint of young, tender yet
vivid green. It was the Island of Maui; and Maui, next to the main
Island of Hawaii, is the most beautiful of all the sugar-cane islands in
the world.
In the still air the chattering of hundreds of Japanese workers among
the cane reached, mitigated by distance, the porch of the bungalow,
attached to one of the stanchions of which was a telephone at which the
bronzed man occasionally stopped to reply to the questions of foremen
scattered over the plantation. From the rear came the softer tones of
the Kanaka household servants; at intervals the voices were raised in
fragments of the melodious but curiously melancholy Hawaiian folk songs.
But George Treharne, accustomed to the beauty of his surroundings, was
giving little heed, as he paced unceasingly back and forth, to the
sights and sounds of his marvelous investiture. His mind was upon the
snowy Christmas Eves of the flown years. He had not heard from his
daughter, nor even from Blythe, a punctilious correspondent in matters
of business, since receiving Louise's announcement of her mother's
death, in the early part of September. And he had been unable to make
his contemplated visit to "the main land," as Americans living in Hawaii
call the United States.
After one born and reared in temperate zones has passed many Christmases
in tropic lands, the approach of that memory-hallowed day never fails to
arouse longing for the keen bite of the cutting, North wind, the sight
of drifting snow, the sound of sleigh-bells, the holiday activities of
the icy Winter lands; nor does the flowery, fragrant beauty of the
tropics, after long familiarity, compensate the native of the
Winter-knowing lands for his severance from the holiday spirit to which
his youth made him accustomed.
George Treharne was more lonesome on this day before Christmas than he
had ever been in his life. He came to a pause in his stride, stopped by
the telephone and began to devise the terms of a Christmas greeting by
cable to Louise. He could telephone the message to Lahaina, the nearby
seaport of the Island of Maui, whence it could be transmitted by
telephone to Honolulu for the cable.
He was taking down the receiver, when he happened to glance down the
long white road to the entrance gate, nearly three-quarters of a mile
away. In the clear air he could discern that the horse trotting up the
road was ridden by a woman. Many tourists visited the Treharne
plantation and were received with solicitous hospitality by its owner in
person. Knowing that this presumable tourist would reach the bungalow
before he could finish his message to Lahaina, George Treharne deferred
taking down the receiver of the telephone. He resumed his strolling back
and forth on the porch, and, when horse and rider were within a hundred
yards or so of the bungalow, he summoned a Kanaka boy to take charge of
the horse. He himself descended the steps and went to the edge of the
road, where, with bared head, he waited to assist the visitor from her
horse.
The sunlight was blindingly in his eyes, so that he scarcely saw her
face when he lifted her from the saddle. After a few words of courteous
greeting he led the way, his vision still slightly obscured by the
after-effects of the sun's direct rays, to the wide palm-shaded porch.
When she stood beside him on the porch, rather nervously switching her
riding crop, he observed that she was a very lovely, unusually tall
young woman with a great coil of auburn hair flowing from beneath her
wide-brimmed soft hat; and he had noticed, too, when she spoke, that she
possessed a singularly sweet, rather subdued voice.
But he did not know her.
He was about to conduct her through the open door into the long, cool
hall, when, turning his head to speak to her, he was struck by something
in her face and attitude. She was not following him. That was what he
noticed at once. Instead, she was standing quite still in the middle of
the porch, her riding crop now at rest, and holding up the skirt of her
habit with the other hand. There was a half-smile on her face; but, in
odd contrast to this, he noticed that her eyes were filmed with tears;
that, in truth, two tears at least already had fallen.
Halting, then, in the doorway, he turned full around upon her. A tremor
ran through his frame. He reached her in two bounds which were as sudden
and springy as the bounds of a wrestler.
He crushed her to his heart without a word. He knew that he was
incapable of speaking. He kissed her over and over again and devoured
her with his eyes.
"My little girl Louise!" he was finally able to say in a broken voice.
"My beautiful, woman-grown little girl--God forever bless her!" and he
held her out at arm's length, his powerful, bronzed hands gripping her
shoulders, and gazed avidly at her until once again he clasped her to
his heart.
* * * * *
After a time, when father and daughter were able to speak collectedly,
Louise walked over to the railing of the porch and raised her riding
crop high in the air. Her father saw the signal. The man for whom it was
intended saw it as quickly. Instantly, from behind the superintendent's
house at the gate of the plantation road, a horse, ridden by a man in
khaki, emerged and quickly swung into a gallop, making for the bungalow.
When John Blythe, with his wide smile, leaped from the horse and tossed
the reins to the waiting Kanaka boy, George Treharne, recognizing him at
once, glanced wonderingly from his face to the smiling, flushed face of
Louise. Then his own bronzed features were creased by a smile of warmth
and happiness.
"Then I have a son, too, Louise?" he asked his daughter.
But he knew how needless her brightly nodded answer was when, an instant
later, he saw her clasped in her husband's arms.