But she said he was only a blamed collector--or words to
that effect, only stronger.
"'I know him,' she assured me. 'He'd bet his mother's bones on a
horse-race or an ace-full.'
"I stood with fat her when it came to modern scepticism, and I told
her the whole thing was rubbish. 'Bones?' I said. 'What are
bones? Even field mice, and many rats, and cockroaches have bones,
though the roaches wear their bones outside their meat instead of
inside. The difference between man and other animals,' I told her,
'is not bones, but brain. Why, a bullock has bigger bones than a
man, and more than one fish I've eaten has more bones, while a
whale beats creation when it comes to bone.'
"It was frank talk, which is our Hawaiian way, as you have long
since learned. In return, equally frank, she regretted she hadn't
given me away as a feeding child when I was born. Next she
bewailed that she had ever borne me. From that it was only a step
to anaana me. She threatened me with it, and I did the bravest
thing I have ever done. Old Howard had given me a knife of many
blades, and corkscrews, and screw-drivers, and all sorts of
contrivances, including a tiny pair of scissors.
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