The
old wahine had finished her lei hala. Barefooted, with no
adornment of femininity, clad in a shapeless shift of much-washed
cotton, with age-withered face and labour-gnarled hands, she
cringed before him and crooned a mele in his honour, and, still
cringing, put the lei around his neck. It is true the hala smelled
most freshly strong, yet was the act beautiful to me, and the old
woman herself beautiful to me. My mind leapt into the Prince's
narrative so that to Ahuna I could not help likening her.
Oh, truly, to be an alii in Hawaii, even in this second decade of
the twentieth century, is no light thing. The alii, utterly of the
new, must be kindly and kingly to those old ones absolutely of the
old. Nor did the Prince without a kingdom, his loved island long
since annexed by the United States and incorporated into a
territory along with the rest of the Hawaiian Islands--nor did the
Prince betray his repugnance for the odour of the hala. He bowed
his head graciously; and his royal condescending words of pure
Hawaiian I knew would make the old woman's heart warm until she
died with remembrance of the wonderful occasion.
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