Short Stories
through the white water to the head of the canyon.
Apparently, down all the intervening centuries, the payment
of the trade had not picked up. His father, his father's father, and
himself, Ah Kim, had received the same invariable remunera-
tion—per junk one-fourteenth of a cent, at the rate he had since
learned money was valued in Hawaii. On long lucky summer
days when the waters were easy, the junks many, the hours of
daylight sixteen, sixteen hours of such heroic toil would earn
over a cent. But in a whole year a towing coolie did not earn
more than a dollar and a half. People could and did live on such
an income. There were women servants who received a yearly
wage of a dollar. The net- makers of Ti Wi earned between a dol-
lar and two dollars a year. They lived on such wages, or, at least,
they did not die on them. But for the towing coolies there were
pickings, which were what made the profession honourable and
the guild a close and hereditary corporation or labour union.
One junk in five that was dragged up through the rapids or low-
ered down was wrecked. One junk in every ten was a total loss.
The coolies of the towing guild knew the freaks and whims of
the currents, and grappled, and raked, and netted a wet harvest
from the river. They of the guild were looked up to by lesser
coolies, for they could afford to drink brick tea and eat number
four rice every day.
And Ah Kim had been contented and proud, until, one bitter
spring day of driving sleet and hail, he dragged ashore a drown-
ing Cantonese sailor. It was this wanderer, thawing out by his
fire, who first named the magic name Hawaii to him. He had
himself never been to that labourer's paradise, said the sailor;
but many Chinese had gone there from Canton, and he had
heard the talk of their letters written back. In Hawaii was never
170