Short Stories
"My mother has been my mother for fifty years," Ah Kim
declared stoutly.
"And for fifty years has she beaten you," Li Faa giggled.
"How my father used to laugh at Yap Ten Shin! Like you, Yap
Ten Shin had been born in China, and had brought the China
customs with him. His old father was for ever beating him
with a stick. He loved his father. But his father beat him hard-
er than ever when he became a missionary paké. Every time
he went to the missionary services, his father beat him. And
every time the missionary heard of it he was harsh in his lan-
guage to Yap Ten Shin for allowing his father to beat him. And
my father laughed and laughed, for my father was a very lib-
eral paké, who had changed his customs quicker than most
foreigners. And all the trouble was because Yap Ten Shin had a
loving heart. He loved his honourable father. He loved the
God of Love of the Christian missionary. But in the end, in me,
he found the greatest love of all, which is the love of woman.
In me he forgot his love for his father and his love for the lov-
ing Christ.
"And he offered my father six hundred gold, for me—the
price was small because my feet were not small. But I was half
kanaka. I said that I was not a slave-woman, and that I would be
sold to no man. My high-school teacher was a haole old maid
who said love of woman was so beyond price that it must never
be sold. Perhaps that is why she was an old maid. She was not
beautiful. She could not give herself away. My kanaka mother
said it was not the kanaka way to sell their daughters for a mon-
ey price. They gave their daughters for love, and she would lis-
ten to reason if Yap Ten Shin provided luaus in quantity and
quality.
180