Slike strani
PDF
ePub

chin, continued to look down upon her. He thought her the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He had had little time for beauty in his life; for love, none. Now the morning began to sing to him.

She stood up, stretching her arms above her head not from lassitude but on sheer impulse. She had grown conscious of his gaze. And from her brown apron fell the grape clusters she had thought she had emptied into the basket beside her.

Buehler, heedless of the spilt burden, saw how tall she was, noticed the smallness of her bare feet, the curve of her waist. She was more beautiful than he had first thought her to be. Maneta. The very name charmed him. She suggested to him a lovely vivid-colored hilllily uprisen at his feet from the vineyards. In ecstacy he was seized with the sudden whim to transplant her, earth and all, to his home garden. Why not, his reason questioned of his senses besieged? Then, as the girl fumbled over the grapes, he stooped to help her pick them up.

"Senor, I am not often so awkward," she said, the basket filled.

"You are not awkward," he reproved her gently. "It is cramping work. One has to stretch occasionally." Saying which he reached out his arms as though he would take her into them. But the girl, with the basket on her head, failing to notice his action, started for the end of the row.

"Wait, Maneta!" he called. "Have you ever been to school?" he asked.

"A little; two winters ago."

"Would you like to go to a fine school, and learn to sing and play, and be a fine lady?"

Her face glowed. "Senor, to sing is my life; but to be a lady-could I be a lady?" She looked down over herself even as the beggar maid before King Cophetua.

He took the basket from her head, she in bewildered surprise offering no resistance. "Is your mother in the field?"

"Over there." The girl pointed to a group of women some rows away.

"Go get her, and bring her to my house, Maneta. To the side porch; you can find it." The girl nodded. "I will bring your father and meet you there. I want to talk to you and to them." He carried the grapes to the shed, before the eyes of the dozen of astonished pickers.

Maneta, in the meantime, had hurried to her mother. "Come!" she cried in Spanish,

"he wants us to talk to." Half panting, the two made for the porch.

Buehler looked at Maneta's mother narrowly. A certain trace of wild beauty, a dull intelligence gleamed in her quickly ageing face. The father was more approachable. To the parents he made known his offer. Maneta had taken his fancy. He was rich; he would like to educate her, to give her all the advantages of a daughter-music, clothes, pretty things. They must relinguish all claim to her, however.

was

And the end-the beginning to him-was that under the chaperonage of his housekeeper, an elderly widow as puritanical as himself, Maneta was placed in a convent near San Gabriel. She remained there three years. Her two great gifts, her beauty and her voice, grew and developed until in her twenty-first year she know. Buehler not only felt pride in her; he a creature any one would be proud to looked upon her as an artist looks upon his handiwork. Furthermore, he adored her, and in return she gave him her unbounded gratitude and affection. She called him "Alfreed" and would take his two hands and carry them to her lips those times when he came to the convent to see her. Her voice held him spellbound. And after she had sung to him songs to her would give him a bewildering smile and say: own accompaniment in the convent parlor, she

"You like my singing, Alfreed? You are satisfied with me?"

At such times he would look grave, grave from the overmastery of his love for her. "You are not displeased? Smile at me, Alfreed."

And then he would smile upon her, and ask her if she needed new clothes. But one such

day he failed to smile upon her. He took her

looked at his graying hair. "Am I not like your daughter?" she asked guilelessly. "Are you not content to have me for your daughter?"

in his arms and asked her to be his wife. She

"No! No! Maneta! Darling!"

They were married on a glorious June morning. He took her to Los Angeles where she blossomed out in gorgeous clothes, where they went to the theatres, the beaches, through stores filled with bewilderingly beautiful things. After a six weeks' honeymoon, they returned to Cucumonga. Driving up the avenue of fanpalms to the white-stuccoed, bougainvillia-covered house, they saw Mrs. Purcell on the lower steps. "Ah, my dear," was her motherly greet

ing while holding Maneta at a distance as though to appraise her. "You are worthy of him. Be good to him. He is fine, fine gold." Alfred, looking proudly on, caught the radiance of his wife's eyes in her answer. "He is a saint," she said. "I have but to pray to him and my prayers come true."

Through the house they went arm in arm, he pointing out this, she exclaiming over that. And the evening found them on the side porch looking at a big- slow moon crawling up from the eucalyptus grove. "Alfreed," she said, "it is nearly five years since that day my parents and I stood here and listened to your plan for me." She stopped as though her remembrance was audible and would speak for her. "My husband, I am sometimes afraid I am not worth all your trouble for me. I am afraid I am a little bit bad here." She laid her hand on her heart.

He laughed at her serious face. "You bad, Maneta? Your faults are other people's graces, dear child. But for you how could I ever know the extreme happiness of life. Are you happy, dear one; as happy as I?"

"Your heart sings," she cried out ecstatically, raising her head from his breast. "You are happy for love of me. Yes, I am quite, quite happy," she murmured softly, her eyes brooding in the moonlight. "Only you must not be too happy," she added beseechingly. "The nuns say all happiness is fleeting, and to pin your happiness to no man, no woman. My husband, you will always love me? Just as tonight?" He kissed her. "Always, like this?"

"Always, Maneta, just as I have always loved you from that first moment there in the grapevines." They sat silent a long time. Several times she sighed. . . . Like the sea waves that roll in on long sure rollers breaking into foam off Point Conception on lazy summer days so did each day roll over Alfred Buehler's heart, flooding it with the music of Maneta's voice, the beauty of her presence, the sanctity of her spirit, the foamy ripples of her laughter. He felt himself poised on the crested wave of happiness, and exultant as a seabird he rode thereon asking nothing more of life.

But when the second June came around life lifted him yet a little higher on the crested wave. His daughter was born, a tiny replica of that pale- dull-eyed Maneta lying upstairs in the great west room; a Maneta remaining pale and lusterless a long, long while after coming downstairs out into the shady, flowering garden where the little Maneta was already breathing

in long draughts of air in her wicker carriage. In delight of his daughter Alfred was dulled to the change in Maneta.

For Maneta was changed. The doctor forbade her to nurse the child. She had nothing to do those long summer hours but look at her baby, her husband, the sky, her idle hands. A great weariness lay upon her, and her spirit sagged and drowsed, and took to making speculations in its most venturesome moments, about her parents back in Tia Juana, the gifts she had sent them often at Alfred's request, her brothers and sisters so far away in memory even. Her hands, dark and slim, with their beautiful rings, used often almost to speak to her, telling her of the joy they had had in working at the vines so long ago, more recently at the piano keys neglected of late. They seemed to plead with her for work to do. Mrs. Purcell's embroideries were indifferently turned away, and her fingers remained inert, reproaching her for their feebleness. Alfred taking her lassitude as a matter of course, took her motoring. They entertained and were entertained among their neighbors. Impromptu musicales being the thing of the moment, Maneta was in demand. He gloried in her voice as much as in his happiness.

But it was at the Morrell home that August that the crest wave of his joy turned ever so slightly and began to go under. An Alex Fielding, Mrs. Morrell's cousin, himself a distinguished musical critic with a voice of no mean attainment, had come on a visit from the East. This evening the most musical of the neighborhood was spread before him in the Buehlers' great low-ceiled redwood-panelled living room of which Fielding was the beacon light. He presided at the piano; he talked, he laughed, he sang. Maneta looked at him a little wearily until he sang. His short-cropped mustache, his merry, though sentimental eyes, did not besiege her fancy at all.

But when he sang! It was a new thing in those parts, a Barcarolle given in France, which she didn't understand. But before he finished it the lassitude of months seemed to drop from her; she felt free again, and soaring. Her friends were encoring him tremendously. She began to clap. And her husband beamed at her interest. Everything Fielding sang sent her soaring. Now she was in the blue hills again gathering hyacinths and wild lilies; now looking into some dusk-filled canyon, now crooning to her baby, now flying toward the sun as in dreams drenched with music, the music of his (Continued on Page 66)

[graphic]
[merged small][graphic][merged small]

By April of this year, labor conditions in dressed the Territorial Legislature and subHawaii had reached an acute stage.

Notwithstanding the fact that he had already sent in his resignation to the new administration, Governor Charles J. McCarthy recognized the urgent necessity for immediate action.

He believed the labor question to be ore of sufficient importance to the territory. and o the nation, to justify its being presented to the Territorial Legislature and to Congress as a legislative measure; and that no remedy for this serious condition could be provided except by Federal action in permitting the immigration of available laborers under appropriate conditions and limitations.

Therefore, as Governor of the Territory and representative of its entire citizenship, he ad

mitted a draft of Concurrent Resolutions embodying his ideas of what should be done in the premises, and the recommendations which should be made to Congress.

In his address, Governor McCarthy briefly reviewed certain well known facts relative to labor and industrial conditions, and stated his belief that unless some means of relief were speedily found, the territory was bound to suffer irreparable loss resulting in the areas of sugar cane and pineapple production being of necessity greatly reduced. He called attention to the fact that thousands of acres of productive rice land had been abandoned due to lack of labor: that a large portion of the coffee crop of 1920 could not be harvested; that the

same conditions continued to exist this present year, which meant a severe loss to the coffee planters, the greater portion of whom were citizens of moderate means and unable to withstand the loss even for one year; that this shortage of labor could not fail to result in the reduction of all cultivated areas.

When it is considered that the entire industrial life of the territory is based on agriculture, and that all the citizens of the islands, either directly or indirectly, are dependent upon the successful prosecution of that industry, it is not difficult to realize what a critical situation exists. The production of sufficient of the essential food supplies for the support of the inhabitants, both civil and military, is vitally necessary both in normal times and in periods of possible emergency.

Hawaii is of supreme importance to the Nation as a military outpost, and increasingly so Lying, as it does, twenty-one hundred miles out from the mainland, as a matter of precaution against possible contingencies, even if for no other reason, agriculture should not only be protected and encouraged, but should be maintained at its highest efficiency.

In the draft of Concurrent Resolutions as sub

mitted to the Territorial Legislature by Govern or McCarthy, it was suggested, "that the Congress of the United States of America be urgently and respectfully requested to provide by appropriate legislation for the introduction or immigration into the Territory of Hawaii of such a sufficient number of persons, including orientals, as may be required to meet the situation above outlined, and to overcome the said acute labor shortage in the said agricultural industries, but in such numbers, only, as will not operate to increase the number of persons of any alien nationality in the Territory at any one time beyond twenty-five per cent of the total population of the Territory, and upon such conditions as will provide for the admission of such persons into the Territory of Hawaii, only for limited periods of time and as will limit their employment to agricultural labor and domestic service and provide for and secure their return to their respective countries upon the expiration of such limited periods of time, or upon such other conditions and limitations as the Congress may deem advisable.”

That the Hawaii Emergency Labor Commission was created and has been in Washington for some time is a matter of general knowledge.

In a personal interview relative to labor in the sugar industry, Governor McCarthy said, "When the sugar industry was in its infancy

and up to the time of the Chinese Exclusion Act, we had Chinese labor, which was in all respects satisfactory, and later, up to 1917, there was an increasing amount of Japanese labor. "Since that time no Japanese and only about 23,000 Filipinos have been brought in.

"In the intervening period conditions have become revolutionized; because large areas, dry and unfit for cane and heretofore used as pasture, are now utilized for a constantly increasing production of pineapples. It necessitates an additional and vast amount of labor to produce 6,000,000 cases of pineapples per year. While the area of cultivation has been greatly increased the amount of labor has remained practically stationary. The shortage, according to present indications, will steadily increase from year to year unless special and adequate provision be speedily made to supply the demand.

"This year's sugar crop, which should have been taken off in July, cannot be taken care of before January or perhaps March, 1922. This long delay-in addition to the low price of sugar-will entail a heavy loss to the planters since it will prevent getting in the new crop on time. Cane requires a year and a half in which to mature, and three crops are kept growing at the same time.

"In all sugar producing countries cheap labor is imperative. Up to recent years about the same maximum of wages has prevailed in the islands as in other sugar producing countries. However, the present plan by which the producers contract with syndicates for labor, has been found more satisfactory both to labor and to the planters. In addition to a basic wage of thirty dollars per month with free house, fuel and medical attendance, the laborers get a percentage of the sugar. This change of plan, together with the introduction of more up-todate and effective methods of production has resulted in some cases in twenty men doing the work of one hundred.

"Labor conditions here are entirely different from those on the mainland. White labor is not only not available, but even if it were possible to obtain it, whites could not stand the work on the plantations, in this climate, which is especially suited to orientals."

Referring to the request to Congress for the admission of no more than twenty-five per cent of any one nationality, Governor McCarthy said, "The Japanese already have a population of more than the proposed per cent.

"It is not considered that the plan to bring (Continued on Page 71)

« PrejšnjaNaprej »