Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener Read Free Book Online Page A

the trees, commander!"
    "We'll wait a few days on that," I said.
    "But damn it all, commander! It will take us a long time to get those trees down. We can't do anything till that's done."
    "I want to look over that other site, first. We can get that land cheaper."
    "But my God!" the lieutenant cried. "We been through all that before."
    "We'll go through it again!" I shouted.
    "Yes, sir," he replied.
    I walked over to study one of the trees. It was six feet through the base, had scaly bark. Its branches grew out absolutely parallel to the ground. Its leaves were like spatulas, broad and flat, yet pulpy like a water-holding cactus. In perfect symmetry it rose high into the air. I thought, "It was a tree like this that Captain Cook saw when he inspected Norfolk. He was the first man, white or black, ever known to visit the island. It was a tree like this that made him say, 'And the hospitable island will be a fruitful source of spars for our ships.'"
    "I'm going down to the Mission," old Teta said as she drove up. "Would you like to ride along?" I climbed into her wagon. When we drove past Lucy's corner, that grinning girl saw us. Quick as an animal she ran to her own horse and vaulted into the saddle. Whipping him up with her heels, she soon caught up to us.
    "Going to the Mission?" she asked.
    "Come along," the frail old woman said. "Lucy's a good girl," Teta said. "She's not too bright."
    At the Mission we tied the horse and Lucy let hers roam free. The chapel was even lovelier than I had thought from the road. Inside, it was made of colored marble, rare shells from the northern islands, wood from the Solomons, and carvings from the Hebrides. Not ornate, it was rich beyond imagination. Gold and silver flourished. Each pew end was set in mother-of-pearl patiently carved by some island craftsman. Scenes from Christ's life predominated in the intaglios, but occasionally a free Christian motif had been worked out. The translucent shell spoke of the love that had been lavished upon it.
    The windows perplexed me. They reminded me of something I had seen elsewhere, but the comparison I made was so silly that I did not even admit it to myself.
    "The windows," Teta said, "were made by a famous man in England and sent out here on a boat."
    "Good heavens!" I said, "it is Burne-Jones." How wildly weird his ascetic figures looked in that chapel.
    "Bishop Patteson built this chapel," old Teta whined on. But her memories were vague. She got the famous Melanesian missionaries all confused. She had known each of them, well. Selwyn and Patteson and Paton.
    "My brother, Fletcher Christian, went up north with good Bishop Selwyn," she said. "They went to Vanicoro where my uncle, Fletcher Christian, was burned alive. He converted a whole village by that. He was a very saintly man. My brother was also named Fletcher Christian. That tablet up there is to him, not to my uncle. My brother came home one day and knelt down. It was right after my father died at sea. He said, that is my brother Fletcher Christian said, 'I am going to follow God! I am going with Bishop She faltered. "'I am going with Bishop Patteson.' He went up north to an island right near Vanicoro. Bali-ha'i. He was a very good missionary. Bishop Paton said of him, 'Fletcher Christian rests with God!' He rests with God because the natives shot at him with a poisoned arrow. They shot him through the right arm. He got well, at first, but blood poisoning set in, and Bishop Patteson knew he was going to die. They prayed for my brother for three days, and all that time he twisted on the ground and cried out, 'I am saved! I am washed in the blood of the Lord.' And for three days he cried like that, and his jaws locked tight shut and he cried through his teeth, 'God is my salvation!' And on the fourth day he died." Teta sat in the now-empty Mission, deserted because its function was fulfilled. Its word had been carried north to all the islands.
    "I remember in Pitcairn," she said. "We were all