inlet, but the waves were high even in this cove. To the seasick Chizu this was a grueling experience and made her subsequently so sick of the sea that thereafter the mere sight of a steamer brought on a psychic reaction simulating mal-de-mer.
After gathering their luggage Torao decided to spend the day and night at a hostelry at the port rather than proceed immediately to the plantation, as his wife had had such a miserable experience coming over. They went to the Omon Hotel on the government highway to rest.
Mr. Omon combined his hotel business with fish peddling. To Wai-punalei he came with fish every time the fishing boat that went out of Laupahoehoe made port with a catch. This fish was of the lowly sort such as "akule" and "opelu," for the more expensive variety was beyond the purchasing power of his clientele and the fishermen specialized in the fish which were more abundant and easily caught in this section. Torao could ask him to take them out the next day to the plantation in case there was no other means of transportation in that direction.
There were quite a few lodgers at the hotel. These had been domiciled in Hawaii for some years and were men who detested work and chose to live by using their wits and nimble fingers. This parasitic class was considerable in number and even the remotest plantations were not overlooked in their systematic scheme of exploitation. On pay days they would swarm to the plantations and gather in the silvers from the laborers. There was a famous gangleader in Hilo, Funakoshi Tatsugoro by name, who had twenty or more henchmen to do the business in the different plantations on the Hamakua coast. The island of Hawaii was divided up into different spheres of interest among the gang leaders and gambling games could not be held unless sponsored by this gangster.
On the afternoon of the monthly pay day, in order not to be caught by the manager, the gamblers infiltrated into the camps by twos and threes. Wada was a representative of the gang at Waipunalei and towards evening, would open the game in his bunk and see to its orderly conduct. He was a gambler from Japan, and to attest to his former exploits his body was covered by a tattooed dragon. He was from Kobe and there was a rumor that he had escaped capture by the police after a murder case in which suspicion was directed his way. He had a year more of his contract to serve.
On the matted floor, the players sat cross-legged in a circle. Two dice were placed in a smooth tea cup without a handle, and after jiggling, the cup was placed face down on the floor. The dice were thus covered and betting followed. The winner was the one who guessed the sum total of the face on the dice. The game was fast and stakes could reach enormous figures. Wada had a wooden box which was padlocked and had a hole big enough to admit a silver dollar. This was the "kitty" and went to Funakoshi of Hilo, a tribute he exacted from the sporting element of plantation workers. Such games might continue for several nights on a plantation and the intervening idle days between pay days in different plantations were spent by the professionals at a neutral zone such as Laupahoehoe or Hilo, where they lived peacefully in hotels away from the capitalistic scrutiny of plantation policemen.
Torao knew some of them who came to Waipunalei regularly. Since they traveled a great deal, they were up-to-date concerning inside information about any development on the island of Hawaii. He asked them about the new industrial project at Olaa of which he had heard in Honolulu. He learned in the city that there was considerable clearing of virgin forests at Olaa with the idea of planting coffee. Some capitalists wanted Olaa to be a second Kona. He got further news from one of them that there was a hostelry in Olaa, which the owner, a Mr. Uyeda, wanted to sell to a suitable buyer. The gambler added that in addition to the money that would be spent by these laborers working on the clearing project, there was a steady source of business income to be derived from travelers who were crossing from Hilo to Kau, a distance of sixty miles, and he knew the proprietor well because he not only was a frequent lodger there, but he was from the same village in the old country. Torao got Mr. Uyeda's address and thanked the gambler for the information. Some scheme was brewing in his mind. The next day he took his bride to the Douglas Plantation at Waipunalei.
Women were employed at thirty-five cents a day in the fields hoeing weeds in the young cane. There were about two dozen women who were in this "wahine gang." It was a pity, Torao thought, that his wife should be working in the hot sun. Of course she did not mind the work because she had worked in the fields while in Japan, but to him it did not seem right that his wife should be working so hard. So while he was in Honolulu, he was interested in the news that was circulating and discussed around Aala Park.
The Dillingham interests which had been singularly successful in the construction and maintenance of the Oahu Railway were interested in opening up the Hilo Railroad and forming a sugar plantation in the region of Olaa among the lava fields that had served only as grazing ground for cattle. It was talked about in town that thousands of people would be employed and the pay would be immensely better than on the sugar plantations. One gang boss by the name of Onome Bunichiro was given the job of recruiting and supervising labor in the clearing of this vast acreage of land. In a pioneering work of that sort there would be chances for profit a lot more substantial than the paltry sum paid on the sugar estates.
Now that Torao was married, he had to plan for the future which would involve a family. Some bold attempt to break away from the path of the common laborer must be made or else he could visualize himself a graying man with back-breaking toil to perform every day, burdened with half-dozen children, with no prospect of ever giving them a decent education and chance in life, and no hope of ever returning to his native village with something to be proud of. His future did not seem too bright. At Waipunalei, with the prevailing system of tenure, there was no chance whatever of going into contract work. At some plantation, contract work was let out to enterprising men who would care for the growing cane until harvest. He had heard that such a system of contract work would be adopted at Olaa.
The chance encounter at the hotel at Laupahoehoe that resulted in the information about a hotel at Olaa being on sale was a stroke of luck. If he and Chizu could make some money at this sort of vocation, then she need not toil in the fields exposed to the elements ten hours a day. Even if he could not purchase this hostelry, writing to this Mr. Uyeda would not be for naught for thereby he would be able to learn more specific facts about the development scheme of that particular region.
There was an answer to his inquiry immediately and he was asked if he could not come to Olaa, as such a negotiation ought to be done and could be done much more profitably and smoothly by the two parties coming face to face. He saw the point and at once decided to make the trip. After getting permission from the head overseer on the pretext of going to see a cousin in Hilo who was desperately ill and on the verge of death, he departed and legged the fifty miles to Olaa.
It took him two days to get to Hilo. The roads were poor and muddy when it rained. At certain stretches there were unsavory and fearful rumors. For instance at the Maalua Gulch, Puerto Ricans were said to ambush pedestrians and strip them naked. Such sites were better negotiated in the day time. As he approached Hilo, he was stopped on the bridge of Wainaku by a Japanese who was fat and tanned like a native. He wore a mustache, a khaki uniform, and a pair of leather putties. He showed Torao a tin badge and announced that he was a representative of the Tax Office. Asked what he wanted, Torao was ordered to show his poll tax receipt. Torao had been told that such a testimony was necessary in boarding an inter-island ship, but did not think it necessary to carry it on his person on an overland travel. He had, therefore, nothing to show that he had paid his annual poll tax of five dollars.
"Then you have to work it off."
"How?"
"By working ten days on a farm where such delinquency is made up by actual labor. At fifty cents a day, you will work it out in ten days."
Having no friends in Hilo to put up the five dollars, he had to follow what this officer told him to do. Used to following orders of uniformed men without questioning since boyhood, he was docile and was led up toward the mountain where clearing of forest lands was in progress. There was a man by the name of Hieda who ran this place. There were two men already there and Torao had to share the bunk house with them.
Their work consisted of hoeing hono-hono, the green prolific wandering-Jew, and burying this grass in a hole dug in the ground. In the days when chemical spray was not in use this was the only way to rid the fields of this pest because it rained every day.