"Huh!" the first comers heard her saying, having already disposed of most of the venial sins of the lesser ones of her memory."You think this man, Stephen Makekau, is the son of Moses Makekau and Minnie Ah Ling, and has a legal right to the two hundred and eight dollars he draws down each month from Parke Richards Limited, for the lease of the fish-pond to Bill Kong at Amana.Not so.Stephen Makekau is not the son of Moses.He is the son of Aaron Kama and Tillie Naone.He was given as a present, as a feeding child, to Moses and Minnie, by Aaron and Tillie.I know.Moses and Minnie and Aaron and Tillie are dead.Yet I know and can prove it.Old Mrs.Poepoe is still alive.I was present when Stephen was born, and in the night-time, when he was two months old, I myself carried him as a present to Moses and Minnie, and old Mrs.Poepoe carried the lantern.This secret has been one of my sins.It has kept me from God.Now I am free of it.Young Archie Makekau, who collects bills for the Gas Company and plays baseball in the afternoons, and drinks too much gin, should get that two hundred and eight dollars the first of each month from Parke Richards Limited.He will blow it in on gin and a Ford automobile.Stephen is a good man.Archie is no good.Also he is a liar, and he has served two sentences on the reef, and was in reform school before that.Yet God demands the truth, and Archie will get the money and make a bad use of it."And in such fashion Alice rambled on through the experiences of her long and full-packed life.And women forgot they were in the tabernacle, and men too, and faces darkened with passion as they learned for the first time the long-buried secrets of their other halves.
"The lawyers' offices will be crowded to-morrow morning," MacIlwaine, chief of detectives, paused long enough from storing away useful information to lean and mutter in Colonel Stilton's ear.
Colonel Stilton grinned affirmation, although the chief of detectives could not fail to note the ghastliness of the grin.
"There is a banker in Honolulu.You all know his name.He is 'way up, swell society because of his wife.He owns much stock in General Plantations and Inter-Island."MacIlwaine recognized the growing portrait and forbore to chuckle."His name is Colonel Stilton.Last Christmas Eve he came to myhouse with big aloha" (love) "and gave me mortgages on my land in Iapio Valley, all cancelled, for two thousand dollars' worth.Now why did he have such big cash aloha for me? I will tell you..."And tell she did, throwing the searchlight on ancient business transactions and political deals which from their inception had lurked in the dark.
"This," Alice concluded the episode, "has long been a sin upon my conscience, and kept my heart from God.
"And Harold Miles was that time President of the Senate, and next week he bought three town lots at Pearl Harbour, and painted his Honolulu house, and paid up his back dues in his clubs.Also the Ramsay home at Honokiki was left by will to the people if the Government would keep it up.But if the Government, after two years, did not begin to keep it up, then would it go to the Ramsay heirs, whom old Ramsay hated like poison.Well, it went to the heirs all right.Their lawyer was Charley Middleton, and he had me help fix it with the Government men.And their names were..." Six names, from both branches of the Legislature, Alice recited, and added: "Maybe they all painted their houses after that.For the first time have I spoken.My heart is much lighter and softer.It has been coated with an armour of house-paint against the Lord.And there is Harry Werther.He was in the Senate that time.Everybody said bad things about him, and he was never re-elected.Yet his house was not painted.He was honest.To this day his house is not painted, as everybody knows.
