d in Philadelphia work for me; good work.

"I have found a woman for me. She is Jeanette, an artist, a maker of
tattooings on cloth. I am very happy. I have found a house to live in.
I am happy I have this woman. She is rich. I am poor. It is for that
I write to you, to make it known to you that she is rich, and I am
poor. By this paper you will know that I have pledged my word to
this woman. I found her and I won her by my work and by my strength
and my endeavor.

"She is _moi kanahau_; as beautiful as the flowers of the _hutu_ in
my own beloved valley of Atuona. She is not of America. She is of
Chile. She has paid many piasters for the coming here. She has paid
forty piasters. She has been at home in Las Palmas, in the islands
of small golden birds.

"I will write you more in this paper. I seek your permission to
marry Jeanette. She asks it, as I do. Send me your word by the
government that carries words on paper.

"It is three years since I have known of you. That is long.

"Give me that word I ask for this woman. I cannot go to marry in
Atuona. That is what my heart wants, but it is far and the money is
great. The woman would pay and would come with me. I say no. I am
proud. I have shame. I am a Marquesan.

"I live with that woman now. I am not married. It is forbidden. The
American _mutoi_ (policeman) may take hold of me. Five months I am
with this woman of mine. The _mutoi_ has a war-club that is hard as
stone.

"Give me quickly the paper to marry her. I await your word.

"My word is done. I am at Philadelphia, New York Hotel. A.P.A. Dieu.
Coot pae, mama."

Mauitetai had read the letter many times. It was wonderful to hear
from her son after three years and pleasant to know he had found a
woman. She must be a _haoe_, a white woman. Were the women of that
island, Chile, white?

I said that they ran the color scale, from blond to brown, from
European to Indian, but that this Jeanette who was a tattooer, a
maker of pictures on canvas, no doubt an artist of merit, must be
pale as a moonbeam. Those red peppers that were hot on the tongue
came from Chile, I said, and there were heaps of gold there in the
mountains.

My Darling Hope would know what kind of a valley was Philadelphia.

It was the Valley of Brotherly Love. It was a very big valley, with
two streams, and a bay. No, it was not near Tahiti. It was a
breadfruit season away from Atuona, at the