The men took the older boys in hand and employed ways quite as unconventional and with equally happy results, and the girls of size were well left to the care of Alison Evans and Mary Stuart, whose special training had fitted them excellently for the work.
In addition to the extraordinary curriculum of their school, the men were working hard at the new foundations of life in Kapaa'a.
It was a beginning of things such as Kenneth Blair's soul delighted in. He was at it night and day, and suffered no whit from all the hard work. For it was better even than recreation, since to all intents and purposes it was creation itself, the bringing of order out of chaos, the evolution of new life.
Ha'o, in the large hope of becoming a nation, worked with them hand to hand, and heart to heart. Savage born and all untutored, he was gifted with a sharp wit and a clear understanding, and he was a born ruler of men. He was tall in stature, and his bearing they had noted even in the hold of the _Blackbirder_. Of late his presence had seemed to increase in dignity, possibly from his own large belief in the future, possibly because they viewed him in the light of what they hoped to make him. Whatever it was, his own people noticed it also, and even the last returned prodigals never ventured to cross him.
His confidence in the wisdom and good faith of the white men was implicit. When he placed his hand in Blair's, the day they landed, and proclaimed himself his man, and again when they discussed the delicate subject of man-eating after his illness, he meant what he said and stuck to it loyally.
Not that he by any means assented at once to every suggestion they made. He could argue like an Old Bailey lawyer, and until a matter was explained to him so that he understood all the ins and outs, and the ultimate end and aim of it, and saw from his own point of view just how it would affect his people and himself, he would have none of it.
He would listen politely, follow with the most patient intentness, question till it was clear, argue-bargle occasionally, as Captain Cathie put it, and then,--"Kenni, it is good. It shall be,"--and some new brick was ready for the foundations.
They all enjoyed an argument with Ha'o. The turns of his quick mind were so odd and illuminating at times, that, as Evans said, it was actually educational.