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Walter E. Traprock - The Cruise of the Kawa
tremendous crash far down the leafy lane. Fully half the distance she must have gone in that first
onslaught. The last eighth-of-a-mile she ground her way through a torrent of sea and cocoanuts. The
forest rang with the bellowing wind, the snapping coral branches and the screams of the whistling-trout
fighting vainly against the current. What a plan was Triplett's! The cocoanuts, being movable, rolled with
the flood and actually acted as ball bearings. Without them our craft must certainly have burst asunder.
The storm passed as quickly as it had come and by the time we had clambered to the ground and rushed
across the atoll there lay our tight little darling, peacefully at anchor in the still waters of the lagoon, with
Triplett on her quarter-deck immersed in the New Bedford "Argus."
CHAPTER VI
Marital memories. A pillow-fight on the beach. A deep-sea devil. The opening in the atoll. Swank paints
a portrait. The fatu-liva bird and its curious gift. My adventure with the wak-wak. Saved!
I shall never forget a day when my bride and I sat on the edge of the lagoon after our matinal dip in its
pellucid waters. It was a perfect September morn. So was she.
"My dear," I said suddenly, "Hatiaa Kappa eppe taue."
It sounds like a college fraternity but really means, "My woodlark, what is your name?"
I had been married over a week and I did not know my wife's name.
"Kippiputuonaa," she murmured musically.
"Taro ititi aa moieha ephaa lihaha?" I questioned, which, freely translated, is "What?"
"Kippiputuonaa."
Then, throwing back her head with its superb aureole of hair she softly crooned the words and music of
the choral which the community chorus had sung on our wedding night.
Hooio-hooio uku hai unio
Kippiputunonaa aaa titi huti
O tefi tapu, O eio hoki
Hooio-hooio, one naani-tui
How it all came back to me! Leaning towards her, I gently pressed the lobe of her ear with my chin, the
native method of expressing deep affection. Her dusky cheeks flushed and with infinite shyness she lifted
her left foot and placed it on my knee. Tattooed the length of the roseleaf sole in the graceful ideographic
lettering of the islands I read -
"Kippiputuonaa," (Daughter of Pearl and Coral).
"What an exquisite name!" I murmured, "and so unusual!"
I was awed. I felt as if this superb creature, my mate, had revealed to me the last, the most hidden of her
secrets. I had heard of Mother of Pearl, - but of the Daughter - never...and I was married to her!
"And you," she whispered, "are Naani-Tui, Face-of-the-Moon!"
I liked that. Frankly I was a bit set up about it. It sounded so much better than Moon-face. I thrust out my
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