Kat and Copy-Cat

Front matter

Kat and Copy-Cat

E. E. Steven

Kat and Copy-Cat

Pupu-le and Lolo

IT WAS about a week after Dick Harris moved into his new quarters on Tantalus, that the first kona arrived. That is, his first kona. He had never heard of one before because the kona, or south wind, is as much a taboo topic in Hawaii as earthquakes are in California. Naturally the real estate man wasn't mentioning it when he was showing Dick around. Tantalus is the big green mountain which rises some two thousand feet, upon the very outskirts of Honolulu; and when the agent's car stopped before the break in the hedge in front of one of the only two houses upon a certain narrow ridge of the mountain, Dick was immediately positive that he had found exactly the right spot in which to settle down, "far from the madding crowd," and finish some articles which were overdue and concerning which he was being periodically jacked up by various editors. He gave the place a hasty once-over, closed the deal on the spot and moved in the next day. Dick usually did things that way.

The first week was ideal. Big winds came down from the higher peaks, swept across his lanai and swished away through the row of ironwoods which stood sentinel between his house and the one next door. Out upon this lanai, or veranda, he had his typewriter, and under the inspiration of the winds and the dark blue-green coloring of the mountains and the silence, broken only by the birds and the swishing of the trees and the gentle sounds of the Japanese boy in the kitchen, concocting delectable dishes to be spread before him shortly here on this same lanai—his work slid out from under his typewriter with a swiftness and lucidity which made him "rejoice as a strong man to run a race."

And then suddenly everything stopped. The trade wind dropped, his grey matter refused to function—the only papers which came from the typewriter were wadded into unseemly balls and cast in the direction of the waste-basket with varying degrees of accuracy but much vehemence. A kona never lasts more than a few days, and comes only two or three times a year; but while it is on, the thermometer goes up, the barometer goes down, and profanity is the general order of conversation.

About four o'clock in the afternoon of the second day, Dick appeared in the kitchen doorway, mopping a very red face and nursing two vertical lines between his brows. "Moto," he said tersely, "go and get the hammer."

The Japanese turned inquiringly from the care- ful dissecting of an alligator pear.

"The hammer!" repeated Dick impatiently; "Where is it? In the garage? Well, go and get it."

The Japanese laid down his knife and turned dutifully toward the exit, and Dick walked back across the lanai to the rail and glared savagely down at the Manoa Valley spread out something like a thousand feet below him. The outer edge of the lanai overhung the precipitous mountain side so that the drop was almost sheer, although the steep descent was clothed with a softly swaying garment of vines, ti plants and clambering grasses which masked its harsh and rocky lines. Far down on the lower slopes were guava and lantana thickets, and then houses and winding black roads and the square green panels of rice and taro fields. Opposite, a mile or two away as the crow flies, was another mountain side exactly like the one upon which he stood; and to the left, as an extension of his own mountain and imperiously close at hand towered the high, sharply serrated peaks of the Koolau Range, covered with dark blue-green jungle and mottled in all of the draws with the whitey-green of kukui trees. Leaning over the rail of the lanai he could see some scraggly koa trees beneath him swaying in the breath of the south wind passing just below, but not a whiff of it came to him. An ironwood tree, which had been the last one of the row between his house and that of his neighbor, had washed down some six feet below the level and was growing bravely there, out of a handful of soil and some cracks in the rocks. This moved gently and swayed its long locks, but such breeze as reached it, failed to pass through so effectual a wind-break, though Dick leaned forward hoping to intercept a breath of it.

Moto returned at last with the hammer and stood looking doubtfully about to divine its purpose. "Pull out those nails," ordered Dick, indicating the canvas curtain which hung at the south end of the lanai, its bottom weighted with a heavy wooden pole.

"I think no good,—" began Moto uneasily.

"Pull them out! Pull them out!" commanded Dick. "I'm going to have that curtain up if it costs a leg. What the deuce have they got it nailed down for, anyhow?"

Moto examined the row of nails which had been driven through the canvas and into the wood of the lanai, just above the pole. "I think they like keep it down, maybe," he said.

"I don't care a hang what they like!" fumed Dick. "I'm going to have some air here. They've shut off the whole seaward side of this place; not a window in my room on that side, this canvas nailed down and that ironwood tree out there shutting off all of the wind and all of the view, right up to the mountain side opposite. I won't stand for anything like this."

Moto fingered the hammer. "I think no good—" he began again.

"Go ahead and pull out the nails, I told you. Never mind what you think, you do what I say!" And Moto went to work upon the nails.

Dick returned to a contemplation of the offending ironwood tree. "I'll have that thing cut down," he chafed; "There's no sense to it. What's the idea of a whole row of trees in between two houses that are only three or four feet apart? It's idiotic."

"I think," said Moto, turning from his nails, "ironwood make windbreak before she make this house. Just one house here before; then she make this house and she leave trees all same."

"But what's the sense of having the houses so close together?" fussed Dick. "Not another building on this ridge, and these two jammed up against each other like a city street."

"I think," said Moto, patiently; "she make this house for old Mamma, when she marry with that man; then when Malua he die, old Mamma she go back and take care of baby."

"I don't care anything about their family history!" sputtered Dick. "Go ahead with those nails, can't you!"

Moto went back to the nails and at last they were all drawn and Dick came forward to help raise the curtain. Curtains of the same sort were rolled above the openings of the lanai on the side toward the valley and the end toward the mountain, and could be manipulated with heavy cords and pulleys; but when it came to lifting the one just released, he found that the cords and pulleys had been removed. "That's a darned nice note!" he grumbled. "Well, roll it up anyway. When we get it up we'll nail it. It won't be our fault if it tears out the canvas. Go ahead and roll it up. I'll help you if it gets too heavy."

Resignedly Moto began to roll the big pole and Dick stood back and watched as gradually the space widened between the pole and the floor. Up and up went the pole, to the level of the top of the rail, then higher and higher; and then came an exclamation from Dick. "Well, I'll be damned!" he said. For as the pole rolled higher, instead of an opening above the rail appearing, there was only a tight wall of tongue and groove boards, freshly painted and beautifully clean.

Moto stopped with the pole on his shoulder. "Thas what I say before," he remarked; "I say no good."

"My Lord!" ejaculated Dick; "Did you know that was a solid wall?"

"Ye-es," said Moto; "I say before—"

"You idiot! Drop that thing and go back to the kitchen!" and Dick flung across the lanai and out through the garden and into the road which wound its way past the house and on up the mountain.

There was some slight breeze here, although it was a warm one, and Dick loitered along the road for some distance, still fuming. However, presently he found himself halting now and then to examine some of the interesting wild growths, and his naturally good nature began to reassert itself until he had actually reached the point of laughing over the curtain episode, when he had occasion to step out of the way of a passing automobile, and immediately was hailed from within the vehicle. "Have a lift?" called a genial voice.

Dick turned to the car and found that the voice belonged to a man whom he had met a few days before at the Country Club, but whose name he was absolutely unable to recall. Feeling in a mood for companionship, however, he jumped in and they drove along, the man indicating various points of interest from their high vantage ground, as they went. However, after a short distance, the man backed and turned the car. "Just taking a run up the hill," he said, "while my wife finishes some bridge at one of the houses below. I came up after her, but couldn't stand for the crowd, so I'm marking time. Are you out for a hike? Where are you stopping?"

"Up here on Tantalus," said Dick. "I wanted to be quiet while I turn out a certain line of work, and the real estate people brought me up here and showed me a place that looked so good that I took it on the spot. It's all right, only it is a bit hot when the wind is in this direction."

"It's hot everywhere when there's a kona," observed the man. "That is, it feels hot because the air is humid; but the mercury doesn't go so very high, at that. But it is so rare that we forget that there is such a thing, until one of them strikes us. Show me where you belong, when we get there, and I'll let you out."

Very shortly they came to the bungalow, which was well set back in a tropical garden full of tree-ferns, gay hibiscus bushes and blossoming vines, and divided from its neighbor by the swaying line of tall ironwood trees. "Here are my quarters," said Dick.

"Where?" asked the man, looking about.

"Here," said Dick, indicating the house.

"There?" exclaimed the man, incredulously. "You are living there? Well, I'll be darned!" And then he laughed.

Dick was climbing out of the car. Once on the ground, he turned rather sharply. "Why not?" he asked.

"Oh, nothing!" said the man, and laughed again. "How did you happen to land on this?"

"Through the real estate office. Why? What's the matter with it?"

"Oh, nothing!" repeated the man. "Nothing's the matter with it. Don't see much of your neighbors, do you?"

"No," said Dick, puzzled; "I don't want to. The reason that I came up here was because I wanted to get away from all social life while I put through this work. The agent said that the people were Hawaiians but that they wouldn't bother me."

"I'll wager they won't bother you," said the other, still with a broad grin on his face. "The only social life that you'll get out of them will be by absent treatment, you can bet on that."

"But who lives in the other house?" asked Dick, his curiosity piqued by the other's manner; "Who are they?"

"Do you mean to say that the agent didn't tell you anything about them? Oh, well, all right; as long as you came up here to be quiet, it doesn't matter. You won't see anything of them, so you should worry!" And the man started up his engine.

"But wait!" protested Dick, "Who are they? Who lives there?"

"Who lives there?" the man laughed back at him as he got under way; "Well, I believe they call them Pupu-le and Lolo;" and Dick heard him laughing still as the car rolled away.

He went into the house in a rather bad humor again, and stalked out onto the lanai. "Funny sort of names!" he thought. "Wonder what's the matter with them."

Moto had set the dinner table close to the edge of the lanai overhanging the valley, and the tints of sunset were beginning to show on the opposite mountain side. The slight breeze in the ironwoods had died down and the atmosphere seemed more sultry than ever. It lacked half an hour until dinner time, and Dick wandered about trying to find a cool place and at last headed toward his own room for a shower. The arrangement of the house was very simple. A T shaped open lanai with the front entrance at the base of the T. On the left was the kitchen and a small room probably intended for a servant's chamber but now used merely as a trunk room, since Moto slept in the loft over the garage in a front corner of the garden. On the right was Dick's bed room and bath, the latter supplied with water from a tank farther up the mountain. As the master entered the room he looked about protestingly. It was absolutely airless. The wall toward the other house was without a window; there was one window into the garden, but that was so overgrown with vines and so overhung with shrubbery that not a breath of air could enter. The window on the opposite end opened onto the lanai. "There'll be a great chance to sleep tonight!" he grumbled, as he twisted his head to loosen his necktie.

And therewith his upturned eyes rested upon a trap-door in the ceiling. He dropped his hands and gazed at it. "Escape!" he thought. "The roof is flat. I see myself climbing out to fresh air and zephyrs!" And dropping the scarf he instantly posted out in quest of a ladder which he had seen in the garden, evidently used for gathering papaias.

As he came back with the ladder on his shoulder, Moto came out of the kitchen with a plate of bread. He stared dubiously. "What you make now?" he inquired.

"Wait and you'll see," answered Dick, and went on into the bedroom with the ladder. He set it up against the frame of the skylight and went up with all of the enthusiasm of a small boy who has succeeded in circumventing someone and gotten his own way after all. However, as he reached the hatch, there came a pause. The thing was fastened down with a hasp and a padlock, both rusty from long disuse. Dick climbed down with gritted teeth and a set chin. Out he went to the store-room and routed out a number of rusty keys and returned to try them out without success.

Presently he appeared in the kitchen door again. "Moto, have you any flat keys anywhere?" he asked.

Moto shook his head. "No. No more key. House key, garage key, thas all."

"Well," said Dick firmly; "you go over next door and tell them that I want the key to the skylight in my room."

Moto hesitated and looked anxiously at the stove. "Potato mos done," he said; "Lamb chop now sizzle. Pretty soon too much cook."

"Never mind," said Dick impatiently; "I'll take the consequences. Go ahead."

The man wiped his hands but still hesitated. "I think bime-by all right?" he questioned.

"No! Right now!" asseverated Dick. "Go on, do as I say."

The man continued to rub the towel through his hands. "Over there," he said, "they got plenty big police dog."

"Nonsense!" said Dick. "It's chained up. It must be; it always barks from the same place."

"Ye-es," said Moto solemnly; "and hook right here by kitchen door;" and he put his hand on his own door-frame.

"Well, nobody'd let it loose."

"No? You don know that pa-ke Fong. I think he let loose all right."

"Are you afraid?" asked Dick scathingly.

"Also," went on the Japanese, "you hear something now?" and he lifted his finger.

"Just a little pounding. What then?"

"Pa-ke he make chop-chop, this way;" and Moto picked up two knives and beat a tatoo upon the table with them alternately. "But he got more big knife, very big knife. I know."

Dick flung away from the door and out into the garden, down the walk and through the break in the hedge and approached the next house. The garden was larger than his own and even more tropical, being a very wilderness of shrubs, vines, ferns and overhanging mango and pear trees, interspersed, after the Hawaiian fashion, with curious blocks of stone of strange and weird shapes. Upon turning in through the hedge, Dick was greeted by a volley of barks from the great police dog which strained and wrenched at his chain in a manner which was somewhat disconcerting, even though the chain was probably dependable. Dick stopped at a safe distance, just as the kitchen door opened and a gaunt Chinaman emerged upon the steps and laid one hand upon the hook of the dog's chain. In the other hand he still held one of the knives with which he had been making his chop-chop, and it certainly was a big one. "What you want?" he called shrilly.

Dick kept his distance, but the greeting had not served to soothe his irate mood. "I want the key to the skylight in the bedroom next door," he demanded brusquely.

"No key," said the Chinaman sullenly. "No go top-side."

"I'll go top-side if I want to," said Dick, belligerently; "Get me the key!"

"No key." repeated the Chinaman stubbornly.

"All right, then I'll come into the house and talk to somebody else. I want that key."

The Chinaman's hand moved upon the hook of the dog's chain, and the dog strained and tugged more violently than ever. "I say no have got key," snarled the man. "Key lost somehow. You go 'way!" and the hook slipped from the staple, leaving the dog's chain in his hand, while the strength of the enraged animal jerked the thin old body most disturbingly.

Dick turned away in wrath. The Chinaman held all of the cards. There was no use in forcing his hand, either the one holding the dog's chain or the one holding the knife; and therefore retreat was the only course possible. Also, the visitor was subtly conscious that eyes were watching from behind the screened windows and he was not of a notion to furnish entertainment for unsympathetic onlookers, especially with the game belonging to the other fellow. And so, without a backward glance, he went through the hedge and back to his own domicile.

As he entered, Moto courteously refrained from looking at him, but merely announced that dinner would be ready in five minutes, and Dick went on to cool off in his shower to such extent as he might.

However, Dick was of a type not to be discouraged by opposition, but which, rather, rises even more determinedly upon the meeting of obstacles; and therefore throughout dinner he was intently engaged upon figuring out a means for reaching the forbidden roof. It would be practically impossible to reach it from outside because the front and the only accessible side were surmounted by a frail trellis supporting tangled vines of many years' growth; another side overhung the valley, while the space between the two houses was within the precincts of the next door grounds and presided over by the dog and the Chinaman. Nevertheless, he was resolved that he was going to get out upon that roof before he slept, if only to show the damned Chinaman who was master.

After dinner, while Moto was rattling the dishes in the kitchen and Dick was sitting in the dusk smoking and planning his attack upon the skylight, he heard a slight sound at the entrance of the lanai. He turned his head, but at first could distinguish nothing in the deeper darkness behind. Then, although he heard nothing more, he saw a dark figure gliding softly toward the door of his room. Just as it reached the door, Dick suddenly switched on the reading lamp beside him, revealing the old Chinaman, who had stopped in his tracks at the flaring up of the light.

"What do you want?" demanded Dick, springing up. "What are you doing here?"

The Chinaman cringed and rubbed his hands, in a very different attitude from that which he had assumed a little while before. He bowed sidewise and smiled rather ingratiatingly. "I think maybe I find key for you," he said. "You like go top-side, —maybe I get key all right. I look-see," and he turned toward the bedroom door again.

"No you don't!" said Dick, barring the way. "You turn around and go back home just as fast as you can; and don't you ever step your foot inside of this house again while I'm here. Do you get that? Now light out, and do it quick!"

The Chinaman's lip lifted in a snarl, but he did not speak; only turned on his soft-soled shoes and slid out of the house like a slinking shadow, and Dick returned to his chair, somewhat appeased at having had the opportunity of getting back at the man in a measure, at least. "Fat chance!" he soliloquized. "If he had found the key it would have gone back home with him, that's sure. I wouldn't have gotten it. And that means," he continued, "that they don't know where the key is, and the man thought that probably he could find it over here and cabbage it. Well, if there was a chance that he could find it, then there is the same chance that I can find it. Such being the case, here goes!" And throwing down the remains of his cigar he rose up and turned again toward the bedroom.

Once, there, he mounted the ladder and began feeling around the groove in the frame of the skylight, experiencing various qualms lest he should rout out a centipede or a scorpion in the process. Nothing of the kind happened, however, and nothing was forthcoming; and reaching up he gave the offending skylight a vicious punch by way of relieving his feelings; whereupon a little loop of string dropped down from the crack between the frame and the fitted cover. Tentatively Dick drew it out and with it a rusty, flat little key, and stood grinning at it like a Cheshire cat. "So!" he said, "We've got you, in spite of the Chinaman and the knife and the puppy-dog. Now here is where we solve the mystery of why the roof-garden is so strictly kapu."

The key proving recalcitrant in the rusty lock, he brought his typewriter oil-can and lubricated it well; and then, having coaxed it to its duty, he removed the padlock, undid the hasp and, mindful of the wisdom of discretion, he softly lifted the hatch and climbed out onto the roof.

His first thought was that he had never before seen such marvelous stars, and he stared for a moment at the heavens, and then turned to inspect his newly achieved territory. As he looked it over, he could see no possible reason why it should be forbidden ground. There seemed to be nothing up there but the stars, and he walked softly near to the edge of the roof and looked off and down into the valley. It was much cooler up here. The breeze from the sea came swishing through the thin upper branches of the ironwoods, which still made an effectual screen between the two houses, and rustled the leaves of the vines upon the trellises bringing forth a heavy scent of Stephanotis and jasmine, mingled with the fragrance of the gardenias and the mulang in the garden. The inward corner of the roof, toward the adjoining house, was in the denser shadows of the ironwoods; and after he had surveyed the rest of the space, he turned to this point and stumbling against something which rattled slightly, he put out his hand and discovered that it was a small iron cot which was set back close to the trellis. "Good!" he thought, "No more suffocation down below. Here is where the victorious hero sleeps tonight."

And forthwith he descended and gathered together his blankets, pillows and sheets and then called Moto, who came from the kitchen distrustfully. "What you make now?" he inquired, and then stopped to stare up at the open skylight.

Dick grinned. "I've got a new bedroom up there," he said. "I want you to hand me up my mattress and sheets," and he turned to ascend the ladder.

The man shook his head protestingly. "I think more better—" he began.

But Dick interrupted; "Moto, you think too much. Don't do it. Some day you'll over-think yourself, and then there'll be the dickens to pay. Come on, hand up that mattress and stop thinking."

And Moto laboriously shouldered the mattress and, ascending the ladder, passed it resignedly through the opening. The sheets and pillows fol- lowed, and then the man slid away shaking his head lugubriously, while Dick arranged his bed and went below to prepare for the night, determined to retire early and lie awake and watch the stars and plan out his work for the following day.

However, things did not seem to go along according to schedule; for no sooner had he bestowed himself upon the bed, than the heavy sense of airless oppression descended upon him once more. The corner where his bed was, seemed to be the most shut in portion of the roof, and he arose and attempted to draw the couch forward to a more open part of the space. Perversely, the couch refused to budge, seeming to be anchored to its particular position, and investigation revealed that it was tied to the posts of the trellis by heavy cords. He went below and got his knife and severed the cords; but when he would have moved it, the castors gave forth a protesting screech which sent shivers up his spine and dispatched him below again for the typewriter oil. Then, after due lubrication, the wheels did move and he drew the bed out to a satisfactory point, stretched his length upon it and immediately went off into a deep and dreamless sleep.

That is, for many hours it was dreamless, but eventually it became troubled;—someone was fanning him, and fanning him too hard; he could feel his hair fluttering and his clothing flapping about him; also, the breeze created was too cool. He pro- tested, but to no effect; the person continued to fan with a great fan, and he began vaguely wondering if he were being winnowed, and whether he would turn out to be wheat or chaff, and was quite anxious about it when suddenly his eyes popped open and he made a grab for his sheet which was just in the act of sailing away upon the wings of a great wind tearing down from the top of Konahuanui, up above on the skyline. The back of the kona was broken, the trade wind had come; and Dick reefed in the sheet and greeted the change with joy. However, the sheet refused to stay reefed, but kept flicking loose and flapping up between him and the stars; and so at last he got up and wrapped it about him as if he were a mummy and lay down again, lifting his feet and catching the bottom of the rolled sheet under them as they came down. It couldn't flop loose now, and he lay there in a delightful state of satisfaction, feeling his grey matter coming alive again under the stimulus of the more vital air, and responding to his calls upon it for data for tomorrow's work. Or rather, today's work, for already a faint, a very faint light was beginning to grow over the shoulder of the ridge opposite.

He concentrated upon the prospective article and became deeply interested, at the same time enjoying to the full the splendid great gusts of wind which came sweeping down the mountains, roaring through the trees above, sweeping around his bed and shaking and tearing at it, and thrashing away through the now turbulent locks of the ironwoods. As the light grew, he flopped over so that he could watch the course of the wind as it came tearing down the mountain, with the trees bending before it and swaying writhing arms and flinging vines high in the air from their tossing branches. Then he turned back to find if it were light enough for him to catch a glimpse of the sea beyond the valley. But it was not, and it seemed that he had just closed his eyes for an instant, when he heard the roaring of a particularly heavy blast come booming down the mountain, and he opened them against just as the blast reached him and flapped loose a corner of his sheet. He made a quick jerk to grab it; and then suddenly the ironwoods began to slide past him most bewilderingly, his bed lurched in the teeth of the blast, he attempted to spring from it, but his feet were too well enswathed in the folds of the sheet;—the last ironwood, the one standing below the level of the ridge, pitched itself up toward him, his couch dipped and banked like a biplane on a curve; he flung out both arms, his sheet soared away upon the blast, he gathered to his bosom a great armful of ironwood boughs,—and suddenly glimpsed himself as a small boy on a platform reciting Curfew Shall Not Ring Tonight. "Out she swung, far out. The city seemed a tiny speck below!" And then, from that far distance be- neath came up the faint, hollow echo of metal upon stone, bouncing and crashing, and then silence. His bed was undoubtedly in the Manoa Valley.