"Ships didn't never touch there, I knew by their ways, their wonderin'
and takin' sights at me. As for Cap'en Twist, he wouldn't come back for
his own father, unless he was short o' hands for whalin'. I was in for
life, no doubt on't; and I'd better look at the fair-weather side of the
thing. The island was as pretty a bit of land as ever lay betwixt sea
and sky; full of tall cocoa-nut palms, with broad, feathery tops, and
bunches of brown nuts; bananas hung in yellow clumps ready to drop off
at a touch; and big bread-fruit trees stood about everywhere, lookin' as
though a punkin-vine had climbed up into 'em and hung half-ripe punkins
off of every bough; beside lots of other trees that the natives set
great store by, and live on the fruit of 'em; and flyin' through all,
such pretty birds as you never see except in them parts; but one brown
thrasher'd beat the whole on 'em singin'; fact is, they run to feathers;
they don't sing none.

"It was as sightly a country as ever Adam and Eve had to themselves;
but it wa'n't home. Howsomever, after a while the savages took to me
mightily. I was allers handy with tools, and by good luck I'd come off
with two jack-knives and a loose awl in my jacket-pocket, so I could
beat 'em all at whittlin'; and I made figgers on their bows an'
pipe-stems, of things they never see,--roosters, and horses, Miss Buel's
old sleigh, and the Albany stage, driver'n' all, and our yoke of oxen
a-ploughin',--till nothin' would serve them but I should have a house o'
my own, and be married to their king's daughter; so I did.

"Well, Doctor, you kinder wonder I forgot Hetty Buel. I didn't forget
her, but I knew she wa'n't to be had anyhow; I thought I was in for
life; and Wailua was the prettiest little craft that ever you set eyes
on, as straight as a spar, and as kindly as a Christian; and besides, I
had to, or I'd have been killed, and broiled, and eaten, whether or no!