it was yet
night, started off to obtain the girl's consent and to bring her back
with him.

The young woman was awakened from her slumbers in the night to hear the
proposition of her grandfather, who painted to her in glowing colors
the manly attractions of her suitor. The suit found favor in the eyes
of the girl's parents and she herself was nothing loath; but with
commendable maidenly propriety she insisted that her suitor should be
brought and presented to her, and that she should not first seek him.

The sun had hardly begun to lift the dew from the grass when our
young hero, accompanied by the two matchmakers, was brought into the
presence of his future wife. They found favor in each other's eyes,
and an ardent attachment sprang up on the instant. Matters sped
apace. A separate house was assigned as the residence of the young
couple, and their married life began felicitously.

But the instincts of a farmer were even stronger in the breast of
Kaopele than the bonds of matrimony. In the middle of the night he
arose, and, leaving the sleeping form of his bride, passed out into the
darkness. He went _mauka_ until he came upon an extensive upland plain,
where he set to work clearing and making ready for planting. This done,
he collected from various quarters shoots and roots of potato (_kalo_),
banana (_waoke_), _awa_, and other plants, and before day the whole
plain was a plantation. After his departure his wife awoke with a
start and found her husband was gone. She went into the next house,
where her parents were sleeping, and, waking them, made known her loss;
but they knew nothing of his whereabouts. Much perplexed, they were
still debating the cause of his departure, when he suddenly returned,
and to his wife's questioning, answered that he had been at work.

She gently reproved him for interrupting their bridal night with
agriculture, and told him there would be time enough for that when they
had lived together a while and had completed their honeymoon. "And
besides," said she, "if you wish to turn your hand to agriculture,
here is the plat of ground at hand in which my father works, and you
need not go up to that plain where only wild hogs roam."

To this he replied: "My hand constrains me to plant; I crave work;
does idleness bring in anything? There is profit only when a man turns
the palm of his hand to the soil: that brings in food for family and
friends. If one were indeed the son of a king he could sl