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Introduction

Page 365

The wide doors of the portico opened into a square court, a cool and shady retreat.
The place was a bower of beauty.
In the center there grew a little jungle of green palms and graceful tree-ferns, sheltering a fountain where the water dripped and fell with a pleasant splash and tinkle.
There were tasteful stands of flowers and ferns all around the margin of the brick pavement.
The cream-colored walls were half covered with a green trellis and broken by arches. In the apex of each arch was a picture wrought in stained glass - typical Hawaiian landscapes, the colors flaming as beneath a blazing tropic sun

A group of bronze statuary stood at the far end of the room - three surf-board riders racing through the surf.
The young men threw their arms wide as they stood erect, balancing on the boards.
A fourth swam between them.
With parted lips and eager eyes and tense muscles, they depicted the very spirit of the sport.
But the party did not linger in the court, enchanting though it was.
They passed through one of the archways, where a door gave entrance to a hall leading to the verandah -or "lanai" as
the Hawaiians call it.

Page 369

On the verandahs they are dancing to the swing of a native orchestra which blends its music with the splash of the rolling surf. Far out on the reef the boys are riding their surf-boards.
With whoop and halloo they come racing toward the shore.
Hawaii! land of sugar-cane, coral and waving groves of cocoa-palms.
Such is the land where to-day the hero of our island-drama dwells, - where he loves to entertain his friends from the mainland when they see fit to voyage across the ocean.
He takes them to his Tantalus home -The Flamingo's Nest.
He leads them into the cool courtyard, where they may rest in huge wicker chairs by the side of the fern-shaded fountain.
He stretches himself in another wide wicker-chair, between the tree-ferns and the bronze pedestal where stands the statue of the surf-board riders.
And there he chants the charms of island-life in the Paradise of the Pacific.

The End

Sprague, Roger:
The Flamingo's Nest; a Honolulu Story
Lederer, Street and Zeus, Berkeley, California 1917.

Hathi Trust
https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.$b63818

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