By Reef and Palm/The Doctor’s Wife

THE DOCTOR’S WIFE“Oho!” said Lāgisiva, the widow, tossing her hair back over her shoulders, as she raised the heavy, fluted tappa mallet in her thick, strong right hand, and dealt the rough cloth a series of quick strokes—“Oho!” said the dark-faced Lāgisiva, looking up at the White Man, “because I be a woman dost think me a fool? I tell thee I know some of the customs of the papalagi—the white foreigners. Much wisdom have ye in many things; but again I tell thee, O friend of my sons, that in some other things the people of thy nation—ay, of all white nations, they be as the beasts of the forest—the wild goat and pig—without reason and without shame. Tah! Has not my eldest son, Tui Fau, whom the white men call Bob, lived for seven years in Sini (Sydney), when he returned from those places by New Guinea, where he was diver? And he has filled my ears with the bad and shameless customs of the papalagi. Tah! I say again thy women have not the shame of ours. The heat of desire devoureth chastity even in those of one blood!”
“In what do they offend, O my mother?”
“Aue! Life is short; and, behold, this piece of siapo[1] is for a wedding present, and I must hurry; but yet put down thy gun a

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