Paradise Wild Read Free

on the north shore of Oahu. Here he started a small sugar plantation, not to compare with the larger plantations, but big enough to join the island’s major industry.
    With the profits from his sugar and the loan company, Rodney started a carpentry business. He dealt first in ships’ repairs and later included the construction of houses. He made a small fortune. This fortune was lost, however, in 1872, when business and agricultural interests were at a low ebb. The sugar plantation lost moneyand was eventually abandoned. Only the loan company prospered during those bleak years.
    During this time Rodney’s marriage deteriorated. His wife’s hopeless melancholia affected his business. After Ranelle died, it took a long time for Rodney to pull himself together and put the business back on its feet.
    By the time Rodney Burkett died in a sailing accident, leaving all his possessions to his two children, his estate had improved.
    His only son, Jared, now occupied the house on Beretania Street. The area was now part of Honolulu, the city having caught up to it years ago. Jared’s sister, Malia, younger by ten years, lived most of each year at their beach house on the north shore of the island, on the land that had once been a sugar plantation.
    Jared Burkett had proved to one and all that he was capable of taking his father’s place. Rodney Burkett had raised a son he could be proud of. Jared was a man who would never succumb to a problem, no matter how difficult it was. The community respected Jared, and feared him a little. He never backed down from a fight.
    In the American community, Jared defended his Hawaiian heritage because of his pride in it. Among the Hawaiians, he was worthy to be called a friend.
    After his mother’s death, he had become withdrawn and moody. That was to be expected, but it never went away. Bitterness grew in Jared, becoming a festering hate. This hate had eaten away at young Jared for sixteen years, since the day of his mother’s death.
    Today, so many years after that death, the solution for purging himself of that hate once and for all had come to Jared by way of a letter.
    Now, on the way to his uncle’s office at the Savings and Loan Company, Jared read the letter for what was surely the tenth time.
    Dear Mr. Burkett ,
     
    It gives me great pleasure to bring you good news so soon after receiving your letter. You employed me to find a Samuel Barrows, who nineteen years ago visited your faraway islands, and this I have done .
    Following your instructions, I began the search in my city of Boston and found this man with little difficulty, since he is a very respected and prominent member of Boston society. He resides on Beacon Street in the exclusive residential district in the Back Bay area of the city. His wealth derives from many sources. His most well-known interest is his shipbuilding firm, one of the largest in the state of Massachusetts .
    I have no doubt that this is the Samuel Barrows you wished to locate. If I can serve you further, I am at your disposal .
    Your servant,
Ned Dougherty
    Jared put the letter in the pocket of his white tropical suit as the carriage halted on Fort Street. He looked up at the old two-storied pink building, badly in need of paint. But it looked no worse than the other buildings lining the street in this old section of the city.
    Edmond Burkett’s office was on the second floor, and Jared climbed the stairs slowly, dreading the encounter before him. There was no love lost between uncle and nephew. For as long as Jared could remember, his uncle had been a stranger to his family. Jared had been seven years old before he met Edmond Burkett, though they lived less than a mile apart. But he knew the reason why Edmond would not associate with his relatives on the island. It was Jared’s mother.
    Edmond had not been able to adjust to the mixed nationalities of the islands. A man of bitter prejudices, he never forgave Rodney for marrying a woman with Hawaiian