Katherine Yates

“ Presently the woman's white fingers were playing with the scarlet seeds again; raising them and dropping them in red drops into a white fold of her dress, with a little drip, drip, drip—over and over and over. The man, leaning far back in the low chair, his eyes away beyond the purple-blue horizon, shielded them from the shimmer of the red drops and was silent. After a long time he spoke, and his voice had returned to its habitual level calmness. "Tell me about those people," he said. ”

“ The clerk smiled with recognition. "Why, that was Mr. and Mrs. — ah-h-h—" tapping the desk impatiently with his pencil; "Mr. and Mrs.—. Wait, its' here on the register. They came here about—let me see—about the middle of March. Let—me—see—" fluttering the leaves of the register and running his finger down the columns.
The man fidgeted, the woman wrinkled her brow in thought, pressing a loop of the wili-wili seeds against her lips. The man glanced at her and turned his face away.
"That’s queer," said the clerk; "I don’t find the name. ”

“ Under the Hau Tree by Katherine Yates THE woman was stringing scarlet wili-wili seeds into a barbaric necklace. The man was tossing over a basket of unmounted kodak prints, with now and then a perfunctory comment. The drooping branches of the hau tree shut out the glare of the late afternoon sun, and the fluttering leaves were backgrounded by a purple-blue horizon from which long lines of white surf came rolling in, curling nearer and nearer until they washed softly up the sand to the very foot of the hau tree, and then slid silently back beneath the oncoming white edge just behind. ”

“ The woman looked after him and then at the basket. Then she arose quietly, placed the box of red seeds upon her own chair, picked up the photograph from the basket and followed him into the hotel. At the desk she found him sputtering. The quiet, efficient, Chinese clerk was unable to recall the persons whom he described. "There are so many coming and going all the time," he explained, shaking his head and spreading his hands deprecatingly.
The man began to sputter again, whereat the woman approached and laid the print upon the desk. "What was their name, Ah Fat?" she asked. ”

“ The cars had all burned but one, the passenger car, and that had been wrecked. Those who had been taken out were lying on the smooth grass along the side of the right-of-way. I found Uncle Joseph propped against a big rock and Jennie was half leaning, half lying against him. ”

“ Jennie did 'hand-painted china' which sold in the store at Christmas time; and hot-poker work; and taught classes to do prim little water-colors with green woolly trees and white woolly waves, and gray woolly rocks, and wooden sheep and cattle and Noah’s ark sort of people. I have some of them at home."
The woman tossed the beads together in her lap. ”

“ Yes, just twenty years. I know, because her clothes were exactly like my aunt’s wedding clothes; and Auntie was married just twenty years ago, and kept her whole trousseau for sentiment's sake. She let us take some dresses once, for an 'old times party', and they were exactly like this woman's clothes ”