It was too small a board. But I didn't know, and
nobody told me. I joined some little Kanaka boys in shallow water,
where the breakers were well spent and small - a regular kindergarten
school. I watched the little Kanaka boys. When a likely-looking
breaker came along, they flopped upon their stomachs on their
boards, kicked like mad with their feet, and rode the breaker in to
the beach. I tried to emulate them. I watched them, tried to do
everything that they did, and failed utterly. The breaker swept
past, and I was not on it. I tried again and again. I kicked twice
as madly as they did, and failed. Half a dozen would be around. We
would all leap on our boards in front of a good breaker. Away our
feet would churn like the stern-wheels of river steamboats, and away
the little rascals would scoot while I remained in disgrace behind.
I tried for a solid hour, and not one wave could I persuade to boost
me shoreward. And then arrived a friend, Alexander Hume Ford, a
globe trotter by profession, bent ever on the pursuit of sensation.
And he had found it at Waikiki. Heading for Australia, he had
stopped off for a week to find out if there were any thrills in
surf-riding, and he had become wedded to it. He had been at it
every day for a month and could not yet see any symptoms of the
fascination lessening on him. He spoke with authority.
"Get off that board," he said. "Chuck it away at once. Look at the
way you're trying to ride it. If ever the nose of that board hits
bottom, you'll be disembowelled. Here, take my board. It's a man's
size."
I am always humble when confronted by knowledge. Ford knew. He
showed me how properly to mount his board. Then he waited for a
good breaker, gave me a shove at the right moment, and started me
in. Ah, delicious moment when I felt that breaker grip and fling
me.
On I dashed, a hundred and fifty feet, and subsided with the breaker
on the sand. From that moment I was lost. I waded back to Ford
with his board. It was a large one, several inches thick, and
weighed all of seventy-five pounds. He gave me advice, much of it.
He had had no one to teach him, and all that he had laboriously
learned in several weeks he communicated to me in half an hour. I
really learned by proxy. And inside of half an hour I was able to
start myself and ride in. I did it time after time, and Ford
applauded and advised. For instance, he told me to get just so far
forward on the board and no farther.
