Both Maria and Martin drank the sour new wine on empty stomachs, and it went swiftly to their heads.  Utterly differentiated creatures that they were, they were lonely in their misery, and though the misery was tacitly ignored, it was the bond that drew them together.  Maria was amazed to learn that he had been in the Azores, where she had lived until she was eleven.  She was doubly amazed that he had been in the Hawaiian Islands, whither she had migrated from the Azores with her people.  But her amazement passed all bounds when he told her he had been on Maui, the particular island whereon she had attained womanhood and married.  Kahului, where she had first met her husband,—­he, Martin, had been there twice!  Yes, she remembered the sugar steamers, and he had been on them—­well, well, it was a small world.  And Wailuku!  That place, too!  Did he know the head-luna of the plantation?  Yes, and had had a couple of drinks with him.

And so they reminiscenced and drowned their hunger in the raw, sour wine.  To Martin the future did not seem so dim.  Success trembled just before him.  He was on the verge of clasping it.  Then he studied the deep-lined face of the toil-worn woman before him, remembered her soups and loaves of new baking, and felt spring up in him the warmest gratitude and philanthropy.

“Maria,” he exclaimed suddenly.  “What would you like to have?”

She looked at him, bepuzzled.

“What would you like to have now, right now, if you could get it?”

“Shoe alla da roun’ for da childs—­seven pairs da shoe.”

“You shall have them,” he announced, while she nodded her head gravely.  “But I mean a big wish, something big that you want.”

Her eyes sparkled good-naturedly.  He was choosing to make fun with her, Maria, with whom few made fun these days.

“Think hard,” he cautioned, just as she was opening her mouth to speak.

“Alla right,” she answered.  “I thinka da hard.  I lika da house, dis house—­all mine, no paya da rent, seven dollar da month.”

“You shall have it,” he granted, “and in a short time.  Now wish the great wish.  Make believe I am God, and I say to you anything you want you can have.  Then you wish that thing, and I listen.”

Maria considered solemnly for a space.

“You no ’fraid?” she asked warningly.

“No, no,” he laughed, “I’m not afraid.  Go ahead.”

“Most verra big,” she warned again.

“All right.  Fire away.”

“Well, den—­” She drew a big breath like a child, as she voiced to the uttermost all she cared to demand of life.  “I lika da have one milka ranch—­good milka ranch.  Plenty cow, plenty land, plenty grass.  I lika da have near San Le-an; my sister liva dere.  I sella da milk in Oakland.  I maka da plentee mon.  Joe an’ Nick no runna da cow.  Dey go-a to school.  Bimeby maka da good engineer, worka da railroad.  Yes, I lika da milka ranch.”