In fact, the house of Lamai, who was the father of Lumai, was the most miserable house in all Somo.
Lumai, the house-master and family head, unlike most Malaitans, was fat.
And of his fatness it would seem had been begotten his good nature with its allied laziness.

But as the fly in his ointment of jovial irresponsibility was his wife, Lenerengo--the prize shrew of Somo, who was as lean about the middle and all the rest of her as her husband was rotund; who was as remarkably sharp-spoken as he was soft-spoken; who was as ceaselessly energetic as he was unceasingly idle; and who had been born with a taste for the world as sour in her mouth as it was sweet in his.
The boy merely peered into the house as he passed around it to the rear, and he saw his father and mother, at opposite corners, sleeping without covering, and, in the middle of the floor, his four naked brothers and sisters curled together in a tangle like a litter of puppies.

All about the house, which in truth was scarcely more than an animal lair, was an earthly paradise.

The air was spicily and sweetly heavy with the scents of wild aromatic plants and gorgeous tropic blooms.

Overhead three breadfruit trees interlaced their noble branches.