Project Gutenberg's The Four Corners in Japan, by Amy Ella Blanchard
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Title: The Four Corners in Japan
Author: Amy Ella Blanchard
Release Date: April 28, 2014 [EBook #45518]
Language: English
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see the end of this book for further notes.
THE FOUR CORNERS IN JAPAN
THE CORNER SERIES
THE FOUR CORNERS
THE FOUR CORNERS IN CALIFORNIA
THE FOUR CORNERS AT SCHOOL
THE FOUR CORNERS ABROAD
THE FOUR CORNERS IN CAMP
THE FOUR CORNERS AT COLLEGE
THE FOUR CORNERS IN JAPAN
THE FOUR CORNERS IN EGYPT (_in preparation_)
[Illustration: ALL SORTS OF STRANGE FANCIES POSSESSED HER]
The Corner Series
THE FOUR CORNERS
in
JAPAN
By
AMY E. BLANCHARD
George W. Jacobs & Company
Philadelphia.
Copyright, 1912, by
GEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANY
_Published September, 1912_
_All rights reserved_
Printed in U. S. A.
CONTENTS
I. STARTING OFF 9
II. A GLIMPSE OF HONOLULU 27
III. FIRST IMPRESSIONS 45
IV. TEMPLES AND TEA 61
V. AN EVENING SHOW 81
VI. AT KAMAKURA 101
VII. A FEAST OF BLOSSOMS 119
VIII. FLYING FISH 137
IX. A RAINY DAY 157
X. A SACRED ISLE 173
XI. AT MYANOSHITA 191
XII. NIKKO, THE MAGNIFICENT 209
XIII. CRICKETS AND FIREFLIES 227
XIV. JEAN VISITS 247
XV. A MOCK JAPANESE 269
XVI. A PROSPECTIVE SERVANT 287
XVII. IN A TYPHOON 307
XVIII. JACK'S EYES ARE OPENED 325
XIX. VOTIVE OFFERINGS 343
XX. IF IT MUST BE 361
ILLUSTRATIONS
All sorts of strange fancies possessed
her _Frontispiece_
They looked up to see the great cone
of Fujiyama _Facing page_ 52
Curious to see who the other shopper
might be " " 194
Glad she had experimented with
chop-sticks " " 262
"Is it true?" " " 354
[Illustration: CHAPTER I
STARTING OFF]
CHAPTER I
STARTING OFF
"I feel a migratory fever stirring within my veins," remarked Miss
Helen Corner one morning as she sat with the elder two of her nieces in
their Virginia home.
Nan put down the book she was reading; Mary Lee looked up from her
embroidery. "You are not going to desert us, Aunt Helen?" said Nan.
"Not unless you girls will join me in my flight."
"But where would you fly?" asked Mary Lee.
"What do you say to Japan?"
"Japan? Oh, Aunt Helen, not really."
"Why not? Every one goes there these days. We could make the trip by
way of California, stop off for a few days at Honolulu, and see some of
the strange things I have been reading about this winter. I am strongly
inclined to make the trip if you two will go with me."
"And would we start soon?" asked Nan. "In time for the cherry
blossoms, the lovely flowery Japanese spring and all that?"
"It was what I was planning to do."
"What about mother and the twinnies?"
"We should have to make up our minds to leave them behind. I believe
your mother has declared against going with us. She thinks the twins
should not be taken out of college and that she should be within call
while they are there. That should not prevent your going, however. Nan,
what do you think about it?"
"You know me, Aunt Helen," responded Nan.
"What about you, Mary Lee?"
"Oh, 'Barkis is willin';' that is if mother approves."
"I consulted her before I mentioned it to you, for I did not want any
one disappointed. Therefore, young ladies, consider yourselves booked
for a personally conducted trip. I think we might start next month, and
we need not burden ourselves with too much of an outfit."
"I should think not," returned Nan, "when such lovely and cheap things
can be had in Japan. Hurrah! Mary Lee, let's go tell Jo."
The two girls started off together. The month was February, but already
the first hints of spring could be found in the warmer sunshine, the
longer days, the swelling of buds on trees and bushes. A few yellow
stars were already spotting the forsythia which clambered up one end
of the front porch of Dr. Woods's house which they soon reached. They
entered without knocking, for their friend Josephine Woods was like a
sister, and would have resented any formality. They knew where to find
her, for it was after her husband's office hours; he was off making his
professional visits, and Jo would be up-stairs attending to certain
housewifely duties.
They discovered her in the little sewing-room surrounded by piles of
house linen.
"Hallo," cried Nan, "what in the world are you doing, Jo?"
"Marking these towels for Paul's office," she returned soberly.
Nan laughed. "It is so funny to see you doing such things, Jo. I can
never quite get over your sudden swerving toward domesticity. We have
come over to tell you something that will make you turn green with
envy."
"Humph!" returned Jo. "As if anybody or anything could make me turn
green or any other color from envy. I am the one to be envied."
"She still has it badly," said Nan shaking her head. "What is there in
marking towels to make it such an enviable employment, Mrs. Woods?"
"Because it is being done for the dearest man in the world," replied Jo
promptly.
"I wonder if you will still continue to be in this blissful state of
idiocy when we get back from Japan," put in Mary Lee.
"Japan!" Jo dropped the towel she was holding, barely saving it from a
splotch of indelible ink.
"Aha! I knew we could surprise you," jeered Nan. "She is green, Mary
Lee, bright, vivid, grass green."
"Nothing of the sort," retorted Jo. "Of course I always did long to go
to Japan, but I wouldn't exchange this little town with Paul in it for
all the Japans in the world."
"You are perfectly hopeless," said Nan. "I wonder if I shall ever reach
such a state of imbecility as to prefer marking towels to going to
Japan."
"I wouldn't put it past you," returned Jo. "Just you wait, Nan Corner.
I expect to see the day when you are in a state that is seventy times
seven worse that mine ever was."
"If ever I do reach such a state, I hope the family will incarcerate
me," rejoined Nan.
Jo laughed. "This does sound like the good old college days," she
remarked. "But do tell me what is up, girls. Are you really going to
Japan?"
"So Aunt Helen says," Mary Lee told her.
"And when do you go?"
"Next month."
"The whole family?"
"No, the kiddies will have to continue to grind away at college.
I think it probable that mother will go back with them after the
Easter holidays and stay there till summer, when they can all go away
together."
"And how long shall you be gone?"
"Don't know. All we know is that we are going. We didn't wait to hear
any more till we came over to tell you. What shall we bring you, Jo?"
"I think I should like a good, well-trained Japanese servant," returned
Jo with a little sigh.
"Poor Jo; there are serpents even in Paradise, it seems. Does the last
kitchen queen prove as unworthy to be crowned as her predecessors were?"
"Oh, dear, yes, but never mind, I am still hoping that the one perfect
gem will at last come my way. Meantime I am learning such heaps of
things that I shall become absolutely independent after a while. You
will see me using fireless cookers, and paper bags, and all that by the
time you get back."
"Well, good luck to you," said Nan. "We must be off. You shall have the
next bulletin as soon as there is anything more to report."
They hurried back to find their mother, being entirely too excited to
stop long in one place. After talking the plan over with her, they
hunted up their Aunt Helen to join her in consulting maps, time-tables
and guide-books. Before night the date was set, the route was laid out,
the vessel upon which they should sail decided upon.
At last one windy morning in March the Virginia mountains were left
behind and the little party of three set their faces toward the western
coast. California was no unknown land to them and here they decided to
tarry long enough to see some of their old friends, making Los Angeles
their first stop.
"Doesn't it seem familiar?" said Mary Lee as they approached the city
where they had lived for a while.
"The very most familiar thing I see is out there on the platform,"
returned Nan as she observed Carter Barnwell eagerly scanning each car
as the train came into the station. Nan hailed him from the car window
and he was beside them before the train came fairly to a standstill.
"Glory be to Peter! But isn't this a jolly stunt you are doing?" he
cried fairly hugging Miss Helen. "Why didn't the whole family come, as
long as you were about it?"
"By the whole family you mean Jack, of course," remarked Mary Lee.
Carter laughed a little confusedly. "That's all right," he returned;
"I'm not denying it. Where are your checks and things? Give me that
bag, Miss Helen. You are going straight to the house; Mrs. Roberts is
counting the minutes till you get there."
The three were nothing loth to be settled in Carter's automobile and
to be whirled off through summerlike scenes to Pasadena where Mrs.
Roberts's home was.
"Do let us go past the little house where we used to live," said Nan
who was sitting on the front seat with Carter. "I suppose it is still
there."
"Oh, yes," was the reply, "and I hope it always will be. It was there
I first saw Jack, you know; the little rapscallion, how she was giving
it to that youngster." He laughed at the recollection. Then in a lower
voice and more seriously he asked, "Did she send me any message, Nan?"
"We didn't see the twinnies before we left, you know," returned she.
"There wasn't any special excuse for a holiday and it didn't seem
worth while to bring them away from college just now. Doesn't she
write to you, Carter?"
"Sometimes," he answered soberly.
"Oh, well, you know what Jack is," said Nan with an effort to be
consoling. "Just hang on, Carter, and it will be all right, I am sure."
"Yes, perhaps it will," he responded, "but sometimes it does look
mighty discouraging. I haven't had a line from her since Christmas,
Nan."
"Isn't that just like her? I suppose she had the politeness to thank
you for that lovely set of books you gave her."
"Oh, yes; she wrote a perfectly correct little note. I was afraid maybe
she didn't like the books."
"She was crazy about them, but she just wouldn't give you the
satisfaction of knowing it," said Nan comfortingly.
"That is something to know," returned Carter in a more cheerful tone.
"There's the house, Nan." He halted the car for a moment that they
all might have a glimpse of the vine-embowered cottage where they had
lived, and then on they sped again to draw up, after a while, before
the door of the Roberts's pleasant home in Pasadena.
They were tired enough from their long journey to be glad of the rest
and quiet which Mrs. Roberts insisted they should have. "You are to go
to your rooms and have a good restful time before we begin to chatter,"
she told them. "Since you assure me that you left every one well at
home, I can wait to hear the rest of the news."
So to their rooms they went to descend after a reasonable time to
luncheon when they were welcomed by Mr. Roberts and were waited upon by
the same Chinese servant who had been with the Robertses for years.
Another day or two here and then off again they started to San
Francisco where they would take their steamer. Carter insisted upon
seeing them thus far on their way, and they were glad enough to have
his assistance in getting started.
"Wish I could go along," he told them, "but I reckon I have enough of
traveling on this continent. It is something of a jaunt to Richmond and
they think I must show up there every two years anyhow."
"Then I suppose this is not your year for going since you came to see
us graduated last summer."
"No, but I am banking on getting there next year."
"And of course when the twins are graduated you will be on hand."
"You'd better believe I shall. No power on earth shall keep me from
going then."
It was Nan to whom he was speaking, and she well knew why he was so in
earnest.
"Well, remember what I told you," she said. "Don't give up the ship,
Cart, no matter how discouraging it looks. Jack is a little wretch at
times, but she is loyal to the core, in spite of her provoking ways."
"Nan, you are a perfect old darling," said Carter wringing her hand.
"You have put new life into me. I'll remember, and I shall not give up
till I see her married to another man."
"That's the way to talk," Nan assured him. "Dear me, is it time to go?
Well, good-bye, Cart, and good luck to you."
Carter turned from her to make his adieux to Miss Helen and Mary Lee,
then back he turned to Nan. "You are a brick, Nan," he said. "Good-bye
and write a fellow a word of cheer once in a while, won't you?"
Nan promised and in another moment Carter had left them. The steamer's
whistle blew a farewell blast and they were moving out of the harbor,
Carter watching them from shore, his waving handkerchief on the end of
his umbrella being visible as long as they could see.
They remained on deck that they might watch for every point of interest
which the beautiful harbor displayed, and at last through the Golden
Gate they steamed out into the broad Pacific.
"Doesn't it seem queer to be going the other way around?" said Nan to
her aunt. "Do you realize that this is the Pacific and not our old
friend, the Atlantic?"
"Old friend," scoffed Mary Lee; "old enemy I should say. I hope to be
spared the seasickness which I always associate with our last voyage."
"Of course you won't have any such experience," Nan assured her. "This
is placid water and in four or five days we shall be in Honolulu. It
wouldn't be worth while to get seasick for such a little trip as that."
But Mary Lee was not altogether satisfied with her prospects and
was glad to seek her steamer chair before very long, and the other
two decided to follow her example, Nan going to their stateroom to
get wraps, and other paraphernalia, together with the guide-books
with which they had provided themselves. After seeing that her aunt
and sister were comfortably tucked in, Nan proposed that she should
dispense information, while the other two became acquainted with the
Pacific. "Of course you know," she began, "that Honolulu is on the
Island of Oahu. I used to think it was on the Island of Hawaii, didn't
you, Mary Lee? It is quite like an American town except that it has
tropical trees and plants and things like that. I don't suppose it is
half as picturesque as it was before we took possession of it. It was
ceded to the United States, I mean the Hawaiian Islands were, in 1898."
"How big is Oahu?" asked Mary Lee.
"It has an area of six hundred square miles, and it is the loveliest of
all the islands."
"Dear me, I hadn't an idea it was so big. I thought we should be able
to walk all over it during the time we expected to be there."
"Not this trip, my honey, but we can drive about or go on the
street-cars around Honolulu."
"Oh, are there street-cars?"
"Certainly there are. Honolulu is quite a big city."
"I always think of it as a wild sort of place with queer little grass
huts for the people to live in when they are not disporting themselves
in the water and making wreaths of flowers. I expected to see coral
reefs and palms and people with feather cloaks on, when they wore
anything at all."
Nan laughed. "You might have seen all that if you had lived some eighty
or ninety years ago in the days of King Kamehameha."
"Oh, dear, and I suppose there is no more _tabu_, and we shall not see
a single calabash. I don't understand _tabu_ exactly, but I thought I
should have an excellent chance to find out."
"No doubt the book tells," said Nan turning over the pages. "It was
like this," she said presently after a little reading. "If a chief
wanted a field that appealed to his tender sensibilities he set up a
pole with a white flag on it and that made the field _tabu_ to any
one else. Sometimes if he wanted a lot of fire-wood he would _tabu_
fire and the people had to eat their food raw. All the nicest articles
of food were _tabu_ to women who were obliged to eat their meals in a
different room and at a different time from the men."
"Dear me," cried Mary Lee, "then I am sure I don't want to go back
eighty or ninety years even for the sake of grass huts and feather
cloaks. We shall probably receive much greater consideration in this
twentieth century. Tell us some more, Nan."
"You know the islands are of volcanic origin and they have the most
delightful climate imaginable. On the Island of Molokai is the leper
settlement where Father Damien lived and died. It is a larger island
than Oahu, but only a part of it is given over to the lepers, and they
are cut off from the remaining land by a high precipice, so they could
not get away if they wanted to, as the ocean is on the other side. You
will see plenty of coral at Honolulu, Mary Lee, for there are buildings
made of blocks of it, and there is a museum where we can be shown the
feather cloaks. They were made for royalty only, of the yellow feathers
taken from a bird called the Oo. He was black but had two yellow
feathers of which he was robbed for the sake of the king. They let him
go after they took away the yellow feathers so he could grow some more.
But just imagine how many feathers it must have taken to make a cloak
that would reach to the knees, sometimes to the feet. No wonder there
are none of these birds left."
"It is all very interesting," declared Mary Lee. "Is there anything
about calabashes?"
"Not very much," returned Nan after another examination of her book.
"Perhaps we can find out more when we get there."
"I think I may be able to tell you something about calabashes," said a
gentle voice at Nan's side.
Nan turned to see an elderly lady with a bright face, who had her
chair next to the Corners'. "We are trying to get our information
crystallized," said Nan. "It would be very good of you to tell us
something about calabashes."
"I live in Honolulu," returned the lady, "and I have been entertained
by your remarks. You have been quite correct in all you have said. The
calabashes are quite rare now and rather expensive, though once in a
while there is an auction sale when one can get them more reasonably."
"Do you hear that, Mary Lee?" cried Nan. "Oh, wouldn't it be fine if
there should happen to be one while we are in Honolulu?" She turned
again to the lady by her side. "Our name is Corner," she said. "This is
my sister, Mary Lee, and my aunt, Miss Corner, is next."
"And I am Mrs. Beaumont, the wife of an army man who is stationed at
Honolulu. We are in the way of knowing some of the out-of-the-way
things that all travelers do not know about, for we have been there
some time. I am just returning from a visit to my sister who is in
California."
Nan felt herself in luck and continued her talk with this new
acquaintance, getting more and more enthusiastic as various things
were told her about the place to which they were going. "I have been
noticing you," said Mrs. Beaumont when they had become on quite
friendly terms. "You are always so eager and interested."
"Oh, yes, I know I am," Nan said a little ruefully. "I am so very
eager to know and see everything that I don't think of consequences, at
least my sister tells me so."
"And are the consequences liable to be disastrous?" asked Mrs. Beaumont.
"Sometimes," Nan smiled reminiscently, "though, take it all in all,
I would rather have a few disasters than miss what lucky experiences
bring me. Nothing very terrible has happened to me yet for I have a
younger sister who is so much more impulsive that I am able to curb
myself on account of her didos. I daren't do things that I must warn
her from doing, you see."
Mrs. Beaumont laughed. "I think many of us could understand the
position, though, like yourself, there are some of us who delight in
experimenting with the unconventionalities."
Nan's heart warmed to the speaker at this speech and the two sat
talking till the call for dinner sent them below.
[Illustration: CHAPTER II
A GLIMPSE OF HONOLULU]
CHAPTER II
A GLIMPSE OF HONOLULU
By the time the reefs of Oahu were in sight, the Corners had become
so well acquainted with Mrs. Beaumont that they felt that they would
have a friend at court when they should finally reach Honolulu. The
four stood on deck together watching for the first glimpse of the
coral reefs, Koko Point, and Diamond Head, then the city itself at the
foot of the mountains. Finally they passed on to the harbor inside the
reefs and beheld the tropical scene they had pictured. There were the
palms, the rich dense foliage, and, at the moment the vessel touched
the wharf, there were the smiling natives with wreaths around hats and
necks, waving hands, and shouting, "_Aloha!_" So was Honolulu reached.
As Nan had warned them it was quite like an American city, and as
they were driven to the hotel which Mrs. Beaumont had recommended,
they could scarce believe themselves upon one of those Sandwich
Islands associated with naked savages and Captain Cook, in one's early
recollections of geography.
"I do hope," remarked Nan as they entered their rooms, "that we shall
not find any centipedes or scorpions in our beds."
"Horrors!" cried Mary Lee. "How you do take the edge off our
enthusiasm, Nan."
"Well, there are such things, and I, for one, mean to be careful."
"We shall all be careful," said her aunt, "but I don't believe in
letting that mar our pleasure. Mrs. Beaumont says one rarely sees
those creatures, though of course they do exist. Some of them are not
so poisonous as we are led to suppose, and one soon recovers from the
sting. Now, girls, don't let us waste our time in discussing centipedes
and tarantula, for we must make the most of our time. I have ordered
a carriage for a drive to the Pali, which, I am told, is the favorite
one. We can take the shore line next, Waikiki, it is called, and then
we can see the surf-riding and all that."
"Such lovely, queer names," commented Nan.
"Such queer looking people," said Mary Lee as they started forth,
looking eagerly to the left and right that they might observe anything
worth their while.
"Why do those women all wear those awful Mother Hubbard looking
frocks?" said Nan. "While they were adopting a costume, couldn't some
civilized person have suggested something more artistic? Poor things,
I think it was a shame to condemn them to wear anything so ugly. When
there were Japan and China to give them models of picturesque kimonos,
it seems almost a crime for them to adopt these hopelessly ugly things."
"Now Nan is off," laughed Mary Lee. "You touch her in her tenderest
spot when you offend her artistic or musical taste."
"Speaking of music," said Nan, not at all offended, "I want to hear
the song of the fishermen. Mrs. Beaumont says it is very weird and
interesting."
"And I want to go to a _luau_," Mary Lee declared.
"I think that may be possible," Miss Helen said, "for Mrs. Beaumont has
promised to be on the lookout for any festivity which might interest us
and will let us know."
"She was a true discovery," Nan went on. "I am so glad she happened to
be on board our steamer. Those wreaths that the natives wear around
their hats and necks they call _leis_. Isn't it a pretty fashion?"
"The flowers are really wonderful," said Mary Lee, "but oh, such
commonplace looking shops, with canned things on the shelves just as at
home. In such a summery, balmy climate I should think they could raise
almost anything."
"So they could, but they don't," her aunt told her. "Everything almost,
in the way of fruit particularly, is brought from the coast. Sugar
is the great crop here. There are some coffee plantations, and rice
is raised. Pineapples and bananas receive some attention, but the
possibilities for cultivating other things seem to be unconsidered
except by a very few."
"The natives eat _poi_," said Nan. "It must be horrid stuff from the
description of it. It is made from a tough root something like a sweet
potato. They mash it, or grind it up, mix it with water into a sort
of paste, and sometimes they let it ferment before they dish it up in
a calabash. Then the family sits around to eat this appetizing dish
with their fingers. Mary Lee, how should you like to dine out with
some of the Hawaiian gentry and be asked to join in a dip into the
all-sufficing calabash with dried tentacles of an octopus as a dainty
accompaniment?"
"Ugh!" Mary Lee looked disgusted.
Yet the next day when Mrs. Beaumont appeared to bear them all off to a
_luau_ they were all quite as eager to go as if they had not discussed
_poi_ to its disadvantage.
"_Luau_ is the Hawaiian name for feast," Mrs. Beaumont explained. "The
presence of guests will turn nearly any dinner into a _luau_. We are
going a little out of town so that you may see one in its primitive
method of serving."
"Shall we have to eat anything that is set before us?" asked Mary Lee
anxiously.
"Oh, no, but I am sure you will find enough to satisfy you among the
things you can eat. There will be fish steamed in _ti_ leaves, and
probably pork roasted in an oven built underground. And I am sure you
will like a green cocoanut eaten out of the shell."
"But tea leaves," said Nan--"I should think they would give fish a
queer flavor."
"Not t-e-a, but t-i," Mrs. Beaumont explained. "The _ti_ plant is used
for many things. It makes a convenient wrapping for one's ordinary
marketing, and takes the place of paper in more than one instance."
The girls were very curious to see what the _luau_ would be like, and
were charmed to find that the feast was to be served from a mat spread
upon the ground. The mat was finely braided and was adorned with a
profusion of flowers. At each place were laid _leis_ of carnations,
begonias, bourga invilleas, or some unfamiliar flowers; only roses and
violets were conspicuous by their absence.
Mrs. Beaumont and her guests were welcomed with low salaams by those
who were native Hawaiians, though the company was a mixed one, as
the feast was attended by some of the officers and their wives more
in a spirit of policy or curiosity than because of strictly social
relations. The girls discovered that Mrs. Beaumont was quite right in
her advice about the fish and pork which they found delicious. They
tried the _poi_, but barely tasted it. There was a very possible salad
made from the alligator pear, and the green cocoanuts were indeed a
delicacy which they could enjoy. It was not appetizing to watch the
eaters of _poi_ wrap the sticky mass around their fingers before
putting it into their mouths, and one or two glances were entirely
sufficient. Knives and forks were provided for the principal guests,
and indeed for any who preferred, but some still clung to the simpler
and earlier manner of eating with their fingers.
Later on came a visit to the shore to see the surf-riding, less
indulged in than formerly since clothes have become an impediment, yet
interesting enough. Here, too, they heard the wild and melancholy song
of the fishermen which Nan tried to jot down as a hint to her musical
memory in days to come. A sightseeing tour about town was planned for
the next day when they were to see the various buildings, the Executive
mansion, once the palace, the Museum where, indeed, were the feather
cloaks and other interesting exhibits of primitive days, the Punahou
College, and, what to the Corners was the most interesting of all, the
Lunalilo Home for aged natives.
"When I see those low salaams, I know I am in the Orient," said Nan.
"Did you notice that old fellow actually prostrate himself?"
"They are a very gentle, biddable people, if they are lazy," remarked
Mary Lee, "and they say they are strictly honest."
"I think that is because of the old system of _tabu_," Nan made the
remark. "You were not allowed to take anything that belonged to a
chief, for it was a matter of life and death, and even to allow your
shadow to fall across the path of one of those mighty beings meant 'off
with his head' or some similar order. I know what I shall do when I am
queen of these islands; I shall _tabu_ Mother Hubbards. Look at that
fat old monstrosity; isn't she a sight?"
"There are quantities of Chinese and Japanese," said Mary Lee, noting
the various persons who passed them.
"It seems to me one sees more of them than of the natives."
"I believe they do outnumber the natives," Miss Helen remarked, "for
they form the principal class of laborers. The Chinese, more than the
Japanese, have become shopkeepers, and own a larger proportion of real
estate, so no wonder we see so many of them."
"Are you all very tired?" asked Nan suddenly.
"I must confess that I am," Miss Helen told her.
"And I shall be mighty glad to get to my room," Mary Lee put in. "Why
do you ask, Nan?"
"Because I am wild to take a ride on those King Street cars. Mrs.
Beaumont says that nobody of the better class does ride on them, and
that is the very reason I want to go."
"Oh, Nan, I wouldn't," objected her sister.
"Why not? Nobody knows me, and I shall probably see sights undreamed
of. Come along, Mary Lee."
"No, indeed, I don't want to get mixed up with lepers and filthy scum
of the earth."
"Nonsense! There couldn't be any lepers, for they keep a very strict
watch and hustle them off to Molokai as soon as one is discovered."
"Mrs. Beaumont saw one; she told me so."
"Oh, Mary Lee, did she really?"
"Yes, she was buying something in one of the Chinese shops at the time
of the Chinese New Year, and this creature was begging outside when
she came out. She says she shall never forget the sight, and that
sometimes their friends hide them so the officers cannot find them."
"Well, they will not hide them on a King Street car, that's certain,"
retorted Nan. "If neither of you will go with me, I shall go by myself."
Finding her determined, Miss Helen and Mary Lee went on to their hotel
while Nan boarded the car she had selected. It was about an hour before
she rejoined them. "Well, how was it?" asked Mary Lee as her sister
came in.
"It was great larks," was the answer. "You missed it, you two proper
pinks of propriety."
"Come in and tell us, Nan," called Miss Helen from the next room.
Nan laid aside her hat and came to her aunt, sitting on the side of
the bed while she related her experiences. "It was perfectly decent
and respectable," she declared, "and the route is a beautiful one. A
most polite Chinese person of the male persuasion took my car fare to
deposit, handed me my change with an entrancing bow and then," she
laughed at the recollection, "neatly abstracted his own nickel from his
ear and put that in, too."
"From his ear?" Miss Helen exclaimed.
"She is just jollying us, Aunt Helen," said Mary Lee.
"Indeed I am not," declared Nan, "and, what is more, he had stowed away
another nickel, for his return fare, in his other ear; I saw as I came
out. For my part I think it is a lovely idea, and I believe I shall
adopt it in future, particularly when I must get on one of those evil
inventions, a pay-as-you-enter car. One day in New York I dropped as
many as three car fares in trying to get a nickel into the box. It was
a rainy day; I had my umbrella and a small traveling bag to carry, so
how in the world I could be expected to grasp the situation I have been
wondering ever since. No, the ear is the place, a simple and effective
way of solving a very difficult problem."
"What else did you see?" queried Miss Helen.
"I saw a bland, urbane native lady, gowned in a pink Mother Hubbard--I
have learned that the native name for these horrors is _holuku_--well,
she wore one. She carried a basket of fish, principally alive, for one
that looked like a goldfish almost jumped into my lap. When she left
the car I noticed that the Chinaman next me began to jerk his foot in
a most remarkable manner. He attempted to get up, but somehow couldn't
seem to manage it. The woman was going one way; the car the other; but
finally another passenger stopped the car after some unintelligible
words to the motorman and I discovered that the woman's hook and line
had caught in the Chinaman's shoe. The woman was dragging away, all
unconsciously, for she had caught a fish which she didn't intend to
fry. It was very funny, but I was the only one in the car who laughed;
the rest were far too polite."
"Well, Nan, it is just like you to have had such an experience," said
her aunt.
"If I were going to stay in Honolulu for any length of time," returned
Nan, "I think I should like to take a ride in the King Street cars
every day. What are we going to do to-morrow?"
"We are to have tea in Mrs. Beaumont's little grass house--you know she
owns one--and she thinks there is to be an auction."
"Calabashes!" cried Nan. "Good! I have set my heart on one, but I am
not going to pay more than ten dollars for it."
"I am afraid you will be disappointed then," her aunt told her, "for
they run up as high as fifty dollars and over, I am told."
"Well, we shall see," said Nan. "Of course I can't spend all my spare
cash on calabashes or I will have none left for Japan where I expect to
be tempted beyond my powers of resistance."
"We are to dine at Mrs. Beaumont's this evening, so you'd better be
thinking of dressing," Mary Lee warned her.
"And no doubt we must look our best for there will be some fascinating
young officers there, I believe. Isn't it fortunate that our steamer
chairs happened to be next Mrs. Beaumont's? She has been perfectly
lovely to us all, and we have seen twice as much as if we had tried to
trot around alone."
They were not disappointed in their evening's entertainment which
brought them in contact with some of the ladies, as well as the men, of
the garrison, and gave them an opportunity of learning many interesting
things. The evening ended in a surprise when a band of natives came
to serenade, bringing their rude musical instruments and giving songs
typical of these islands of the South Seas.
The calabashes were the great interest of the next day when an auction
sale of a small private collection was held. Mrs. Beaumont, who was
wise on the subject of the antique wooden ware, went with them, and to
her great satisfaction Nan did secure an excellent specimen for the
price she had set.
"You see," said Mrs. Beaumont, "as there is no metal on these Hawaiian
Islands, the best substitute known to the natives was the _Koa_ wood
which has an exceedingly fine grain and is susceptible of a very high
polish. Wherever a calabash was decorated by carving, it had to be done
either with a stone implement or with one made of sharks' teeth, and
though these carvings are crude they are really very interesting and
add to the value of the calabash. There are very few of the very old
ones left now as they have been bought up by collectors. The natives
use those made of cocoanut shells or of small gourds, as you may have
noticed."
Nan bore away her calabash in triumph, stopping at a little place to
have it polished by a man who was noted for doing such work well. Hers,
while not large, was rather unique as it had a division in the middle
so that two kinds of food could be served at once in it.
There were more walks and drives, and even a visit to one of the
neighboring islands. The pretty little Japanese tea-houses, which they
came upon frequently in their drives, the girls absolutely refused to
patronize. "We want to save everything Japanese till we get to Japan,"
they declared. "There is quite enough novelty in that which is strictly
Hawaiian."
"And more than enough that is strictly American, if one is looking for
novelty," remarked Miss Helen. "Who would suppose that in these South
Sea Isles one would find severe-looking New England houses, electric
lights, electric cars, telephones and all the rest of American modern
improvements?"
"Including Mother Hubbards," Nan put in. "I am glad they have left
something typical of the old times. I suppose the little grass houses
were unhealthy places, but how picturesque they are."
They had the opportunity of observing one of these primitive houses
more closely that very afternoon when Mrs. Beaumont gave them tea in
the small hut which she retained as a curiosity. It was quite a gay
little company which gathered there, young officers, bright girls and
charming, elderly, soldier-like military men who, the girls maintained,
were more entertaining than the younger ones.
At last came word that the steamer for Japan would arrive the next day,
and so there was a repacking of trunks, a stowing away of souvenirs and
a final farewell to those who had helped to make the stay at Honolulu
so pleasant and profitable. Then early the following morning the three
travelers boarded the steamer for a still longer journey to Japan.
But they were not allowed to go off without being speeded on their
way by their new friends who came bearing _leis_ in such number that
their hats, their necks, their waists were adorned with garlands as
the vessel slowly moved out. When the last "_Aloha!_" had died upon
the air, they had moved outside the reefs, and finally when Oahu was
lost to view, upon the waters they cast their wreaths that they might
be borne back to land, a silent message to the friends they had left
behind. Such is the pretty custom in these southern seas.
[Illustration: CHAPTER III
FIRST IMPRESSIONS]
CHAPTER III
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
As one nail drives out another so were the sights of Honolulu lost in
those newer ones which were met as the vessel entered the great bay.
"It is just like the pictures," cried Nan, eagerly squeezing her
sister's arm.
"It is exactly," responded Mary Lee. "Oh, Nan, those square-sailed
things are the junks, aren't they? And oh, what a lot of little boats."
"And isn't the color beautiful?" returned Nan, her eyes seeking the
further mass of shore beyond the calmly glittering waters. "I am wildly
excited, aren't you, Aunt Helen? Somehow it seems the foreignest of all
the foreign countries we have seen yet, much more than Honolulu did,
for there was so much that was American there."
"It is certainly deeply interesting," her aunt agreed. "I suppose we
shall have to come down to the matter-of-fact question of customs
directly, and after that we can begin to enjoy ourselves."
"Oh, dear me, I always forget that there are such disagreeable things
as customs. I hope they will not capture my precious calabash."
But the customs were easily passed and then came the first sensation of
the day, a ride to the hotel in a _jinrikisha_.
"I feel as if I were on a fan or a _kakamono_," giggled Mary Lee, as
they were borne along by their galloping coolie.
"What funny little houses," commented Nan. "Can you imagine that really
sober, every-day people live in them? It all looks like a joke, and as
if we might come to our sober senses after a while. To be sure some
of the houses do look somewhat European, but even they have a queer
expression."
"I didn't expect to see any horses, and yet there are a good many."
Mary Lee made the observation.
"I suppose they have been brought in by the foreign population," said
Nan. "I have seen quite a number of phaetons, and some persons on
horseback, so there goes one rooted theory. Set it down for a fact that
they do have horses in Japan."
"Don't the shops look fascinating! But we mustn't try to buy much of
anything here for we are going to Tokyo almost at once, Aunt Helen
says. Do you know how far it is, Nan?"
"Only about twenty miles, I believe. Ah, here is our hotel right on
the quay. We get a harbor view, but they say the best scenery is not
here, but that further in the interior it is wonderful. I am wild for
the first glimpse of Fujiyama."
"I suppose we shall be honorabled and kowtowed to from this out,"
remarked Mary Lee as they left their _jinrikishas_ to be met at the
hotel door by a bowing, obsequious person who conducted them inside.
"It should be a flattering possibility, but you must remember that we
are only poor miserable females and are of no account in this land."
"I shall remember that when I get carried away by my admiration of
things Japanese," replied Mary Lee.
Their rooms looked out upon the water, and for some time they gave
themselves up to viewing the novel scene spread out before them; the
queer crafts which passed and repassed; the lambent, soft light which
played over the waters; the effect of a swarming crowd in the costume
of the country, at times diversified by the wearing of a partial
European dress, again accentuated by those who wore such attire as was
most familiar to the girls in their own home. It was quite late in the
day and, as they expected to go on to Tokyo the next morning, they
decided to take _jinrikishas_ or as they discovered them to be called
_kuruma_ and _kurumaya_, that they might see something of the city of
Yokohama and have their first experience of Japanese shops.
"Now, Nan," warned Mary Lee the wise, "don't get too reckless even if
things are cheap. We have months before us and if you begin to load up
now, think what you will have by the end of the time."
Nan, hesitating while she looked longingly at a fragile cup and saucer,
sighed. "I suppose you are right, but one's enthusiasm is always so
much more ardent in the beginning. Besides, I have always found that no
matter how much I carried home with me from abroad, I was always sorry
I didn't buy double."
"But these breakable things will be so hard to lug around."
"True, my practical sister. I think I will limit myself to the purchase
of two things alone in this precious town and it will be fun to decide
what they shall be."
From shop to shop they went, stopping to look at the queer hanging
signs, to examine the curios, the silks, and the odds and ends which
could be picked up for a mere trifle. But at last Nan decided upon a
silk scarf as being easy to carry and a singularly lovely kakamono,
though she gave many a sigh to the beautiful bits of color which she
must pass by. "So cheap," she would murmur, "and I can't have it."
Then Mary Lee would resolutely rush her away with the consoling remark
that doubtless she would find things twice as lovely and even more
cheap in other places. "For you must remember," said she, "that we
are only on the threshold, and probably, as this is such a well-known
seaport, and one which is so much visited, things here are more
expensive than they will be further on."
"I bow to your superior judgment," Nan would reply, with a last
backward look at the treasure she coveted.
Mary Lee, herself, followed Nan's decision and bought but two articles,
one a small piece of carved ivory and the other a piece of embroidery,
both of which could be easily tucked away and would take up little room.
Their afternoon would not have been complete without a first visit to a
tea-house. "A really truly Japanese one this time," said Nan. "Aren't
you glad we waited? I have much more of a sensation, haven't you, Aunt
Helen?"
"It does seem the real thing in such an atmosphere and such a company,"
she returned, as they were served with the pale yellow beverage in tiny
cups by the most smiling of little maids.
It was something of a ceremony as they discovered, when, at the very
door, they must remove their shoes that they might not soil the clean
straw mats with which the floor was thickly spread. Slippers were
provided them and shuffling in with these upon their feet they sat on
cushions, when a little maid in kimono and broad _obi_ came forward to
ask if the honorable ladies would like some honorable tea.
"Dear me," whispered Nan, "it is just as I hoped it would be. We have
been called honorable at last."
Presently the _mousmeé_ approached on her knees bearing a carved tray
which she presented most humbly, and the three sat drinking their
tea and trying to realize that this was Japan and that they were not
dreaming.
Continuing their ride, they were taken still further away from the
European quarter of the town through the streets which looked more and
more foreign; but they did not stop at any of the tiny shops, raised
above the street, with their banner-like signs of blue or red or white
all bearing lettering in fantastic Japanese or Chinese characters. It
was all wonderfully rich and harmonious and the three were so busy
drinking in the sights, the queer little low houses, the people, mostly
habited in blue, short of stature, smiling, picturesque, that they were
taken by surprise when at last their broad-hatted runner stopped.
They looked up there to see before them in the evening light the great
cone of Fujiyama, or Fujisan, as the wonderful mountain is called.
Nan began to laugh hysterically. "What makes you do that?" said Mary
Lee. "I don't see anything so amusing about this glorious view."
"I have to do something," returned Nan, "and I don't want to cry. I
have to do one or the other, it is so wonderfully beautiful. Doesn't
it seem like the very spirit of a mountain wrapped in this pale, misty
evening light? The great sacred mountain! And how high is it? I must
look at my book and see." She turned the leaves of the book which she
carried with her. "The great volcano," she read, "is between 12,000
and 13,000 feet high. It is 120 miles around the base. It has been
practically inactive since 1707, yet there is a spot where it still
shows indications of inward fires which, it is safe to declare, may
break out some day."
"Dear me, let us hope it will not be while we are here," said Mary Lee.
"It isn't at all probable," Nan assured her, "for I am sure there would
be some warning, unearthly noises, and growlings and mutterings. I
shouldn't mind a little harmless sort of eruption, and I am rather
looking for a baby earthquake that we can really expect almost any
time. Do you know, Mary Lee, I am only beginning to wake up to the
tremendous possibilities of Japan. Every little while I come upon the
description of some famous shrine or temple, some wonderful view,
some queer custom, or fascinating festival. I am beginning to get
more and more bewildered, and shall have to sift this information so
I can gather together the few grains which must serve us while we are
here. It would never do to go away with merely a hodge-podge of facts
not properly catalogued in our minds. You, who have an orderly and
practical mind, must help me arrange some sort of synopsis of what we
are to see and why we must."
Mary Lee agreed and after a short observation of the magic mountain,
they turned their backs upon it and saw only the bobbing hat of their
runner who bore them through the unfamiliar and weirdly interesting
streets, whose shops were now beginning to be lighted by gay paper
lanterns, on to a more familiar looking quarter of the city, peopled
principally by Europeans and back to the hotel on the quay, where
they stopped. Their minds were full of new sensations, and their eyes
were still filled with the pictures of foreign streets, smiling,
gentle-voiced little people, and lastly great Fujisan, calm and
beautiful in the sunset glow.
After dismissing the _jinrikishas_, the three entered the hotel again,
Nan walking ahead. As they were passing through the corridor, she
stopped short as she came face to face with a girl about her own age
who also came to a halt as she saw Nan. Then she sprang forward and
took Nan by the shoulders, giving her a gentle shake. "Nan Corner, as I
live! This is surprising."
"Eleanor Harding, who could have expected to meet you on the other side
of the world?" cried Nan.
"How on earth did you get here?" asked Eleanor.
"Just dug a hole and fell through," returned Nan.
Eleanor laughed. "Dear me, that does make me feel as if we were all
back at Bettersley. Why, there is Mary Lee, too! What fun!" She
hastened forward to greet her old classmate, and to speak to Miss Helen
whom she had met more than once at various college functions. "Well,
this is luck," she declared. "Do let us go somewhere and have a good
talk. Have you all had dinner? No? Then come along and sit with me for
I was just going in."
"But we are still in traveling dress," objected Mary Lee, always
particular.
"Never mind that; lots of others will be, too. Come right along."
Thus urged the three followed along to the dining-room where they found
a table to themselves over in one corner, and the chattering began.
"Now tell me all about it," said Eleanor. "Dear me, but it does me good
to see you."
"We have come just because we all wanted to," Nan told her. "Aunt Helen
proposed it, and here we are. We left mother and the twinnies at home."
"Jack and Jean are at Bettersley, of course."
"Yes, pegging away and getting along about as well as the rest of us
did in our freshman year. Jack, as may be guessed, is in everything,
including scrapes, but she is a general favorite and always comes out
on top."
"It makes me sort of homesick," said Eleanor with a sigh.
"But you haven't told us yet what brought you here," Mary Lee reminded
her.
"Oh, so I haven't. I came out with my aunt whose husband is an army
man. My brother is in the diplomatic service and is to be here some
time, probably, so every one thought it was my chance for seeing this
country."
"It certainly is, for you will have opportunities denied the rest of us
mere tourists. Is your aunt here in Yokohama?"
"For the present. She and my brother have both gone to some function
this evening, hence I am alone. Do you know what I thought when I first
caught sight of you, Nan? I thought you were married and had come on
your wedding trip."
"No such prospect for Nancy," was the answer.
"What about Rob Powell?" asked Eleanor. "He used to be your adorer a
year ago."
"Was it only a year ago? It seems ten," returned Nan. "Oh, I hear of
him once in a while from Rita Converse. He is doing pretty well for a
beginner, I believe."
"What callous indifference," replied Eleanor. "I quite counted on
hearing of your engagement by this time."
"I don't seem to engage as readily as some others," Nan made answer,
"and the longer I put it off the more 'fistadious' I become as Jean
used to say. What about yourself, Nell, my dear? I don't forget Yale
Prom."
"Oh, bless me, who can count upon what happened before the deluge? I've
begun all over again. I am counting on my brother Neal to supply me
with something in the way of a Mikado or a _daimio_."
"Deliver me if you please," cried Mary Lee.
"So say we all of us," echoed Nan. "No Japanese mother-in-law for me.
You must do better than that, Eleanor."
So the chaff and chatter went on. Eleanor had been one of their
comrades at college and there were a thousand questions to ask on each
side, reminiscences and all that, the process of what the girls called
"reminiscing" continuing long after they had left the table and had
retired to a spot where they would be undisturbed. Here, after a while,
they were discovered by Eleanor's brother who was duly presented and
who entertained them all by an account of the affair which he had just
attended. Later came in Mrs. Craig to hunt up her niece and nephew.
She was a charming woman who had already been through many interesting
experiences, and who was disposed to make much of these college friends
of her niece.
"We must all have some good times together," she proposed. "My husband
and Neal have both been out here long enough to give us suggestions."
Neal declared himself eager to be of assistance and lost no time in
beginning to plan what they all must do the next day. There was some
discussion about hours and engagements, but at last all was arranged to
the satisfaction of every one concerned and the little company broke
up.
"Did you ever know such luck?" whispered Nan as they were going to
their rooms. "Aunt Helen, we certainly started out under a lucky star.
What would Honolulu have been without Mrs. Beaumont? And here come Mrs.
Craig and Mr. Harding to act as cicerone for us here. Nell Harding of
all people! I can't get over my surprise yet."
"Were you very intimate with her at college?" asked Miss Helen.
"Not quite as much so as with Rita Converse and one or two others.
Still we were very good friends, especially during our senior year. Do
you remember, Mary Lee, that she was the one who wrote to her brother
about that horrid Oliver Adams, when you were taking up the cudgels for
Natty Gray?"
"Indeed I do remember," returned Mary Lee. "She was so nice about it; I
have always liked her better ever since that time. What do you think of
this brother, Nan?"
"Pleasant sort of somebody. Looks as if there might be a good deal in
him. Not specially good-looking, but he has nice eyes and a well-shaped
head that looks as if he had more than ordinary intellect. I think we
shall all become very good friends. Don't you like Mrs. Craig, Aunt
Helen? I am sure she is great, and is going to be no end of help to us."
So the talk went on while the night opened up new stars to their
vision, and the coming day promised new friends, new scenes and new
experiences.
[Illustration: THEY LOOKED UP TO SEE THE GREAT CONE OF
FUJIYAMA]
[Illustration: CHAPTER IV
TEMPLES AND TEA]
CHAPTER IV
TEMPLES AND TEA
"And aren't we to go to Tokyo to-day?" asked Mary Lee as she sat up in
bed the next morning.
"Don't ask me," replied Nan. "We supposed we were, and as it is only
twenty miles away we may be going yet though Aunt Helen did not say
anything about it last night. She and Mrs. Craig were plotting all
sorts of things for to-day while we were talking to Nell and her
brother. I caught a word here and there about temples and _tori-i_ and
things."
"And we, too, were making plans meanwhile, so it looks as if we might
have a busy day, Nan."
"Yokohama and Tokyo are practically the same city," Nan gave the
information, "for they are so near one another. Because of that we may
be going to carry out the original plan. I'll go ask Aunt Helen." She
pattered into the next room to find Miss Helen already up. "What's the
first thing on the carpet to-day, Aunt Helen?" she asked.
"Why, let me see; breakfast, of course."
"Decidedly of course, but I didn't mean anything quite so obvious."
"Then Mrs. Craig is coming for us and we are to take a drive to see
some temples, and this afternoon we are to call on a Japanese friend of
Mrs. Craig's."
"A real Japanese?"
"A really, truly one whom Mrs. Craig knows quite well."
"And we shall have the chance of seeing a veritable Japanese house?
Good! I've been hoping we might have such a chance. Where is the house?"
"In Tokyo."
"Then we are to go there as was first planned."
"I think so; it is more attractive than in Yokohama, and you know Mrs.
Craig is stopping there. She and her nephew came to Yokohama simply to
meet Miss Harding whom they will take back with them to Tokyo, so it
seems to me we would be better off there ourselves."
Nan uncurled herself from the foot of the bed where she was sitting and
went back to her sister. "Tokyo it is to be," she announced. "Tokyo and
temples and a visit to a Japanese home; that is the day's programme.
Isn't it great? You'd better get up, Mary Lee; Aunt Helen is all
dressed."
The two girls made haste to join their aunt and before very long were
ready for their morning of sightseeing. This time they were to go, not
in _jinrikishas_ but behind Mrs. Craig's stout little ponies which
carried them along at a good pace to a spot where suddenly arose before
them a great stone stairway.
"Oh, where do those steps lead?" asked Nan, all curiosity.
"They are the first intimation we have that we are nearing a _tera_ or
temple," Mrs. Craig told her.
"And do we climb that long flight?" asked Mary Lee.
"Assuredly."
They all alighted from the carriage and began the ascent. At the top
they confronted a queer gateway.
"Is this what they call a _tori-i_?" asked Nan.
"No, it is merely a gateway in the ordinary sense," she was told.
"We must stop and look at it," Miss Helen decided, and they all stood
looking up at the strange structure.
"What an odd roof," Mary Lee observed, as she regarded the peaked
pagoda-like affair.
"And such carving," exclaimed Nan. "Do look at all those queer
gargoylish lions' heads, and see the dragons on the panels; snakes,
too."
"And there is Fuji." Miss Helen, who was resting after her exhausting
climb, and was enjoying the view, directed their attention to the great
mountain whose dim peak arose above the town at their feet.
Nan turned from her regard of snakes and dragons that she might look
off at the scene. "No wonder one sees Fuji on fans and panels and
pretty nearly everything in Japan," said she. "I don't wonder the
Japanese honor and adore their wonderful mountain."
After giving further examination to the gateway, they all walked
on, presently coming to another one which showed more dragons and
gargoyles. Through this they passed to enter a sort of courtyard. The
girls looked with curiosity at an array of stone objects which they
supposed to be monuments. "What are they?" Mary Lee asked.
"Stone lanterns," Mrs. Craig told her, "and yonder are the Buddha
lions." She pointed out two strange, fantastic stone figures in sitting
posture each side the way.
"And does Buddha live here?" asked Nan with a smile.
"He lives in many places," Mrs. Craig replied with an answering smile.
Just ahead they perceived three steps leading to a low edifice. Men
and women were going and coming from these, stopping to kneel at the
entrance of this, the temple which they had come to see. Most of these
people tarried only a very short time, bending their heads in silent
prayer for a few minutes, while they joined their hands reverently.
Some clapped three times quite slowly, though noisily. There were many
contributions made, small coins thrown into the big wooden box at the
entrance.
The girls stood watching the worshippers curiously. "It would be
interesting to know how much their offerings amounted to," said Mary
Lee. "I suppose very little in our money."
"Very little indeed," responded their guide. "When you consider a _rin_
is one-tenth of a _sen_ and that a _sen_ is only about equal to one of
our cents you can see that a very small contribution suffices."
"What is inside the temple?" asked Nan.
"The shrine of Buddha, but he is not on exhibition except on feast
days. If you go in you will have to take off your shoes, so perhaps we
would better wait till some other time."
They decided that they would not attempt an entrance at this time, but
they peeped through the paper-screened sides of the building to see a
dim interior whose contents were in such obscurity that they could not
make them out.
"Do you always have to take off your shoes before entering a temple?"
asked Mary Lee.
"Oh, dear, yes, and not only upon entering a temple but before entering
any house. You know all floors are furnished with soft matting rugs
which it would never do to soil. When one considers how much mud and
dust we carry into our homes on our shoes and skirts I am inclined to
think the Japanese have more than one custom which we might adopt to
advantage. If you want to see a _tori-i_, Miss Nan, I think we can find
you one not very far away."
"I don't exactly understand what a _tori-i_ really is," confessed Mary
Lee.
"There are two theories concerning them," Mrs. Craig told her. "Many
assert that they were originally perches for birds, one meaning of the
word being a bird-rest, and it is supposed that they were used as a
sort of altar on which fowls were offered to the gods; others maintain
that the word means simply a gateway. One can easily see how either
meaning could be accepted, for they do look like a perch as well as a
gateway."
After another drive through a labyrinth of streets, where were queer
little houses and queerer signs, they arrived at the bottom of another
hill where again a flight of steps arose before them.
"Dear me," sighed Miss Helen, "I wonder if I am equal to all these
climbs. I should like to import a few elevators for the sake of my
American powers of climbing."
However, rather than be left behind, the ascent was decided upon by
Miss Helen, Nan helping her up, and lingering with her when a pause for
breath seemed advisable. At last they joined the other two who, more
agile, had reached the spot before them. "So this is a _tori-i_," said
Nan looking up at the gateway. "Such a simple affair; just two upright
pillars with two things across them. It might easily be a bird-perch.
No carving, no letters, no anything, yet it is sort of impressive just
because of its simplicity. Is there a temple beyond?"
"No, only a shrine," she was informed, "and probably closed."
"Then we shall not have to climb that second flight of steps," said
Miss Helen in a relieved tone. "If one has to mortify the flesh in this
manner before seeing temples, I am afraid I shall not see many."
"Oh, but you used to climb lots of steps in Europe," Nan reminded her.
"How many were there in the duomo at Florence?"
"Don't ask me, my dear; the remembrance of them is still with me.
Probably because I did climb so many in Europe is why I hesitate here,
and perhaps the weight of years might be added as a second reason."
Nan frowned and shook her head. "You mustn't say that. You are as young
as any of us."
"In spirit, maybe," her aunt returned with a smile.
"We certainly shall not expect you to see all the shrines and temples
we come upon," Mrs. Craig told them, "for there are too many, and the
best way is to select the most famous only to visit."
"We learned to do that way in Europe," said Nan. "One gets mental
indigestion by tearing off to see every little thing, and finally one
is so mixed up that nothing is remembered correctly."
"And if one lived here a lifetime it would be impossible to see all the
sights or to learn all the legends," Mrs. Craig went on. "The best way
is to get some well-written book and study up between times. You need
to know a little of the folk-lore and something of the religions in
order to understand the sights you wish to see. It will be impossible
to get more than merely a very superficial idea even then, particularly
upon the question of the two old beliefs of Shintoism and Buddhism."
"The Shinto belief is the worship of ancestors, isn't it?" asked Nan.
"It is founded upon that, as we understand it," Mrs. Craig explained.
"Lafcadio Hearn probably can give you a better idea of what it means
than I can, so I advise you to hunt up his books."
"We have some of them," Nan returned, "and I shall look up the subjects
when we get home."
"Do all the Japanese adopt the Shinto creed?" asked Mary Lee.
"Oh, no, some are Buddhists, some are Christians, some have a
mixed belief in which both Buddhism and Shintoism have a part. The
ramifications are so numerous and so intricate that it would be
impossible to explain them. I know only a very little myself, and I
have been here three years. As to the language, it is hopeless. I
shall never be at home with it, and there are only a very, very few
foreigners who ever do master its intricacies. When you consider that
every schoolboy is expected to learn six or seven thousand characters
for daily use alone, and a scholar must know twice as many more, you
may imagine the undertaking. Moreover there are several styles of
writing these characters, so you may be glad you are not expected to
master Japanese."
"Oh, dear," sighed Mary Lee, "it makes me tired merely to think of it."
After the climbing of so many steps, and after the fatigue following
the constantly recurring sights which passed before their vision,
they decided to go home and rest that they might be ready for their
afternoon's entertainment. Their last sight of the _tori-i_ was one
they never forgot, for it framed the exquisite cone of Fuji as in a
picture, and they were interested all the more when Mrs. Craig told
them that these ancient gateways usually did form the framework for
some special object such as a mountain, a temple, a shrine.
After having had luncheon and a good rest they were all quite ready for
the next experience which Mrs. Craig had promised them. Eleanor who had
been off with her brother all morning joined them in the afternoon's
entertainment and was quite as much excited as the others to be a
caller upon a really truly Japanese.
"It is such a pity," said Mrs. Craig, when they were about to start,
"that you couldn't have been here in time for the Doll Festival which
occurs upon the third of March. I am hoping, however, that the dolls
will still be on view at the house where we are going, though they are
usually stored in the go-down at the end of the three days."
"And what in the world is a go-down?" asked Eleanor.
"It is the family storehouse," her aunt told her. "Very little is
kept out to litter up a Japanese house, where the utmost simplicity
is considered desirable, so they have these storehouses in which all
superfluities are kept. When you reach Mrs. Otamura's you will be
surprised at the very absence of furnishings, but there, I must not
tell you too much or you will not be sufficiently surprised."
"It is so lovely to be sensationed," said Nan with a satisfied air.
Mrs. Craig laughed and they proceeded on their way to the house which
stood, its least attractive side toward the street, in a quarter of
the city where the better class lived. The garden was at the back, and
there were verandahs at the side. There were no chimneys, but the roof
was tiled and the sides of the house were fitted with sliding screens
covered with paper. These were now thrown open.
At the door they were met by a servant whom Mrs. Craig addressed with
respect and with a few pleasant words, this being expected, for none
save the master is supposed to ignore the servant. Each one of the
party removed her shoes and slipped on a pair of straw slippers before
stepping upon the soft, cool matted floor. The room into which they
were ushered was indeed simply furnished; in an alcove whose floor was
slightly raised, hung a single kakemono, or painted panel, and a vase
stood there with a single branch of flowering plum in it; there were
also a little shrine and an incense burner. On the floor, which was
covered with thick mats, were placed square silk-covered cushions on
which the guests were to be seated.
But before this was done they were greeted by the mistress of the
house with the most ceremonious of low bows. She could speak a little
English and smiled upon them so sweetly that they all fell in love
with her at once. She was dressed in a soft colored kimono and had
her hair arranged most elaborately. Close upon her heels followed her
little girl as gaily decked as a tulip, in bright colored kimono and
wearing an obi or sash quite as brilliant. This _treasure flower_,
as a Japanese will always call his child, was as self-possessed and
gracious as it was possible for a little maid to be. Following her
mother's example she knew the precise length of time during which she
should remain bent in making her bow, and her smile was as innocent
and lovely as could be any one's who was called by the fanciful name of
O-Hana, or Blossom, as it would mean in our language.
There was a low table or so in the room and, as soon as the _hibachi_
was brought in, small stands were placed before each person, for of
course tea must be served at once. The _hibachi_ was really a beautiful
little affair, a fire box of hammered copper, in which was laid a
little glowing fire of _sumi_ sticks, these being renewed, as occasion
required, from an artistic brass basket by the side of Mrs. Otamura.
"The honorable" tea was served upon a beautiful lacquered tray and from
the daintiest of teacups, offered by a little maid who humbly presented
the tray as she knelt before the guests.
The conversation, carried on partly in English and partly in Japanese,
was interesting to the foreigners who were on the lookout for any
oddities of speech, but who would not have smiled in that polite and
gracious presence for anything. They drank their pale honey-colored
tea with as much ceremony as possible although not one of them was
accustomed to taking the beverage without milk or sugar.
"The dolls are really on view," Mrs. Craig told them after a few
sentences in Japanese to her hostess, "and O-Hana will take you to see
them."
"Oh, how lovely," cried the girls, their enthusiasm getting the better
of them.
At a word from her mother the little black-haired child came forward
and held out her tiny hand to Miss Helen, who as eldest of the party
deserved the most respect. Following their little guide they went
through the rooms, each screened from the next by paper covered
sliding shutters, until they came to one where upon row after row of
crimson-covered shelves appeared a most marvelous array of dolls, with
all the various furniture, china, musical instruments, and even warlike
weapons, that any company of dolls could possibly require.
"Aren't they perfectly wonderful?" said Mary Lee looking at a
magnificent royal family in full court costume.
"Oh, no, they are very poor and mean," replied the child who quite
understood her.
It was very hard not to laugh, but no one did, each turning her head
and pretending to examine the doll nearest her.
"And which do you like best?" asked Miss Helen.
"This one," O-Hana told her, pointing to a very modern creature in a
costume so much like their own that the girls could not restrain their
mirth at the reply.
"She is very beautiful," said Nan hoping that her praise would do away
with the effect of the laughter.
"She is very ugly, very poor," replied O-Hana, "but," she added, "I
like her the best."
"It would take hours to see them all," said Miss Helen, "and we must
not stay too long." So after a cursory view of officers and court
ladies, musicians and dancers, ancient heirlooms in quaint antique
costumes elbowing smart Paris creatures, they finally took their leave
of the dolls, wishing they might stay longer.
There was a little more ceremonious talk and then as polite a
leave-taking, O-Hana doing her part as sedately as her mother.
"I should like to have kissed that darling child," said Nan as they all
started off again, "but I didn't suppose it would be considered just
the correct thing."
"Indeed it would not," Mrs. Craig told her, "for the Japanese regard it
as a very vulgar proceeding. I fancy we foreigners shock their tender
sensibilities oftener than we imagine, for they are so exceedingly
ceremonious and attach the utmost importance to matters which we do not
regard at all."
"I know I shall dream of that funny little doll-like creature, O-Hana,"
Nan went on, "with her little touches of rouge on her cheeks, her
bright clothes and her hair all so shining and stuck full of ornaments.
As for Mrs. Otamura, she is delicately lovely as I never imagined
any one to be, such tiny hands, such a fine, delicate skin, such an
exquisitely modulated voice, and so dignified and gracious; I felt a
very clumsy, big, overgrown person beside her."
"You were right about the house, Mrs. Craig," commented Mary Lee. "It
certainly was simplicity itself. Think of our great masses of flowers
in all sorts of vases and bowls, and compare all that to the one lovely
spray of plum blossom so artistically arranged."
"Their flower decorations are a matter of great study," Mrs. Craig
answered. "It is taught as a branch by itself and all girls study
it. The few decorations a house possesses must be in harmony with
the season. When the cherry blossoms come you will see an entirely
different kakemono in the Otamuras' house, an entirely different vase
for the flowers and other things will be in keeping."
"It is all very complicated," sighed Nan, "and I am afraid I shall
carry away only a very small part of what I ought to find out about
these curious people."
She was quite sure of this as Mrs. Craig began to tell of some strange
customs, stranger feasts and still stranger folk-lore the while they
were carried along through the narrow streets to their hotel. Here
they found Neal Harding awaiting them with a friend of his, a young
journalist whom he presented as "Mr. Montell, who hails from the state
of South Carolina."
The addition of a bright young American to the party was not at all
regretted by the girls who went to their rooms commenting, comparing
and, if it must be said, giggling.
[Illustration: CHAPTER V
AN EVENING SHOW]
CHAPTER V
AN EVENING SHOW
"Speaking of dolls," said Mr. Montell to Nan, when they all met at
dinner, "we Westerners have no idea of their value nor of the sentiment
with which they are regarded here in Japan. Did you know that there was
once a doll so human that it ran out of a house which had caught on
fire?"
"Oh, Mr. Montell!" Nan looked her incredulity.
"If you don't believe it I refer you to that wonderful writer upon
Japan, Lafcadio Hearn. It is a belief in this country that after
generations of care and devotion, certain dolls acquire a soul; as a
little girl told Mr. Hearn, 'they do when you love them enough.'"
"I think that is perfectly charming," cried Nan. "Tell me something
more about the dolls. We were deeply interested in those we saw this
afternoon, but we hadn't time to examine them all to see if there were
any among them who had gained a soul through love. Have you been to a
Doll Festival, Mr. Montell?"
"Oh, yes, and to several other festivals, for I have been here since
the first of January."
"And which was the first festival you saw?"
"The feast of the New Year which lasts about two weeks. It is something
like our Christmas holiday lengthened out, for during the whole month
every one wears his, or her, best clothes, gifts are exchanged, and
there is much visiting back and forth; besides, the Japanese homes
overflow with dainties, at least with what they consider dainties.
There is a cake made of rice flour, and called _mochi_, which isn't
half bad."
"I rather like the rice cakes, and I have always liked rice, but when
it comes to raw fish and such things I draw the line. Imagine seeing a
perfectly good live fish brought to the table and then seeing your host
calmly carve slices from its writhing sides! Ugh! I hate even to think
of it. Were you ever present when such a thing was done?"
"Yes, I was on one occasion, and I cannot say that the vision increased
my appetite. I had the good fortune to be given letters of introduction
to one or two prominent Japanese families and have been able to see
something of the home life of the people. It is really charming when
you know it. I never knew a more beautiful hospitality, nor a sweeter
spirit of gentleness shown."
"They do seem a happy race, for they are perpetually smiling."
"And yet we would think the lot of most a most unhappy one."
"Except the children's and some of the old people's. I have been
shocked to see what terrible burdens some of the poor old women carry.
I had an impression that all old people in Japan were revered and were
treated as something very precious."
"On general principles it is so, but among the lower classes the women
are treated with little respect and have duties imposed upon them which
make one fairly groan to think of."
"I have learned that women have not a price above rubies in this land,
although they are much more fascinating than I imagined. Mrs. Otamura
is the most delicate, doll-like little creature, really very pretty and
with such an exquisitely gracious and graceful manner. That reminds me
again of the dolls. Is it real food they offer them? I wasn't quite
sure and I didn't like to ask."
"Oh, yes, it is real rice and _saké_ and all that which you probably
saw. It is a great pleasure to the little girls to set a meal before
their dolls whenever one is served to themselves."
"Such beautiful little lacquered and china sets of dishes they were,
too; I felt like playing with them myself. When is there another
festival, Mr. Montell?"
"I think the feast of the Cherry Blossoms will be the next important
one, but there are little shows all the time, small temple festivals
rather like a fair, such as one sees in Europe in the small towns."
"And can one buy things at them?"
Mr. Montell laughed. "The difficulty will be not to buy, for you will
be pestered with persistent venders of all sorts of wares."
"We bought such a funny lot of little bodyless dolls to-day; we felt
that we must have some, such dear little faces with downcast eyes and
such a marvelous arrangement of hair. They were only five _rin_ apiece.
I am just learning the value of the coins, and only learned to-day that
there was such a thing as a _mon_. I have it written on the tablets of
my memory that ten _mon_ make a _rin_ and ten _rin_ make a _sen_. Five
rin, then, is about half a cent, so our dollies are very cheap."
"I recognize your little doll at once; she is O-Hina-San. You see her
frequently, though, as you may have observed, no O-Hina-San looks
exactly like another."
"Well, at all events she is a very cunning little person. I am
surprised to find what cheap and pretty things one can buy for so very
little. Don't you think that in the countries where there are coins
of such small denominations one can always find cheaper things than at
home? When I am in Europe I always think twice before spending five
centimes and twenty-five seem a whole great big lot, yet they represent
only five cents of our money, and who hesitates to spend a nickel? If
we had mills as well as cents I believe it would soon reduce the price
of things."
Mr. Montell laughed. "That is a theory to present to our political
economists who are trying to get at the cause of the high price of
living. Will you write an article on the subject? I might place it for
you."
Nan shook her head. "No, indeed. I will present you with the idea and
you can work it up for your paper. I could do better with an article on
the Doll Festival. Dear me, why didn't I come to Japan before I left
college? I love that theory of their gaining souls, and, indeed, some
are so lifelike that it is hard to believe they are not alive, and some
of them that we saw were over a hundred years old."
"You know the dolls are never thrown away, but are given something
like honorable obsequies. The very, very old ones must, in due course
of time, become hopeless wrecks. They are not exactly buried, but are
given to the god _Kojin_. A mixed person is _Kojin_, being neither a
Shinto nor a Buddhist deity. A tree is planted near the shrine where
he lives, and sometimes the poor old worn-out doll is laid at the foot
of the tree, sometimes on the shrine; but if the tree happens to be
hollow, inside goes dolly."
"Isn't it all entertaining and surprising?" returned Nan. "I suppose
you have seen and have learned many wonderful things."
"More than I hoped to. I am going further up into the country after a
while, for in the isolated districts one can get at some very curious
customs which have not become modified by modern invasion."
"Just as it is in Spain or any other country which is not
tourist-ridden."
"I am wondering if there may not be a temple festival to-night; I will
inquire. If there is we must all go, for it is something that every
foreigner should see."
"An evening affair, is it?"
"Yes, and for that reason the more interesting, to my mind."
"Do you hear that?" Nan turned to the others. "Mr. Montell is going to
pilot us all to an evening street show, a temple festival. Won't it be
fine?"
"Is it this evening?" Miss Helen inquired. "If it is I am afraid you
will have to count me out, for I have about used up my strength for
to-day."
"Even after having had a reinforcement of food?" inquired Nan.
"It won't prevent your going, dear child," said Miss Helen. "You know
we agreed that we were not going to stand on the order of our going and
coming, and that any one who felt inclined should always be at liberty
to drop out of any expedition she felt disinclined to make."
"I think you young people would better undertake the show," put in Mrs.
Craig. "Nell and Neal can chaperon you all, and we elders can stay at
home and keep one another company. I have seen temple shows galore, so
I shall lose nothing."
This was agreed upon, and they all arose from the table, separating
into groups, the younger people going to the front to look out upon the
passing crowd, while Miss Helen and Mrs. Craig seated themselves for a
talk over the plans for the following day.
Mr. Montell went off to make his inquiries. Nan and Eleanor Harding
paced up and down the corridors, leaving Mary Lee with Mr. Harding.
"We don't know a thing about Tokyo," said Mary Lee addressing her
companion. "What is the name of this street, for instance?"
"It is a part of the great Tokiado Road which is three hundred miles
long."
"Gracious!" exclaimed Mary Lee. "Where does it end?"
"It goes from Tokyo to Kioto and passes through many towns. It is
really a wonderful trip from one city to the other."
"Have you taken it?"
"Yes, I went with a party of six."
"How did you travel?"
"By _jinrikisha_."
"Dear me, all that distance?"
"Yes, indeed. The runners can travel six or seven miles an hour,
sometimes even as much as eight, and it is really a most agreeable way
to go, for one has a chance of seeing the country as he would in no
other way, unless he walked."
"I wish we could do it."
"There is no reason why you shouldn't. If you are good walkers you can
relieve the monotony by getting out once in a while; we did whenever we
felt inclined, and over the mountains it was a distinct advantage."
"I am afraid that wouldn't appeal to Aunt Helen particularly. She is
not so ready as she used to be to endure discomfort, and we shall
probably have enough of that if we keep on beaten tracks. There are
wonders in abundance to be found without doing any terrific stunts, and
I reckon we may as well keep to them."
"How long had you planned to stay?"
"Oh, I don't know. We haven't planned at all. We will stay till we
think it is time to go. I suppose we shall get homesick for mother and
the twinnies in course of time."
"You'd better do as much of your sightseeing as possible before the
rainy season begins."
"And when may we expect that it will?"
"It is liable to start in almost any time during the spring, but
usually extends through late spring and early summer."
Just here Mr. Montell returned with the news that he was correct in his
surmise and that there would be a night festival in another part of the
city. "It is over by ten o'clock," he told them, "so we'd better be off
if we want to enjoy it."
The girls rushed to their rooms to prepare themselves for the outing
while the young men hunted up the _jinrikishas_ which were to take them
to the spot.
"We shall be tired enough after an hour in that jostling crowd," Mr.
Montell replied when it was proposed by the girls that they should
walk one way.
"And besides," put in Mary Lee, "we have been going all day, and we
must not get tired out in the very beginning, for we want to save up
for all the rest there is to see."
So off they set in the _jinrikishas_, to arrive at last before the
temple which was supposed to occasion the gathering of the crowd which
jostled and clattered within a small radius. Just now it was at its
greatest. At first the arriving party merely stood still to see the
varying scene. A few turned to look at the foreigners, but such were
by no means rare in this huge city and they did not arouse as great an
interest as did the booths and the flower show.
"Isn't it the weirdest sight?" said Nan to Mr. Harding who had her in
charge while Mary Lee and Eleanor were under the care of Mr. Montell.
"It is certainly different from anything we have at home," he returned.
"Shall we see the flowers first? I think we may as well move with the
crowd, as it will be easier than standing still where one is liable to
be shoved and pushed about."
They slowly made their way toward the spot where there was a
magnificent display of flowering plants, young trees, and shrubs lining
both sides of the streets. The only lights were those of torches,
which flickered in the wind, and of gay paper lanterns swung aloft.
"Before you attempt to buy anything," Mr. Harding said, "let me warn
you not to pay the price first asked. The system of jewing down is the
order of things here and you will be cheated out of your eyes if you
don't beat down your man."
"I am afraid I don't know enough of the language to do anything more
than pay what they ask, unless you will consent to do the bargaining,
that is, if your proficiency in the language will allow."
"I think I can manage that much," he replied cheerfully.
Nan paused before a beautiful dwarf wisteria. "What wouldn't I give to
have that at home," she said, "but when one considers that it would
have to be toted six thousand miles, it doesn't encourage one to add it
to one's impedimenta. I am already aware that I shall have the hugest
sort of collection to take home with me, and my sister is continually
warning me not to buy everything I see. I think, however, I shall have
to get just one little lot of cut flowers to take back to Aunt Helen.
Oh, those are cherry blossoms, aren't they? The dear pinky lovely
things! I shall have to get a branch of those". They paused before the
beautiful collection of plants and flowers whose charms were being made
known vociferously by the flower dealer. Foreigners are easy prey of
course, so at once the price was put up beyond all reason.
Mr. Harding shook his head. "Too much," he said in the vernacular,
and immediately the price dropped perceptibly, but it required more
haggling before it came within the limits of reason. But finally Nan
bore off her treasure in triumph, holding it carefully above the heads
of the crowd. This was rather an easy matter as she was much taller
than the general run of those who constituted the throng, and more than
once was regarded with amusement. She could not leave the flower show,
however, without one more purchase, this time a beautiful little dwarf
tree in full flower, for Mrs. Craig, "who," explained Nan, "has a place
to keep it."
Mr. Harding assumed the responsibility of carrying this purchase, and,
leaving the flowers, they pressed their way toward the booths where
myriads of toys were for sale. "Things unlike anything in the heavens
above or the earth beneath or the waters under the earth," exclaimed
Nan pausing before a booth which attracted her and which was surrounded
by children looking with eager longing at the toys. Most of them, to
be sure, would be certain not to go home empty-handed, for the parents
of these were seldom too poor to spend half a cent to please a child.
But there was one little pale-faced creature with the inevitable baby
on her back who did seem destitute of a _sen_ or even a _rin_.
"There is an example of womanhood's burdens," said Mr. Harding,
watching the slight figure in its gay kimono. "The little girls are
seldom without a baby on their backs, it seems to me; no wonder they
look old and bent and wizened before their time, yet they are the most
cheerful, laughing creatures in the world, and do not seem to mind
being weighted down with a baby any more than American children would
with a hat."
"But this seems a particularly small girl and a particularly big and
lusty baby," returned Nan, eyeing the little motherly creature. "Do you
suppose I might make her a present? I wonder what she would like best
of anything on this stall."
"Shall I ask her?"
"Oh, will you?"
Mr. Harding put the question, but beyond the answering smile, there
was no reply from the shy little maid, though her interest in the
foreigners was immediately awakened.
"There is a lovely O-Hina-San," whispered Nan. "Do you suppose she
would like that?"
"I am sure it wouldn't come amiss, and would be worth the guess."
"Then I will get it at the risk of a whole half cent." She laid down
her five _rin_ and took up the queer little figure, a flat stick
covered with a gay kimono made of paper, and surmounted by a pretty
little head. Nan held out the gift smilingly, but the little girl
looked at her wonderingly, making no effort to take it. Nan opened the
small fingers and clasped them around the doll. The child smiled and
looked at Mr. Harding.
"For you," said he in the child's own language.
The smile brightened and down went the child, unmindful of the baby,
her head touching earth while her tongue was unloosened to say "Arigato
gozaimasu," which meant "honorable thanks."
"Now I must get something for the baby," declared Nan; "that is, if
I can get any idea of what these things are for. There is a most
fascinating red and blue monkey clasping a stick; that strikes me as
appropriate. Will you ask how much it is?"
Mr. Harding put the question. "One-eighth of a cent," he told her, "and
this is 'Saru,' the 'Honorable Monkey'; why honorable, I cannot say."
The toy dealer picked up one of these toys, pressed a spring and lo!
the monkey ran up the stick. "I must have him. All that for one-eighth
of a cent! Surely this is a Paradise for children." She placed the
monkey in the baby's little fat hand. He regarded it gravely, but his
little sister again prostrated herself to offer her "honorable thanks,"
and rising, looked at Nan with as adoring an expression as her small
wan face could assume.
"And all for less than a cent," said Nan. "I should like to spend the
rest of the evening buying toys for these poor little mother-sisters. I
could buy thousands for a dollar."
But by now the little girl had moved away, probably to go home with the
wonderful tale of the foreign lady, who had given her an experience
which was quite as delightful as the presents themselves; and Nan with
her escort followed along with the crowd, stopping to examine the toys
and have their meaning explained whenever possible.
"Many of these toys have a religious meaning," Mr. Harding told her.
"All these queer little images represent some god. Fukusuke looks like
a jolly sort of a boy, and Uzume who is the god of laughter, I take
it, is a most merry personage. That one with a fish under his arm is
Ebisu, the god of markets and of fishermen."
Seeing their interest, the dealer picked up a figure representing a
hare sitting on a sort of handle of what Nan took to be a bowl of some
sort. "Usagi-no-kometsuki," said the man.
"Aha! this is Hare-in-the-Moon," exclaimed Mr. Harding. "He is cleaning
his rice."
"Oh, is that what the pestle is for? I have seen them cleaning rice;
they do it by stepping on the handle."
"The next time you see the moon, look up and try to discover
Usagi-no-kometsuki. Will you allow me to present him to you?" He bought
the little toy and handed it over to Nan who laughingly accepted it,
and they went on past the booths showing more toys, or sometimes quaint
little ornaments, strange compounds of confections or fans, goldfish
and such things, all entertaining enough to one unaccustomed to such a
display.
Presently the crowd began to thin out, the torches flickered
uncertainly, paper lanterns bobbed off in different directions as
individuals took their way home; the clatter of the wooden clogs grew
less noticeable. Nan suddenly came to a realizing sense that the show
was over "Oh, is it time to go?" she asked. "I wonder where the others
are. We have not once seen them. I forgot everything in my interest in
the show."
Her companion smiled. "It is easy to see that you are a person who
has not worn out her enthusiasms," he said. "We will hunt up a
_jinrikisha_, if you say so, for the flower dealers are packing up
their wares, and it is after ten o'clock."
Stowed away in a _jinrikisha_, they were borne away from the fast
dimming scene, and after what seemed a labyrinthine journey through
strange streets they stopped at the door of the hotel.
[Illustration: CHAPTER VI
AT KAMAKURA]
CHAPTER VI
AT KAMAKURA
Nan found her sister waiting for her; the others had gone to their
rooms. "Well," exclaimed Mary Lee, "you did take your time. What became
of you? We never once caught a glimpse of you after we reached the
grounds."
"We went to see the flowers the first thing, and that occupied some
time. Where were you?"
"Oh, we started off in exactly the opposite direction, so no wonder we
missed one another. What did you think of it, Nan?"
"It was most interesting."
"I thought the crowds were quite as fascinating as the show. Did you
ever see so many little children and so many poor little youngsters
with babies on their backs? They seemed perfectly content and happy,
both babies and their carriers, but it was funny to see the babies'
heads bob around with no one to mind in the least. The little girls
never appear to be aware that the babies are there; they go skipping
or bobbing or playing while the babies are like great big bundles and
nothing more."
Nan told her experience with one little girl and baby, Mary Lee
listening attentively. "Well, you did make more of your opportunities
than we did," she admitted regretfully.
"I think it was partly because I had so good a companion," returned
Nan. "I thought at first that I should like Mr. Montell better than Mr.
Harding, but I have changed my mind."
"Mr. Montell is much better looking."
"Yes, and an interesting talker, but once you know Mr. Harding you
find that there is really more to him. You know what a dear child Nell
always was, so sympathetic and genuine; I fancy her brother is much the
same."
Mary Lee laughed. "Take care, Nan. You are such an enthusiastic old
dear that you will be investing the young man with all sorts of
beautiful characteristics he doesn't possess, once you get your vivid
imagination into real good working order."
Nan smiled. "Oh, I am perfectly sound and whole so far, though one
never can tell where lightning will strike. You may fall a victim
yourself."
Mary Lee looked grave and then she said in a low tone, "You know
it would be impossible, Nan. You must leave me out of all such
conjectures. There was never any one but Phil and there never will be."
Nan gave her sister a compassionate hug, and realized that Mary Lee's
devotion to the young cousin who had died was not a mere matter of
months, but that it was a thing of years if not of a lifetime. She
changed the subject. "Did you see Aunt Helen when you all came in? Did
she say what we were to do to-morrow?"
"Both she and Mrs. Craig were up," Mary Lee told her, "and they have
arranged for a trip to Kamakura, they told me."
"Where that huge statue of Buddha is, the one that is called the Dai
Butsu? I am glad we are going there. How many are going? All of us?"
"Yes, and Mr. Montell; he has promised to take his camera, so we can
have some pictures to send home."
Nan was thoughtful for a moment. "I don't believe Mr. Harding can go,
for he said something about being on duty to-morrow morning. We shall
have to leave him behind."
"And you will be sorry?"
"I certainly shall. One man doesn't go around when there are three
girls."
Mary Lee laughed, and the two settled themselves for the night.
The party that started for Kamakura the next morning did not consist
however of five women and one man, for Colonel Craig joined them and
proved to be a most acceptable addition, a fine soldierly, courteous
man who was a mine of information. The journey, to what was once a
city of a million souls, was made by train, but was continued by
_jinrikisha_ to the great image which was the special object to be
visited.
"Isn't it a queer little train?" said Eleanor as she seated herself.
"It reminds me of those in Italy," returned Nan; "they always seemed
such harmless well-meaning little things that wouldn't hurt you for
the world. Do see that picturesque little village, Eleanor. Isn't
it just like the pictures with the straw-thatched houses? Those are
rice-fields, of course, there where the people are wading. Such a
horrid sloppy way of getting a crop. I should think they would hate it,
but I suppose the 'honorable rice' is too precious a product for them
to consider the manner of its growing or harvesting; the main thing is
to get it any old way."
"Aren't those wonderful groves of trees?" returned Eleanor, observing
on her part. "There are mountains, Nan, beautiful purple mountains, but
it is rather sombre scenery, don't you think?"
Here Mr. Montell came over to speak to them. "You mustn't expect to see
a glorious city," he told them, "for it has suffered from terrible
fires and from a great tidal wave which destroyed most of the many
temples. There are still some left, nevertheless, and these we shall
see."
In spite of this warning it was a surprise to the girls to behold
a queer little village wandering between hills and showing a canal
worming its way through it. The houses were very old, straw-thatched
and gray, with strange grasses, and even flowers, growing on their
ancient roofs.
Nan caught her breath. "How desolate!" she gasped. "Could one ever
imagine this was once a busy, restless city with magnificent buildings,
temples and wonders of all kinds?"
"Some of the wonders still remain, as you will see," said Colonel Craig
as he helped her into a _jinrikisha_. "When you have seen the Dai Butsu
you will acknowledge that even a Japanese fishing village retains some
of its ancient glory."
They bobbed along behind the huge spreading hats of the runners and
presently entered a long avenue of trees to go through a temple gateway
and a long courtyard.
Suddenly the runners stopped, and the visitors, looking up, saw
the huge statue before them. One after another alighted from the
_jinrikishas_ and gathered around Mr. Montell and Colonel Craig.
"Isn't he enormous?" cried Mary Lee looking up at the colossal figure
seated in a lotus flower.
"He is nearly fifty feet high," said the colonel.
"And he isn't in a temple, but just in plain out-of-doors," remarked
Eleanor.
"There was a temple once," her uncle told her. "You can see some of the
bases of its sixty-three pillars if you look for them. The great tidal
wave destroyed it, and the surrounding buildings, away back in the
fifteenth century. So far as we know the statue was cast about 1252. It
is made of bronze. The eyes are four feet long and the distance across
the lap from one knee to the other is thirty-five feet, so now you can
get some idea of his bigness."
They all stood in silence looking up at the renowned figure with a
real reverence. Nan slipped her hand into her Aunt Helen's. "I love
his gentle smile," she whispered. "How placid he looks after all the
great convulsions of nature, the ravages of time and all the desolating
things that have happened around him."
Her aunt responded with a little pressure of the hand. "He is a
lesson, dear, to all of us. Did the colonel read you the inscription
at the gateway? I have written it down." She read from her note-book:
"O stranger, whosoever thou art, and whatsoever be thy creed, when
thou enterest this sanctuary remember that thou treadest upon ground
hallowed by the worship of ages. This is the temple of Buddha and the
gate of the Eternal, and should therefore be entered with reverence."
"Could any one feel anything else but reverence?" returned Nan. "And
not only reverence but a real awe and certainly a great admiration."
"Shall we go inside?" asked Mr. Montell who had been busy with his
camera and who now came up. "You know there is a small opening in the
side of the big lotus-blossom on which Buddha is sitting. There is a
shrine to Kwannon inside and if you care to climb up a ladder you can
go as far as the shoulders and have a peep at the grounds."
Nan shook her head. "No, let those who are not impressed as I am
descend to such things; I don't want to remember that I climbed to his
shoulders; I only want to remember his kind smile and his half-shut
eyes. It is the most wonderful thing I have seen in Japan except
Fujiyama."
"Harding ought to be here," laughed Mr. Montell. "He feels just as you
do about the Dai Butsu."
Allowing the others to penetrate to the interior of the statue,
Nan seated herself at some distance and gave herself up to a
contemplation of Buddha. She was rather glad to be alone for she was an
impressionable young person and a dreamer of dreams. For some time she
sat lost in her thoughts, and carried back, back how many centuries.
All sorts of strange fancies possessed her, and at last she could
scarce have told where she was.
Presently some one descending from a _jinrikisha_ caught sight of her
sitting there, chin in hand, her eyes fixed on the statue. He made
his way rapidly to her side, stood for a moment watching the rapt
expression of her face, then very softly he spoke, "Miss Nan."
She looked up with a start. "Why, Mr. Harding," she said, "I thought
you couldn't come."
"I found that I could get off after all," he replied coming over and
seating himself by her side. "Where are the others and what are you
doing here all alone?"
"The others are feeling and touching and prying, as if it were not
enough to look and become absorbed into the soul of Buddha."
"Oh, you have the fever," cried her companion. "I knew you would get
it and that is why I so wanted to be here to-day. I knew how impressed
you would be with the wonder of it. Doesn't it express all the peace
and the calm you ever dreamed of as existing in Nirvana? Shall you ever
forget it?"
"Never, never. I cannot tell you what heights I have climbed while I
have been sitting here, nor what dreams I have dreamed, nor where my
soul has wandered."
"I saw all that in your face as I came up and I hated to disturb your
dreams, yet I wanted to share them. Whenever I have felt homesick and
discouraged I have come here and never have I failed to find comfort."
Nan turned to smile and to nod understandingly. Then for a moment the
two sat looking at one another. Nan saw a pair of hazel eyes; a rather
lean face, smooth shaven; a mouth not small but well-shaped; a rather
large nose; a forehead, broad and low, above which was a crop of brown
hair of uncertain shade. Not good looking in the least was this brother
of her old college mate, but it was a face which could show tenderness,
courage and unselfishness and she decided that she liked it very much.
On his part the young man saw a girl with eager, long-lashed gray eyes,
a sweet mouth, a clear, colorless complexion and masses of dark hair;
not so pretty as her sister Mary Lee, but with a more expressive face
and to his mind a more attractive one.
Nan's gaze was the first to falter. She arose rather hastily. "I
believe they are looking for me. Shall we go up there and join them? I
believe they are buying photographs."
They walked slowly up the paved path, the sunshine and the waving trees
about them. Once or twice they stopped while Mr. Harding pointed out
some remnant of bygone splendor, a pile of stones, a distant _tori-i_,
but at last they reached the others.
"We are going to have lunch before we go to the temple of Kwannon,"
Mrs. Craig told them after greeting her nephew whose coming was a
surprise to every one. "There is a little inn back there. We can take
our _jinrikishas_ back to it."
"Oh, dear, must we eat?" sighed Nan. "I don't feel as if I could lose a
moment in this wonderful place. Is it far to the temple of Kwannon and
couldn't one walk?"
"Oh, yes, one could walk easily enough, but it seems to me that one
could do it better after partaking of a meal," replied Mrs. Craig. So
Nan, all unwillingly, followed the rest and in a short time they found
themselves on the verandah of the Kaihin-in, the small hotel to which
they had come for their meal. They could see a small strip of blue sea
between pine woods and sand-dunes, but the famed island of Enoshima
was not in sight, though the colonel told them it could be seen from
a point a little further on. "We must go there some day," he said,
"for it is well worth a visit, and is often included in this trip to
Kamakura, but I realize that you are not the kind of rushing Americans
who wish to see everything sketchily rather than a few thoroughly, so I
think we would better save Enoshima for another day."
"I certainly second that motion," spoke up Nan. "I couldn't come here
too often; it perfectly fascinates me."
A queer little meal was served them,--rice, eggs, dried fish, strange
sweetmeats, the tender young shoots of the bamboo, and various other
things untouched by the guests because undistinguishable. Then forth
again they fared to the hill behind the great Dai Butsu where they
should find the temple of the great goddess of mercy and pity, she to
whom all Japanese mothers pray, for she is the children's protector,
they believe.
Before ascending the steps before the temple, the group stood to
look off at the blue sea and the plain of Kamakura below them. "To
understand Kamakura you must know something of its history," said the
colonel, "but we mustn't take time for that to-day, though I advise you
to read up when you get back. Japan is so full of history, folk-lore
and religious traditions that one can understand only a little of her
great sights until he has made a study of certain great personages and
certain events."
An old priest in white robes appeared at the entrance, as they came up,
and invited them to enter the dim interior, but the great goddess was
not to be seen at once. It required a golden means to bring visitors
this privilege, though the party lingered to look upon the things
at once before them, strange votive offerings, images, lanterns,
inscriptions. Leading the way through a low doorway, the priest ushered
them into a dark and lofty place where at first nothing was visible but
the glimmering light of his lantern.
"Are you able to distinguish anything?" whispered Mr. Harding to Nan.
"Not yet," she answered. "How mysterious it is. Will you tell me what
we are expected to see?"
"Wouldn't you rather the mystery would unfold itself?"
"Yes, I believe I would. Now I see something that looks like a great
golden foot. Another foot. I see some ropes hanging. What are they for?"
The answer came when the priest hung a couple of lanterns to the ropes
and as these were slowly drawn up, the outlines of a figure were
disclosed. Further and further swung the lanterns while expectation
increased.
"I can see the hand," said one.
"Another hand holding a flower," said another.
"The face! the face! there it is," cried Nan, as a smiling visage at
last shone out of the dimness.
"There is more yet," Mr. Harding told her. The "more" proved to be the
crown of maiden's faces in pyramidal shape which surmounted the statue.
The strangely shining figure in the midst of darkness was very eerie
and effective, and they all came away much impressed.
"There are many legends concerning the Kwannon," the colonel told them.
"She is supposed to have given up her right to heavenly peace that all
mankind should be saved by her prayers. She never refuses a petition
except when it is twice made in her name of Hito Koto Kwannon, as it
is not the proper thing to address her twice by this title. Under her
orders the god Jizo Sama looks after the ghosts of little children.
She loves animals and some of the peasants take their cattle to certain
shrines to receive her benediction. She represents all that is womanly
and loving, and is really one of the very choicest of all the deities."
"I am getting bewildered with all these deities and sub-deities,"
declared Eleanor. "They don't seem very beautiful, only very large and
uncouth."
"That is because you have no imagination, my dear," said her brother.
"When you have read all the wonderful legends of this land, you may be
more interested."
"Oh, dear, I never did care for mythology," returned she. "I would much
rather see shops than shrines, and real people than images."
"Philistine of Philistines, isn't she, Miss Nan?"
"Well, I am sure I couldn't spend hours over dead religions and old
worn-out traditions as you do," retorted Eleanor. "You should see Neal
when he gets hold of a book of Japanese folk-lore; he is fairly daffy."
Neal and Nan looked at one another and smiled. Each knew that Eleanor
was a dear girl but was by no means a creature of sentiment. As if by
common consent these two fell behind the others.
"Let us find the sea," said Mr. Harding, and following a rugged path
which led to the shore, passing down old stone steps, or under ancient
gateways, between rocky walls, they finally came to the sea which lay
blue and smiling before them. Wonderful color, mysterious light bathed
earth, water, and sky, touching the soft green of a small island near
by, shimmering upon the silver and sapphire of the water and turning
the sands to mellow gold.
"How wonderfully beautiful," said Nan after she had silently gazed upon
the fairy-like scene. "Is it the island Enoshima?"
"Yes, it is Enoshima, the tortoise, the Sacred Isle," her companion
told her.
"How does one get to it? It almost seems as if we might be spirited
there, or as if we could suddenly develop wings which would carry us."
"There is a perfectly simple way of going at low tide, for there is a
little causeway over which one can pass safely. The tide is up now, but
we will come when it isn't."
"And that means there is another beautiful thing to do. It looks to me
as if we could make Tokyo our headquarters for months to come and yet
not exhaust all the fascinating things within an hour's distance of
it."
"That is quite true, but when the hot weather comes you will be glad to
go up into the mountains somewhere."
"I think that is what Aunt Helen is planning to do. I think we must
turn back now for the others are going."
They left the shining sands, where many little children were picking
up the beautiful shells which lay in great numbers about them, and
followed the rest of the party to the spot where the _jinrikishas_ were
waiting, but they walked so slowly that they were the last to arrive.
"It is much too beautiful to leave," explained Nan. "Couldn't we come
and stay a little while at either Kamakura or Enoshima, Aunt Helen?
There must be somewhere we could be comfortable."
"We shall see," her aunt replied. "We might stay a night or two,
perhaps, but we will determine later."
So, leaving the children on the sands, and the goddess in her temple,
they were borne swiftly through the desolate and forsaken streets of
the once great city that they might take their train back to town.
[Illustration: CHAPTER VII
A FEAST OF BLOSSOMS]
CHAPTER VII
A FEAST OF BLOSSOMS
"The cherry blossoms are here, so says the paper this morning,"
announced Mr. Harding as the girls came down to breakfast one day in
April.
"The paper says so? What do you mean?" said Eleanor.
"It is so important an event, my dear, that the papers always spread
the news abroad," her brother told her. "There will be great doings and
we must not miss them."
"Well, I am sure I am pleased to see something more than temples and
shrines and such old stuff," returned his sister. "What special form of
enticement can you offer us?"
"I was going to suggest a picnic. To be sure Uyeno Park will be crowded
with thousands of people who will take a lunch and go there to enjoy
the blossoms, but as we shall want to see the crowd as well as the
cherry trees we can be satisfied to become parvenu for once."
Eleanor laughed. "As if we never did anything but ride in coaches of
state and sit on a raised dais when we are at home. What do you say,
girls?" She turned to Mary Lee and Nan.
"It will be great," cried Nan enthusiastically, and Mary Lee agreed, if
less heartily.
"We might take a boat and go out on the river," Mr. Harding suggested.
"Ever so many persons do that; in fact, I don't know that the river
will be any less crowded than the shore; still we can keep a little
more to ourselves in a boat. You know the river Sumida's east bank
shows ranks of cherry trees which will exhibit finely from the river.
We can go ashore any time we like to see the people and can pick out
some good place to take a lunch. Would you rather we took a hamper
along or shall we depend upon a tea-house or inn or something like
that?" He turned to Nan.
The girls consulted together for a while and then gave it as their
decision that it would be best to take a hamper. "You see," said Nan,
"when there are such crowds it will be difficult to be properly served
and one may be starved before getting anything to eat."
"Most wisely concluded," approved Mr. Harding. "Well, we will talk it
over with the others and if they all want to do something else there
will be at least some of us to vote for the picnic."
But the others were quite satisfied with the arrangement although Mrs.
Craig at first proposed that they should return to the hotel for lunch.
This plan was so distinctly opposed that she laughingly gave in. "Oh,
dear, dear," she cried, "I wouldn't come back for the world. I am sorry
I spoke. I never met such a unanimity of opinion."
"We want to forget that there are such things as hotels, if we are
to appreciate the spirit of the Feast of Cherry Blossoms," declared
her nephew. "It is an outdoor festival entirely and doesn't mean
conventionality of any kind."
"Oh, very well, very well, I give in," replied his aunt, "but if Miss
Corner and I get tired of crowds and sharp sunlight and noise, you must
allow us the privilege of coming back when we feel like it."
"We shall not put the least restraint upon you," spoke up Eleanor.
"Neal and I are perfectly capable of chaperoning these two girls and
Mr. Montell, who, of course, will come, too; he has been talking about
the cherry blossoms ever since we came."
"I will go and call him up," said her brother, "and then, Nell, suppose
you and I have a secret session to talk over what is to be packed in
the hamper."
"You'd better let me have a word to say about that," spoke up Mrs.
Craig. "Eleanor doesn't know anything about what Tokyo can provide, and
I have had experience, plenty of it."
She was allowed to take part in the conference while the Corners went
off to write letters knowing there would be no further opportunity for
such things that day. However, the start was not made till nearly noon,
Mr. Montell appearing at the last moment, breathless and fearing lest
they had gone without him.
"Couldn't help it," he replied in answer to Mr. Harding's reproach.
"Had to get off some stuff in time for the mail steamer and sat up
nearly all night in order to get it done; it was a long story, and
simply had to be done. Awfully sorry."
"You haven't kept us waiting so very long, Mr. Montell," Eleanor told
him. "Neal, himself, wasn't on time."
"But I was detained at the office," explained Neal.
"Well, that is no better excuse than mine," retorted Mr. Montell.
"Here, here, stop your quarreling, you children," cried Mrs. Craig.
"You are wasting time. Is everything ready, Neal? Then come along." So
off they started to where the _jinrikishas_ were in waiting and it was
not long before they were afloat on the river Sumida, upon the top of
a flower-adorned pleasure boat from which they could see many other as
odd looking crafts, some of them bearing companies of singing girls.
"Isn't it a gay sight?" cried Nan. "It reminds me a little of a fête on
the Grand Canal at Venice, only there one sees no such flowers as these
and there is no such bright color among the costumes."
"It is stretching one's imagination rather far," said Mary Lee, "for I
don't see any resemblance except that there are boats and singing."
"You are so very literal," declared her sister. "I didn't mean that
it was exactly like, only that the spirit is the same and one gets
something the same feelings."
For a mile along the bank of the river the flowering trees extended
presenting an array of double blossoms under which the limbs were
bending. Unlike our own cherry blossoms these were of pale pink, and
against the blue sky looked like huge bouquets.
"I think the trees at Uyeno Park are really more beautiful," said Mrs.
Craig critically. "I think we shall have to see those to-morrow. The
blossoms do not last long and that is one reason of their attraction.
The Japanese admire very much the dropping petals and refer to it
often in their poetry. You see it, too, in their decorations. The
double blossoms which you see here do not mean fruit after a while, for
even the cherries of the single blossoms are not of much account, far
inferior to ours."
"Isn't it so with most of the fruit here?" asked Mary Lee.
"With most, yes, although there is a small orange that is pretty good,
and one can get quite nice figs. They raise small fruits, too, which
are not half bad, but our American markets supply much better things
than one can get here."
Nevertheless when the lunch hamper was opened, there was such a display
of food as might be seen on a similar occasion at home.
"Hard-boiled eggs," cried Nan, peering into the basket. "Now I do feel
as if I were really on a picnic. Chicken salad, is that? Good. I feel
more and more at home. What else is there? Candied ginger, sardines and
crackers, cheese, imported of course. I think this is doing pretty well
for a foreign land. I observe you have some of those nice little rice
cakes as a native production and--a bottle of wine, as I live."
"It is considered a flagrant omission if one doesn't taste wine at this
special festival," explained Mr. Montell. "The natives indulge in
their _saké_ or rice-wine almost too freely, but I observe that Harding
has been careful to observe moderation and has furnished only a very
light variety which will hurt no one."
"Well," said Miss Helen, "I don't see that we have anything to complain
of and are to be congratulated upon having so wise and efficient a
caterer as Mr. Harding."
"Oh, don't lay it to my door," protested the young man. "Nell suggested
the eggs and Aunt Nora a lot of the other things."
It was a merry little party which enjoyed their luncheon in sight of
the flowering trees and within sound of many merrymakers strumming on
_samisens_, singing in queer strident voices perfectly unintelligible
songs and, once in a while, getting a little too uproarious over their
gourds of _saké_.
"They have flower festivals right along through the year, don't they?"
said Eleanor. "What will be the next to come?"
"The wistaria," Mr. Montell told her. "A good place to see those
flowers is at the temple of Kameido, here at Tokyo, I am told. It is
believed that the vines of wistaria flourish better if wine is poured
upon their roots and so many a drop is allowed to trickle from the
wine-cups used there."
"After the wistaria, what?" inquired Mary Lee.
"The iris. Where's a good place to find those, Neal?" Mr. Montell
turned to his friend.
"Just right here close to this river, at a place called Horikiri. It is
a great sight to see the crowds on the river then. The flower blooms
in June in what is the rainy season, but there are opportunities of
getting out between drops. After the iris come the midsummer flowers,
the peony and the lotus. The lotus has a religious significance and is
specially dedicated to the water goddess Benten whose temple we are
going to see at Enoshima. Of course we know the chrysanthemum comes in
the fall; it is made much of because it is about the last flower of
the year. Many think it the national flower, but the cherry blossom
is really that, although the chrysanthemum is honored at court and a
magnificent show is given every year in the palace gardens. The royal
bird of Japan is the crane as you may have guessed for you so often see
it in decorations."
"Isn't it interesting?" whispered Nan to her aunt, "and don't you wish
we had sentiment enough to do such things at home? Is the chrysanthemum
the very last flower festival of the year?" She turned to ask Mr.
Harding.
"Oh, no; at least I should say that with slight modification. The Maple
Festival is the last, but that is not exactly a flower festival; it
is given at the time when the maple leaves show their most brilliant
colors. Other trees turn at the same time and it is the time for
picnics and for gathering mushrooms which is made a jollification. You
make up a party to gather mushrooms in the country and you enjoy the
autumn foliage at the same time."
"What fun! I am going to organize just such a sport when I go home,"
declared Nan.
Luncheon over, they all decided to join the crowd on the banks of the
river. Nan found herself by Mr. Harding's side as they joined the
throng of revelers. "I want to tell you about a princess of the old
days," he said. "She was not a reasonable young person and declared
that she was going to give a cherry-blossom party although the month
was December. As a princess must have anything she desired, the court
was in despair till some one hit upon a happy plan. The result was that
an army of workers was set about making paper blossoms, pink and white,
which were fastened on the bare trees and gave so realistic a look to
them that the garden party was a great success."
"Where could that happen but in Japan?" said Nan, pleased with the
tale. "They make paper flowers so wonderfully that I can imagine the
effect was all that could be desired. I have but one thing against
these really fascinating people, and that is their music. Did you ever
hear anything so dreadful as that singing, for instance?"
"Yet I have heard some little songs which were quite lovely. There is a
lullaby which I recall, and which I am sure you will agree is as tender
and plaintive as anything we could produce. If I had my violin here I
could show you how it goes."
"Oh, do you play the violin?" Nan asked eagerly.
"Yes, a little, and you play the piano very well."
"Nell told you that, of course. I don't play anywhere near as well as I
want to, but I do enjoy it. Is your violin here, and can't you play for
us some time?"
"I have it at my rooms, but please don't think I am anything of a
musician although my violin is a great solace to me. When my aunt gets
back to her own house we must have some music. She has a piano there,
you know."
Nan gave a sigh of pleasure. "I didn't realize how I missed my music
till you began to talk about it," she said. "Even Japan has some
disadvantages."
"But doesn't one enjoy a thing all the more after he has been deprived
of it a while? We can make but one prayer to Kwannon, you remember, and
I suppose that means that we should not ask too much of heaven."
Nan's eyes looked starry and bright as they always did when she was
deeply interested. "I liked Kwannon," she said, "but I believe I liked
the great bronze Buddha better."
"I thought you did, and so I brought you a little souvenir to-day to
commemorate that visit to Kamakura." He drew from his pocket a very
small but exquisitely carved figure of the Buddha. It was of jade, and
was really a most beautiful piece of work.
"For me?" exclaimed Nan, as he gave it into her hand.
"If you will honor me by taking it. I thought you would like it as a
souvenir."
"I should love it, but I don't know if I ought----" She hesitated.
"To take it from your friend's brother? Why not? It is not such a
mighty gift."
"No," returned Nan doubtfully, "only it is so very beautifully done,
and is really a treasure. I am afraid I shall have to take it."
Mr. Harding laughed.
Nan grew confused. "Oh, please don't think I mean that I don't
appreciate it, for I do, very much. It is because I want so dreadfully
much to keep it that I was afraid I shouldn't."
"Then please don't have any more compunctions."
"I won't, and I thank you so much. I consider it one of my very
greatest and most valuable gifts."
"You will see so many more rare and beautiful things while you are here
that you will soon learn how insignificant this little souvenir is.
Isn't this a gay and happy crowd? Like a flock of bright butterflies,
isn't it? They all wear their very best on such a day."
"The children particularly. What gorgeous kimonos and _obis_ some of
them have, and how they do love flowers."
They wandered on, sometimes coming up to the rest of their party,
sometimes falling behind, and at last all returned to the boat for
another slow journey on the river, and at last to return to the hotel
well pleased with this first of their picnics in Japan.
The next day gave promise of rainy weather, and so they hurried to
the Uyeno Park to see the trees there, which were already shedding
their blossoms. These trees, it must be said, were more impressive in
size and showed, against a background of evergreen trees, to better
advantage than had those on the cherry avenue along the banks of the
river. They contrasted well, too, with the surroundings.
"And here," said Mr. Montell, "is where we hang verses on the trees, I
hope you all have yours ready."
There was a scramble for paper and pencils, and each one set about
the task of writing rhymes in order to follow out the pretty custom.
Presently Nan jumped up and waved her paper. "My ode is completed," she
cried.
"You might know Nan would be the first," remarked Eleanor. "Rhyming
always came as easy to her as rolling off a log. Let's see, Nan."
But Nan shook her head. "No, it might spoil the charm. I am going to
dispose of it at once." This she did, picking out a particularly lovely
tree whose low-hanging branches allowed her to reach up higher than
could most of the young Japanese maidens who had already followed the
custom.
"This is literally hanging one's verses in the wind as Emerson said,"
Nan remarked as she came back. "Who is next?"
There was no immediate answer but presently Mr. Harding left his place
and Nan, watching, saw that he had hung his paper by the side of hers.
"I don't see how he knew exactly which tree and which branch," she
said to herself, and was convinced that he must have watched her very
closely.
In due time the little poems were all tied in place and then Mrs. Craig
declared that it was time to go. It was always a temptation to stop
at some of the many curio shops on the way, but this time they were
carried to their destination without any delay for it was beginning
to rain, and although they were well sheltered by the curtains of the
_jinrikishas_, they did not fancy being caught out in a downpour.
That night Nan took out her little jade figure and showed it to Mary
Lee, telling of having been given it by Mr. Harding.
"It seems to me you have a case," declared Mary Lee. "Nobody has taken
the trouble to pick me out a souvenir as fine as that."
"Perhaps some one will," returned Nan nonchalantly. "Don't you think
this is a particularly good piece of carving? I was always crazy about
jade and I am pleased beyond words to have this. I felt awkward about
taking it at first because it is really valuable."
"Or would be at home. No doubt one can pick up such things here for
very little, that is if one knows where to go."
That eased Nan's conscience and she put away the small charm without
further qualms.
They had been in bed some time when from Mary Lee came the question,
"Do you ever hear from Rob Powell, Nan?"
"I haven't heard for some time," returned Nan.
"Does he know you are here?"
"I don't think so, unless Rita has told him."
"Who wrote last, you or Rob?"
"He did, I believe."
"Nan Corner, I believe you have turned him down, yet you used to like
Rob."
"I liked him very much but I was never in love with him, if that is
what you mean."
"You used to talk about him a lot."
"Probably because I wasn't in love with him."
Mary Lee turned this speech over in her mind and decided that when Nan
began to talk about Neal Harding a great deal she might take it for
granted that there was no sentiment on Nan's side in that quarter. That
Neal was strongly attracted to Nan she required not much perspicuity
to see, and Mary Lee determined that she would keep her eyes open and,
what was more, she would make a study of the young man, for it would be
hard for any one to be found quite good enough for this eldest of the
four Corners, the others thought. "If it gets very serious I will talk
to Aunt Helen about it," decided Mary Lee, and with this thought in her
mind, she glided into the land of dreams.
[Illustration: CHAPTER VIII
FLYING FISH]
CHAPTER VIII
FLYING FISH
The rain lasted several days, the weather promising to be damp, humid
and unpleasant from this time out. "Japan is most enervating," sighed
Miss Helen. "Of course I knew its reputation as to climate, but I
didn't quite realize how devitalizing it really would prove to be. If
you girls have energy enough to go forth in the rain to view temples
and curios and mission schools, you must not count on me as a constant
companion." So the young people "flocked together," as Eleanor put it,
and spent a part, at least, of each day in seeing shrines and such
temples as could be reached without too much effort. Mrs. Craig was
occupied in arranging for quarters at some cooler spot in the mountains
and Miss Helen was half inclined to yield to her persuasions to become
a neighbor if a suitable house could be found.
"I think it would be great fun to have a Japanese house of our own, for
a little while anyhow," said Mary Lee, but Nan was not so sure that she
wanted to leave Tokyo yet.
"There is much more to see," she urged as her reason.
"We could come back to it," argued her aunt.
"But it will get hotter and hotter," said Nan, "and more mosquitoish
and we shall not want to come back until the summer is over," she added.
"Well, we needn't begin to argue about it yet," put in Mary Lee, "for
we couldn't go anyhow until Mrs. Craig finds a place for us, and that
will not be so easy to do."
So they lingered on in the rain, amusing themselves in many ways. Mr.
Harding was very busy just at this time and was not able to give them
much of his society, but Mr. Montell appeared frequently and Colonel
Craig escorted them to many interesting places, to the museum in Uyeno
Park, to the Zoölogical Garden, to Asakusa, or up and down the Ginza,
the principal shopping street of the city.
"For my part," said Nan one day, as she and Mary Lee were being drawn
rapidly through the rain to make a second visit to the temples of
Asakusa, "I think it is really amusing to see the streets on a rainy
day. It is ridiculously funny to watch the people with paper umbrellas
and those queer clogs. Look at our runner, too; isn't he a sight, with
his queer hat and that straw thatch of a cloak to keep off the rain?
He looks so like the pictures we see that when I get to dreaming I can
fancy the whole thing is unreal and that I am not here at all, but am
looking at a moving picture show."
"Yes, but the _jinrikisha_ men don't say 'Hi! Hi!' every few minutes as
this one does," returned Mary Lee who was tenacious in the matter of
absolute facts.
Nan laughed. The two were so very different, yet as they grew older
were closer companions than they had been in their early days. Common
experiences at college and in their travels had given them a better
relation.
As they peeped out from behind the oilcloth curtain which protected
them from the rain, they could see other _jinrikishas_ drawn by similar
straw-draped coolies, the water dripping down their legs, and their
ceaseless note of warning calling attention to their advance through
the narrow streets. They could see, too, women and children trotting
along on their high clogs and wearing their rain-proof garments over
which they held their umbrellas of oiled paper, so that, in spite of
rain, the scene was not lacking color. Once in a while, a Buddhist
priest or nun would be seen, and through the open fronts of the
tea-houses along the way could be discerned squatting figures before
tiny tables, eating with chop-sticks.
"Wouldn't it be fun to have a real Japanese party when we get back?"
said Mary Lee. "We can get some chop-sticks and lacquered trays and
things such as they have here."
"So we could," Nan fell in with alacrity. "We could have a _hibachi_,
too, and we might, on a pinch, arrange a room just as one would look in
a Japanese house here."
"And serve tea and rice cakes."
"Yes, and learn exactly the way to present a tray and to make a
ceremonial bow. We could wear kimonos, of course, and could try to do
our hair in Japanese style. We must get very handsome _obis_, for they
are what determines a Japanese girl's dress."
"Do you notice how little jewelry they wear? Scarce any except handsome
hair ornaments."
"That is so. We must not forget to buy some more hair ornaments; they
will make lovely Christmas gifts. It will entertain us on some of
the rainy days to go forth and provide the proper things for a real
Japanese tea. We can have Joe come over to help us, and it will be
great larks."
"We can give one another Japanese names; they have such funny ones.
Imagine being called Bamboo Corner, or Tiger Corner, or some such queer
name."
"But some of the names are very poetical, and not unlike those we use,
flower names, like Lotus and Plum; those are not very different from
our Rose and Violet."
"But nobody would think of calling a daughter Years of Bliss, not in
the old United States."
"An Indian might, and as I think of it the Japanese do give names which
mean in their language much the same that Indian names mean."
"I hadn't thought of that, but I believe you are right," returned Mary
Lee.
They had now arrived before the gateway to the Park Asakusa, seeing
before them oddly-shaped stone lanterns. On each side stood guardian
figures known as the Two Kings. Once inside the gate were paved walks
bordered by ancient cedar trees, hardly in keeping with the booths
and shows which occupied the grounds. In spite of rain these were in
operation, for here was a perpetual market-place where one could be
amused on any day. The _jinrikishas_ stopped to allow the party to
alight and they all then stood before the great five-storied pagoda
with its red roof.
"Shoes off, slippers on," said Eleanor slipping off her foot gear.
"And don't forget to wash your face and hands, nor your mouth and hands
at the stone trough," Nan reminded her. They all went through this
ceremony and went further in encountering the dealers in incense to be
burned before the gods, and the sellers of rice for the sacred pigeons.
"We must get something for the horse," said Mary Lee, and after
supplying herself with some cooked peas on a small plate she offered
the food to a snow-white, pale-eyed animal who is dedicated to the
goddess Kwannon. This office performed, they went inside to feed the
pigeons and to hear an interesting talk from Colonel Craig who had made
a study of this old temple.
The place was dimly lighted and full of the smoke of incense which,
rising continually, made all objects indistinct,--glimmering Buddhas,
strange pictures, streamers, banners, statues. The sound of chanting,
and of startlingly queer musical instruments mingled with the clapping
of the hands of worshipers kneeling before the various altars,
while not in the least restrained, little children ran softly over
the pavement laughing as they threw their handfuls of rice to the
fluttering pigeons.
After they had made their rounds and had heard about early and late
Japanese architecture, about other Pine Tree temples than that of
Asakusa, and about the various shrines including that of the little
Bindzuru, made of red lacquer and seated in a chair, they felt the
pangs of hunger and were glad when the colonel proposed an adjournment
to one of the various tea-houses in the grounds.
"We can refresh the inner man and then we can go to the circus or the
museum or anywhere else you like," he said.
So off they went under the dripping cedars to find a modest little
tea-house where they were received thankfully and were served a simple
meal by a little smiling _musmeé_ who drew up the tiny low tables
before them where they sat hunched up on the floor cushions. The
colonel and Nan found it hard to dispose their feet gracefully, much to
the entertainment of the small maid who knelt before them to present
her lacquered tray.
"Watch how she does it," whispered Nan to her sister, "for we must
learn the trick before we leave this little country."
Mary Lee nodded understandingly and kept her eyes on the girl who
smiled in response to such close observation.
The meal over, off they went to the museum and, but for the rain, would
have stopped to see a fortune-teller who tried to lure them into her
booth.
"We couldn't understand what she said, so what's the use?" remarked
Mary Lee.
In some such manner were many rainy days spent, but at last there came
a morning in May when the sun shone, and when from houses far and near
floated strange figures of fish, "The Honorable Carp," for this was the
Boy's Festival, and, as good luck would have it, the sun shone.
"Come and see! Come and see!" cried Mary Lee as she looked from the
window that morning. "Isn't it a sight?"
"What is?" Nan hurried over. "Oh, we forgot entirely that this would be
the fifth of May and that we might expect to see his honor, the carp,
flying all over the city."
"I remember now, and Mr. Montell told us all about it. The carp is the
symbol of courage and bravery which are the two things Japanese boys
are taught to acquire."
"Those qualities, and loyalty to the emperor for whom any one of them
would cheerfully die and say thank you."
"Why carp, I wonder. Why not shark or whale or dolphin, for example?"
"Because the carp is supposed to smile sweetly when you carve a slice
from his living self, and to say, 'Hack away, good people; it doesn't
hurt me and seems to please you.'"
"So that is why they serve them alive at dinners. I suppose it is to
keep the much admired qualities continually in evidence. It doesn't
seem quite fair to poor Brer Carp, whatever effect it may have on the
little boys."
"I wonder why five fish are flying from that house over there," said
Nan looking in the direction where the figures which, made like a bag
and filled with the blowing wind, swelled their sides and flopped their
tails quite realistically.
"There must be five boys in that house and the biggest fish stands for
the youngest and littlest boy."
"Stands, did I hear you say?"
"Well then, wriggles or swims, whatever you like."
"I wonder what those little gilt baskets represent. They are baskets,
aren't they? Over there on the long bamboo pole in front of that house
that has the three fishes flying."
"Oh, those are supposed to hold the rice balls with which they feed the
real fish. Some of the houses have other ornaments, you see; flags and
signs and things. It looks very gay, doesn't it? But there isn't much
of a crowd on the street, no more than usual."
"I like that legend of the _koi_, as they call the carp. He is said to
be very persevering about swimming up-stream against the rapids and
when he actually can fight his way up a waterfall he is caught up by a
white cloud and becomes a dragon."
"That is why so many dragons, then."
"And by the same token, it is the why of fishes and waterfalls, and
little gold balls in so many of the decorations. Isn't it queer that no
matter at what time of year a boy is born his birthday is celebrated on
May fifth?"
"Quite a matter of economy where there are several boys. Do you
remember how Jack always used to feel aggrieved, when she was little,
because she and Jean had to celebrate their birthday on the same day?
She felt that you and I had the best of it because there were two days
of feasting and party-giving instead of one for the two of us."
"Dear old Jack," said Nan with a sigh. "I tell you, Mary Lee, it will
be mighty good to see those twinnies again and mother. As for mother it
seems a year since we left her."
"We mustn't get homesick on a festival day. Let us go down and hear
what is going on that we can join in. No doubt Mrs. Craig will have
something on hand for to-day."
But there was nothing more exciting proposed than a ride through the
streets and an invitation from the colonel to dine at some pleasant
spot out of town where they could see a mass of iris in bloom.
Meantime, Mr. Harding, who had a little leisure from his duties at
the legation, entertained them with stories of the festival. "I have
a Japanese friend who has told me some interesting things about his
boyhood," he began. "It used to be the custom to decorate the fronts of
the houses with iris leaves on May fifth, at least such houses as might
be the home of a boy, and in order that the lads should have a definite
idea of what real fighting meant and in order to inure them to hardship
they were obliged to rise at three or four o'clock on a winter morning,
then, barefoot and with but one garment upon his little body, the
youngster had to go to the fencing field where he had to do his best at
sword play. He was not more than eight years old when he was expected
to do this in order that he might learn not to fall into luxurious
habits."
"Poor little fellow," said Nan compassionately. "Imagine an American
boy doing such a thing. Wouldn't he think it hard lines?"
"He surely would, for even though he may be a farmer's son, he isn't
expected to go out barefoot and so slightly clad on a winter morning."
"Tell us some more boy doings," said Eleanor.
"You will see them with their little swords at mock battle even
to-day, and if you could go into one of their homes you would observe
that the decorations were in keeping with the spirit of the festival.
Iris will be the flower partly because of its sword-like leaves and
partly because the iris is supposed to have qualities for giving
strength. Our Japanese boy will have the leaves thrown into his hot
bath, and if there be more than one boy the eldest will have the first
turn."
"It is the funniest thing how they seem to pop into a hot bath upon all
occasions," remarked Eleanor. "I believe some of them stay there most
of the time in winter in order to keep warm."
"There is really some truth in that. You see there are a great many hot
springs in Japan and their means of heating houses are not like ours,
so as nature provides liquid heat why not take advantage of it?"
"Didn't I hear some one say that the carp is the emblem of good luck as
well as of strength and courage?" asked Nan.
"Yes, and that gives him a double cause for being used as ornament.
Last year I went to a native house on the fifth of May when I saw a
lot of carp swimming about in a tub. They had been sent as a present
in honor of the arrival of a young son. I learned it is the custom to
do this. There was an older son in the family and he took me into the
best room which is called the guest room, and there I saw the most
exquisite arrangement of flowers I ever came across, but the flowers
were of small account to the boy by the side of his toy weapons and
soldierly figures all in array. Soldiers on horseback, men in armor,
bows and arrows, swords, spears, strange emblematical banners and such
things, and each figure represents some hero, some tale of loyalty or
courage which the little boys are taught to know by heart. The figures
are really portraits and as such are more appealing than ordinary ones
would be. It was all very interesting and if I had a better knowledge
of the language, I could have understood the stories better, but as it
was, I heard enough to be impressed."
"Dear me, I wish we knew some Japanese boys," said Eleanor.
"The family I spoke of is not here now," her brother told her, "or we
could go to their house to-day."
"At all events," said Nan, "it is very nice to hear of your experience
and we had the delight of seeing the dolls on exhibition in March."
"They have special cakes for to-day and red rice is served," Mr.
Harding went on, "and in their _saké_ they scatter iris petals. The
boys hope for some warlike toy when their 'honorable father Mr.' gives
them anything. So you may see the little fellows playing soldier with a
new sword, a little gun, a bow and arrows or something of that kind."
Later in the day as they went through the streets in front of the
little brown, low houses they did see the boys playing soldier quite as
one might see them at home, and as the young people walked along, below
the flapping fish with their gaping mouths, staring eyes and glittering
fins, they saw little confusion.
Colonel Craig met them with a tiny gold carp for each girl as a
souvenir of the day and on their bill of fare the _koi_ was in
evidence, although not alive as he should properly have been in
Japanese estimation. The spot the colonel had chosen was close to the
river Sumida and near to fields of iris, not yet in their full glory
which would be attained in June, still, at this season, one could stand
upon the banks and look down upon the flowers already sending up their
gay banners.
"Such a flowery, fairy-like land is this," said Nan to Mr. Harding who,
as usual, had sought her out. "I hate to think of how it is changing,
and how they are adopting our ugly costumes in place of their own
picturesque one. Your aunt says at all public functions and even at
private social gatherings the European dress is always worn."
"Yes, that is very true, though I fancy that it is exchanged for the
native one as soon as home is reached. The Japanese are very proud
of their progress in European habits and customs and cannot bear to
have you deplore it. They think that it would mean a retrogression
if they retained the old Japan. They would rather be praised for
their industries than their temples, for their political acumen than
their flower culture and for their wealth than their picturesqueness.
The American market calls for so much that is in bad taste that we
cannot expect their own not to be vitiated. Vulgar wealth calls for
ostentation and why should they retain simplicity? We are a great
nation whose success is enviable and why not imitate us in all matters?"
"It is discouraging," sighed Nan, "but I suppose it is the law of
compensation. As we acquire some love of the artistic so it is lost
by those who supply us with what appeals to a growing taste for the
beautiful, and so civilization levels."
"At the rate that foreign art treasures are pouring into the United
States we shall soon expect to find more at home than abroad."
"They won't take up the Forum and Pompeii, nor the Egyptian pyramids,"
said Nan with satisfaction, "so I shall still expect to have enough to
last my lifetime."
"There is nothing like finding a cause for congratulation under all
circumstances," replied Mr. Harding with a laugh. "I knew you were an
optimist."
"Except sometimes when I get a fit of real indigo blues and can see no
rose-color anywhere."
"Oh, yes, that happens to most of us. I get struck bally west by the
blues myself once in a while and then----"
"What do you do?"
"I get out my violin."
"That reminds me that you have not yet played for me. The next rainy
day we must have some music, now that your aunt has taken up a
residence in her own house."
"Agreed. We will make it a compact to hie us to a rainy day festival as
soon as occasion requires, and we shall not have to wait long for it,
if I know anything about Japanese springs."
Here the rest joined them and it was voted that a boat might provide a
good means of seeing more of the iris fields. This was decided upon,
theirs not being the only one upon the river, for they discovered it
to be quite the fashion to go boating at iris time quite as it was when
the cherry blossoms invited a crowd to gaze upon the flowering trees.
[Illustration: CHAPTER IX
A RAINY DAY]
CHAPTER IX
A RAINY DAY
"Rain, rain, rain," said Mary Lee looking disconsolately out of
the window a few mornings after the day of the Boy's Festival. "It
certainly is discouraging. We have seen all the sights within easy
distance of Tokyo and even of Yokohama. We have spent all our allowance
on frivolous trinkets at the curio shops and markets, and I, for one,
wish we could go somewhere else. I am tired of rainy days in Tokyo."
"Oh, I don't mind in the least," returned Nan cheerfully. "I am rather
glad of a real true rainy day, for then you can be absolutely decided
about your plans; when it is a question of whether it is going to rain
or not it keeps one in a very fretful state of mind."
"But what is there to do but write letters? I have no desire to add to
the number of my correspondents and I have already written to every
one."
"Begin over again. You can't write too often to mother and the girls,
nor to Jo."
"You are so annoyingly cheerful about giving advice that I believe you
have some plan for yourself up your sleeve."
Nan laughed. "Well, to tell you the truth, I have." She turned with
heightened color from the window.
"Well, out with it. What is your alluring project?"
"I hope, at least I expect, to go to Mrs. Craig's for some music."
"Oh, dear," sighed Mary Lee. "I might have known I would be counted out
on this depressing day of all times. It only adds to the grievance to
have Mrs. Craig no longer here at the hotel and to have Eleanor gone,
too."
"Why not come along and flock with Nell? Mrs. Craig begs that we shall
feel perfectly at home and says she counts on us to keep Nell in good
spirits."
"But there is Aunt Helen. Shall it be said that we have both deserted
her on a hopeless day like this?"
Nan looked sober. "I did promise," she said wistfully.
Mary Lee regarded her with a little smile. "I won't be hard on you, old
girl," she said. "I know what I can do; I can call up Nell and get her
to come over in a 'jinriki,' for at least part of the day, and unless
you intend to make a day of it yourself we can arrange some other
thing for the afternoon."
"Nice child," returned Nan commendingly. "That is just the ticket. Of
course I shall have to find out first at what hour Mr. Harding can get
away, but I think it will be the morning after eleven."
"Oh, Mr. Harding," returned Mary Lee in pretended surprise. "Did you
expect to meet him at his aunt's?"
"Why, why," Nan began blunderingly, "I--we--did plan to have some
music." Then seeing the mischievous look on Mary Lee's face, she cried,
"I have half a mind to box your ears; you knew perfectly well what I
meant."
Mary Lee laughed. "It is fun to get a rise out of you, Nan, once in a
while; I don't often get a chance nowadays. All right, you find out
about when you are going and I will make my arrangements accordingly."
She did not have to wait long, for while they were talking, came a
message that Miss Corner was wanted at the 'phone and after a short
absence from the room Nan returned to say that she was to be on hand by
eleven o'clock, and that she would take a "jinriki" over, and she would
find out what Aunt Helen wanted to do. So it was decided that Mary
Lee should remain on hand. "To keep the lid on Aunt Helen," as she
expressed it. "Then you go on and let Nell come back in your 'riksha if
she will."
Nan started off in the pelting rain snugly tucked in and not minding
it in the least. There were always sights to see and she was perfectly
secure from wet, although her coolie was dashing through puddles and
the rain was pouring from his straw cloak and down his legs in a manner
which showed the extent of the downpour. He did not seem to mind it
in the least, however, and in fact appeared to enjoy it. Mrs. Craig
had taken possession of a comfortable house in the European quarter of
the town and before this the runner stopped short, drawing up closely
enough to the door to allow Nan to alight without getting wet, a paper
umbrella held over her head shielding her to the very entrance.
A Japanese servant bowed low to the floor and ushered her inside, but
before he could announce her, Eleanor came running in. "I knew you
would be here," she said. "Neal has already announced your coming. He
has been tuning his fiddle and giving us preliminary flourishes for the
last ten minutes. I was left out when they were giving musical talents,
you know, and Neal got it all. You may well remember my futile efforts
at singing college songs in those halcyon days of yore."
"I do remember well, and so I infer that a concerted performance
will not be so greatly enjoyed by your fair self that you will not be
willing to forego it. Mary Lee is in a state of doldrums and wants you
to come over."
"To share the doldrums?"
"To scare them away. She is wearied of the rain, and proposed that you
should return in the rikky I have just left. As near as I could make
the man understand he is to wait."
Eleanor went to the window. "He is still there, so he evidently
understood. I don't want to desert you, but I know perfectly well when
two musical cranks get together there is no hope for an outsider and so
I shall leave you and Neal to your own devices, expecting still to find
you when I get back. Aunt Nora has gone out but she left word that you
must not fail to stay to lunch. She has gone now to get some octapus
tentacles or some other Japanese horror as a delicacy for you."
Nan would not promise to stay, but as the sounds of a violin came from
an inner room, she followed Eleanor to where her friend declared her
brother was waiting impatiently.
The young man came forward, his violin tucked under his arm and the
bow in his hand. "So glad you could come," he said. "I have brought
some music, but I shall expect a solo first to pay me for waiting ten
minutes."
"I have heard Nan Corner play too many times for it to be a rarity
to me," declared Eleanor, "so I shall go and get ready for my ride.
Perhaps you'd better explain to the man, Neal. He is waiting outside,
and may refuse to take back a different person from the one he
brought." She hurried off while her brother went out to make the matter
clear to the coolie.
When he returned Nan was sitting at the piano softly and caressingly
trying a little nocturne. It seemed good to touch the keys again and
for a few moments she was lost to all but the music she had in mind,
but after a while she stopped and began to sound only a few chords. A
soft clapping made her turn to see Mr. Harding standing behind her.
"I heard you play that once before," he said.
"You heard me? Where?"
"At Bettersley in your freshman year."
"But how did it come about? I am sure I never saw you."
"No, for you had hardly made my sister's acquaintance then. I had run
up to see her and she took me to one of your club-houses. You were at
the piano playing."
"And you never told me in all this time."
"No, for you see I did not meet you on that occasion and at first I
did not associate you with the dark-haired girl who was playing Chopin
at Bettersley four years ago."
Nan arose. "Now since I have finished the solo you demanded, let us
look over your music."
"Oh, but you didn't play that expressly for me."
"For whom then?"
"For yourself, didn't you? I exact the fulfilment of my claim. Please
play something else."
Nan hesitated, but she was not one of those who required persistent
urging so she sat down again and played a dainty little shadow dance.
"That seems to express Japan better than anything else I know," she
said when she had finished.
"I think you have responded to its call," said her companion. "Thank
you, Miss Nan. Now then what shall we do?"
They looked over the music together, finally settling down to a sonata
and giving themselves up entirely to its requirements. An hour passed,
then another hour and still they played on while the rain beat outside
and those within the house came and went all unheeded. At last a voice
interrupted a discussion they were having over a certain passage.
"Well," said Mrs. Craig, "aren't you two pretty nearly ready to drop?
But no, I needn't ask. I have lived with musicians before and I know
how indefatigable they can be. I have just had a 'phone message from
Eleanor who says she will stay to lunch with Mary Lee unless you are
coming back, which of course you will not think of doing. Tiffin is
ready."
"Dear me, is it so late?" said Nan springing up. "We have had such a
good time. I had no idea how long we had been at it. Thank you, Mrs.
Craig; if Eleanor is going to stay with Mary Lee I will accept your
very kind invitation. You do not know how good it seems to get hold of
a piano again."
"I had to have mine brought out, for we can't tell how long we may be
here, and I like to drum a little myself."
"Aunt Nora plays well," Mr. Harding declared.
"But not near so well as you do, Nan. You are a real artist. I have
been listening to you with the greatest interest; it was such a
delightful entertainment for a rainy day."
"It certainly was for me," returned Nan simply, as she followed her
hostess to the dining-room where the colonel presently joined them, and
where they made merry over their meal.
It was a temptation to remain and to continue the music, but Mr.
Harding said regretfully that he must return to his office while Nan
declared that she was imposing on Mary Lee by staying away all day, so
she called up Eleanor to know if Mary Lee wanted to return with her.
The reply was that Mary Lee did not intend to go out, and that Nan had
better return as soon as she could, as Eleanor was about leaving. It
was Mary Lee herself who did the talking. There was something a little
agitated and mysterious in the way she spoke and she urged Nan's return
so decidedly as to cause some apprehension on Nan's part.
However, she said nothing of this to Mrs. Craig but started off as soon
as she could, feeling a little worried at what might have happened in
her absence. She hoped Miss Helen was not ill, or that there had been
no bad news from home. She hurried to her room as soon as possible
after arriving at the hotel. Mary Lee met her at the door. She looked
excited but not worried. "What is the matter?" asked Nan anxiously.
"Matter? What should be the matter?"
"I thought maybe something might have happened while I was away. There
is no bad news, is there?"
"Why should you think that?"
"I don't know, only that you made such a point of my coming soon. Aunt
Helen is not ill, is she?"
"No indeed, but as soon as you take off your things you'd better go in
and see her."
Nan wondered a little at this and hastened to take the hint. She
knocked at her aunt's door, received the customary answer, "Come in,"
and entered the room to see a familiar figure sitting there. She could
scarcely believe her eyes, but in another second she had rushed across
the floor crying, "Oh, mother, mother, you dear, dear mother!" and in
another instant was clasped in her mother's arms.
"How did you get here? When did you come? How did you leave the
twinnies?" the questions came thick and fast.
But before they were answered, a little suppressed giggle sounded
from some mysterious corner and Nan sprang to her feet. "That sounded
exactly like Jack," she exclaimed. "I do believe she is here," and
then from behind a screen, out rushed Jack to be hugged and kissed and
exclaimed over.
Hardly was this excitement over and the questioning begun again, before
the screen was pushed aside and out walked Jean, as demure as you
please, and then there was more exclaiming and wondering and querying.
"You don't happen to have any one else back there, do you?" inquired
Nan, going over to examine the space behind the screen. "I feel as if
this were something like a sleight-of-hand performance when they let
doves out of little boxes and rabbits from pockets. Do sit down and
tell me all about it."
"Well, it is just this way," said her mother. "There were some cases of
scarlet fever in the dormitory where the girls were, and as Jean was
not well I was afraid she might fall a victim in case of an epidemic,
and so I took the two girls away, for I wanted to run no risk. It was
so near the end of the term that I think they can make up the lost
time next year, and as I thought it over it seemed to me they might
profit as much by a trip to Japan as by keeping on with their college
work, so we talked it over and I concluded to start right off to join
you. I must confess that a very large longing to see my other two had
something to do with the decision. Japan seemed such a very long way
off and it seemed to me it would work greatly to my content to know
that we were all together. We reached Yokohama early this morning and
did not waste much time in getting here."
"And have you been here long?"
"No, we came just before luncheon. We wanted to give you a surprise, so
we prevailed upon Eleanor to stay and thus put you off the track."
"But I did suspect something," Nan told her, "for Mary Lee could not
keep the excitement out of her voice. Oh, me, but it is good to see
you. You came through California, of course. Did you stop to see the
Robertses?"
"They came up to San Francisco to see us off," her mother told her.
"Carter, too?"
"Yes, Carter, too. They gave us a great send-off."
"Did you stop at Honolulu?"
"Only so long as the steamer was there. We saw a little of it, but we
were too anxious to get on to tarry there over a sailing."
Nan sat on the floor hugging her knees and looking from one to another
with a beaming smile. "Isn't it larks?" she said rocking back and
forth, then making a grab for Jack she rolled her over and began
hugging her anew. "You dear old sinner, it is good to behold you
again," she declared, and Jack, nothing loth, snuggled up to her and
chattered away. Thus the rainy day passed in a more exciting manner
than many a sunshiny one had done.
It was not till they were preparing for bed that Mary Lee thought to
ask Nan about her morning's pleasure. "Did you have a good time, and
did Mr. Harding come?" she asked.
"Oh, yes, and it was all so delightful that I didn't know how the time
was going," Nan replied.
"Does he play well?"
"Very sympathetically."
"As well as your one time friend, Mr. Wells?"
"He has not such execution but I think he plays with more feeling," Nan
answered after a pause. "He is more modest about his playing, too."
"So, take it all in all, it appeals to you more strongly."
Nan smiled reminiscently. How long ago that early summer madness
appeared in the light of later experiences. "What a callow creature I
was," she said.
"And I suppose in five years you will be saying the same about this
present little affair."
Nan did not reply to this but instead asked, "Did Jack say anything
about Carter?"
"Not one word. I am afraid she is a heartless youngster."
"Poor old Cart," returned Nan. "However, Mary Lee, Jack may be all
right at heart; she generally is, though she is so thoughtless. I shall
talk to her and see if she has any confidences to give. She is mighty
young yet and we can scarcely expect her to be anything but a flyaway.
She looks well."
"And so does Jean. I think mother was wise to bring them away from
possible danger."
"Dear old mother, she always does just the right thing."
"Of course," returned Mary Lee as if that were a question no one could
doubt. "I suppose now that Jack has arrived we may look for lively
times, Nan," a prophecy which was not without fulfilment as was later
seen.
"Well, you were wishing for excitement this morning," returned Nan,
"but we certainly did not expect it to be furnished by Jack. Isn't it
just the climax of our pleasure here, Mary Lee, to have mother and the
girls? We shall have to stay in Tokyo for a while anyway to let them
see the sights."
"And I suppose," said Mary Lee slyly, "you are not sorry for the
excuse."
Nan pretended not to understand this thrust, and went on discussing
plans while Mary Lee had her own thoughts about Nan's satisfaction in
the prolonged stay in Tokyo.
[Illustration: CHAPTER X
A SACRED ISLE]
CHAPTER X
A SACRED ISLE
Jack's entrance into the group reminded one of the sudden appearance
of a very lively trout into a quiet pool of goldfish. She had seen
half the town by evening of the next day, had already begun a Japanese
vocabulary which she did not hesitate to use with frequency, had quite
captured the colonel at whom she fired questions with such accuracy
and precision that she had a dozen legends of Fujiyama at her tongue's
end, and was beginning a study of the religions. She decided offhand
that Mr. Montell should be relegated to Eleanor and that she was not to
poach on her preserves, and so as she, herself, could not be without
a cavalier she made up her mind she would appropriate Mr. Harding. To
do her justice, it never occurred to her that this would in any way
disturb either of her sisters. Nan was a dear old thing, but, in the
eyes of eighteen, really something of an old maid, and therefore hardly
to be classed with those who might still have attractions for young
men. Five years' difference in ages makes a tremendous gap at this
time of life, and so from the first Jack turned to Mr. Harding as her
rightful escort and companion.
As for Mr. Harding, he was helpless. In the first place Jack was newly
arrived, she was Nan's sister, and, therefore, consideration was due
her. Added to this, as Jack advanced, Nan retreated, and it was a very
rare occasion that allowed the young man the elder sister's society.
Nan herself was too proud to assert herself, and moreover she had
always given way to Jack and it was in the usual course of things that
she should do so now. She was really very humble about it. Who would
not prefer gay, merry Jack? She, who was so amusing, so perfectly at
her ease, so young and joyous? And so it fell out that Nan would stay
at home with her Aunt Helen and insist that the others go forth to see
the sights which had been already taken in by the earlier arrivals.
Then Mrs. Craig made a start for the mountains, taking her household
with her, so there were no more opportunities for music. The climate
was beginning to tell on Miss Helen and she was so languid and
indisposed to effort, that Nan urged her to keep quiet until the rest
should be ready to go to the mountains.
So a week passed and then it was decided that all the Corners should
go to Myanoshita for a while, and that ended the association with
the young men for the time being at least. With the approach of July
heat would come the swarms of mosquitoes which started life in rice
fields, and with this affliction, added to the humid condition of the
atmosphere, the frequent rains and the great dampness, Tokyo promised
to be anything but an agreeable summer resort. So Miss Helen and Nan
pored over guide-books and decided to make certain journeys by easy
stages.
"But," objected Jack who was having a very good time, "we haven't been
to Enoshima yet, and I do so want to see those lovely shells."
"Who wants to pick up shells in the pouring rain?" said Jean.
"It doesn't rain every minute," retorted Jack. "There have been some
quite pleasant days since we left home."
"But scarcely one since we reached here. I had no idea that Japan was
such a moist, unpleasant place."
"You ought to have known it would be in summer, but I don't see but
that we do very well even when it rains. There are the _jinrikishas_ to
take you everywhere."
"Oh, but it is depressing without any sunshine," protested Jean, "and
it is so damp all my things are beginning to mould."
"I suppose," remarked Jack who was ready to make capital of any
information which came her way, "that is why they wear pongee and
crape in these countries; I never thought of it before, but now I see
why. Don't you think we might take a day for Enoshima, Aunt Helen,
just one day before we go? Even if it rained it wouldn't make so much
difference."
"What do you say, Nan?" asked her Aunt Helen.
Nan, who was busy examining a map, traced a line on its surface. "I
don't see why we need take a day off to go there specially, when our
way leads right past it. Why not stop there over night, or at Kamakura?
We always meant to do that, you know, then we could go on the next day.
I think it might be the best plan, for it ought to be less tiresome for
you and mother."
"Very well, we will decide to do that, for, as you say, Nan, it will be
carrying out a former plan and will not be out of our way."
"I shall pray for a pleasant day," said Jack. "I am so glad to find out
where it is. If I had known that Myanoshita was in that direction I
should have felt easier."
"Just where is Myanoshita?" asked Jean coming to Nan's side and looking
down upon the map.
"Right there." Nan put her finger on the spot. "It is about fifty miles
from Yokohama. It is in the Fuji highlands."
"Oh, good!" cried Jean. "I should think it would be perfectly lovely.
How do we get there?"
"We go by rail to Kodzu where you can take a tram car to Yumoto, and
then you go up the mountain road by _jinriki_ to Myanoshita."
"It is a watering place, isn't it?"
"Yes, one of the numerous springs, hot springs, which are everywhere
all through Japan. They say the temperature is very agreeable, not so
hot as some others and without any odor of sulphur."
"I suppose," put in Jack, still on the quest for information, "that
they use the hot baths quite as we do stoves; whenever they feel cold
they pop into the hot water, and that is why they are so fond of hot
baths."
"It is probably something that way," returned Nan shutting up her
book. "Well, I suppose packing is the next thing in order." She gave a
little sigh. How fleeting really good times were. She wouldn't for the
world have had a disloyal thought of Jack, but she could not help but
remember what happy days those first ones had been, and now they had
passed like all bright things.
Jack's prayers must have been of avail, for the day of their departure
from Tokyo was a pleasant one, although no one could tell what might
befall them the next.
They were not allowed to go off without a "bon-voyage" from their
friends, for Mr. Harding and Mr. Montell were both on hand. On this
occasion the former managed in some way to get a word with Nan. She had
so persistently avoided him since his attentions to Jack that he had
never once seen her alone.
"I had looked forward to the pleasure of a trip to Enoshima with you,"
he began.
"Yes?" said Nan with a polite rising inflection.
"Didn't we plan that out on that unforgettable day at Kamakura?"
"Perhaps we did; I really don't remember, but you know the old and oft
quoted words about the best laid plans."
"I wish it were possible for me to get off to-day, but I am afraid it
is not, but I am counting upon seeing you all later in the season. I
don't forget that Aunt Nora is to look up a house for you all."
"But not in Tokyo," returned Nan.
"There are possible ways of reaching other places, you know," returned
the young man with an effort at playfulness.
"Oh, yes," replied Nan indifferently. "Excuse me, but I must speak to
my aunt," and she left him to wonder what had come over her since those
first days of good comradeship. Perhaps she intended to let him know
that she had left her heart at home and that he need not persist in
his attentions. The more he thought of it the surer he was that this
was the case, and from that moment he was quite as distant as herself.
At parting, he merely bowed and wished her a pleasant trip. There was
no word of regret at her leaving, no further reference to a future
meeting, and so Nan went on to Enoshima with no such anticipation as
had filled her on that perfect day at Kamakura.
The way to Kamakura was now enlivened by fields of iris and by the
paddy fields of rice, the plants now grown higher. It was all new and
enticing to Jack and Jean who were eager for the stop at Kamakura
where they had all decided to spend the night. Nan had no desire to
visit the temples again and Miss Helen decided to keep her company at
the little hotel under the pine trees. The tide was out and these two
concluded to spend their time in watching the nets hauled in. It was
something to see, the brown fishermen, the little boats, the dragging
nets and finally the little group of children and old people who came
up with their bowls and baskets to receive what might be doled out
to them from the lot of unmarketable fish left after the catch had
been separated into heaps. On this occasion, there was fish enough to
go around and the poor people went off happy in the expectation of a
hearty supper. Gentleness and quietness prevailed, and the children
were happy and joyous, not only the gleaners of fish but the gatherers
of shells as well. Of these there was no lack, for the shells could be
sold to the makers of beautiful things at Enoshima.
Nan and Miss Helen picked up such as they liked for themselves,
delicate, frail, changeful things they were, full of color and light,
even the tiniest.
Nan and her aunt loved the quiet hour and wandered around contentedly
till the others returned. Then there was much talk and chatter till the
moon came out on the sea, and there was only the sound of the wind in
the pines and the moaning of the breakers on the sands, for the spirit
of silence touched even talkative Jack.
Instead of one night, two were spent at Kamakura, so fascinating was
the ancient town to all. Moreover the morning of that first day brought
rain, so the trip to Enoshima was put off till it held up, which it did
about noon. A wonderful spot they found the charmed island, for here
it seemed as if all the shells from all shores had been poured. Little
shops to the right and left were full of delicate shell work. Wonderful
things of mother-of-pearl met them at every turn. The girls hung over
them hardly able to drag themselves away from the array of jewelry, the
cunningly wrought and tiny figures of beasts and birds, the card cases,
picture frames, anything and everything that ingenuity could contrive
from such lovely material.
"There is one thing about it," said Jack cheerfully, "we shall probably
not need to spend any money at Myanoshita and so we needn't feel badly
if it all goes here," a speech which showed up Jack's philosophy so
well that the others all laughed.
The street came to an end at last and consequently so did the
temptation to spend money. A _tori-i_ indicated that the entrance to a
shrine or temple was near, and the high, steep flight of steps further
indicated this. The stone trough, too, was there, and in this the
pilgrims washed their hands and then rinsed their mouths before going
on to the shrine.
Near the trough were hanging votive offerings in the shape of blue and
white towels. The girls stood gazing at them, wondering what they
were, when a kindly looking elderly gentleman came up and told them
that they were offered to the great sea-goddess, Benten. "The goddess
of love and good luck has her shrine here. Have you seen her three
temples and the Dragon Cave?"
The girls answered that they had not, but would like to. "Is it far?"
asked Nan, "and is it a hard way, because if it is, we'd better leave
our aunt and our mother behind."
"It is rather a climb," confessed the stranger, "and the way to the
cave is somewhat difficult."
"Is there much to see when you get there?" asked Jack.
"That depends upon what interests one," was the answer. "I don't know
that it would please you ladies to clamber down black slippery rocks to
view an empty shrine, and perhaps to be sprinkled with sea-spray, but
there are guides, and in lieu of any other, I should be glad to show
you the way."
After some consulting, the girls decided to give up a visit to the
Dragon Cave. "For," said Nan, "after all Enoshima had so much that
is beautiful to offer us that we shall be satisfied without anything
further." After receiving their thanks the stranger passed on, and
then Jack declared that she would like to climb up to the top of the
ridge if any one would go with her. She would like to see the view even
if she did not care specially about the temples. Her sisters declared
that they would like to go, too, so leaving their elders sitting on the
stones below, they began the climb.
"It reminds me of Amalfi," said Nan, "with the blue bay below and the
winding way up the cliffs. Instead of Vesuvius we have Fujiyama, and
instead of the old monastery we have Buddhist temples."
"If the colonel were here he would tell us many tales of Enoshima,"
said Jean.
"And Mr. Harding could tell just as many," remarked Jack who was
beginning to miss the company of entertaining young men. "Don't let us
stop to prowl around here very long; I think it is nicer down in the
village. I bought a lot of things but I didn't spend any money to speak
of and I am sorry I didn't get more. There was such a darling cunning
little fox there that I think I will get when I go back, if I can find
the shop where I saw it."
The view was indeed beautiful, with the silver sea below, the quaint
little village, the golden sands, and, lifting its lovely crown to the
clouds, Fujisan in the distance. Nan would again have tarried long,
but a desire for the tiny fox once having taken possession of Jack
nothing would do but she must get it as soon as possible. So down the
ridge they went to rejoin Mrs. and Miss Corner and to go back under one
_tori-i_ after another to the town where the shops proved scarcely less
fascinating than at first sight.
But at last even Jack confessed to being tired and so they walked back
past the sand-dunes to where the little uncertain bridge led across to
the mainland, and before long they were back in Kamakura and presently
reached the inn whose lower front stood hospitably open to them.
"I almost wish we had gone to the cave of the Dragon when we were so
nearly there," said Nan as she looked off toward the dimpling waters.
"I shall never have another chance."
"But it promised to be a treacherous and unpleasant way down those
slippery steps and in that dark and wet cavern," returned Mary Lee.
"One of us might have fallen or something uncanny might have happened.
I am rather glad we didn't go."
"If we had gone I might not have had time to get my fox," interposed
Jack who, with Jean, was sitting on the cool mats looking over the
purchases they had made that day. "See, Nan, isn't he a darling?"
"As for me," remarked Jean, "I wouldn't have gone for the world. I
do so dislike those wet, slimy, ghoulish places." So of them all, Nan
was the only one who regretted not having made the acquaintance of the
Dragon of Benten Sama.
Another night by the sea and then came the start for the hills. There
was some debate as to whether they should stop at the pretty town of
Yumoto whose attractive hotel invited them, but Miss Helen argued that
if they were to halt at every attractive place in Japan they might as
well make up their minds to abandon their own country entirely and
spend the rest of their days in the Land of the Rising Sun. Therefore
they proceeded on their journey by _jinrikisha_ up the steep road to
the place of their destination. A lovely way it was, though hard on the
coolies, whose brown backs, tattooed with all sorts of strange designs,
glistened with the moisture given forth by reason of the exertion.
"When I haven't anything else to interest me," said Jack, "I study the
designs on my runner's back. It is really very entertaining to make
out the flowers and dragons and queer things. I wonder if they are
there for the express purpose of entertaining those who ride in the
'jinriki.'" She and Nan were walking up a particularly steep part of
the way.
"Don't ask me the whys and wherefores of things in Japan," returned
Nan. "I long ago gave up trying to find out the reasons for things.
Aren't the woods delightful after the heat of the city, and aren't
we fortunate not to have rain? I am looking forward to having the
loveliest walks and excursions through these wild mountains."
Jack gave a little sigh. "I should like it better if we hadn't left
all the men folks behind. It is stupid to tramp through rough places
without some one to ease your way a little."
"No doubt you can get a coolie or two," returned Nan coldly. "Indeed,
I believe that one does generally travel in a chair, as they call the
thing they carry lashed to those poles."
"Oh, yes, we must try those. I saw some one carried that way yesterday,
and I thought I must experiment the first chance I got. Allee samee, I
would rather prowl around with Mr. Harding than be carried by a coolie.
Don't you think he is nice, Nan?"
"Who, the coolie?"
"No, Mr. Harding, of course. I am quite gone on him."
"What about Carter?"
"Oh, Cart makes me tired," responded Jack.
Nan made no reply, but as she resumed her ride in the _jinrikisha_,
her thoughts were busy. She did not know exactly how matters stood
between Jack and the young man who had been devoted to her since she
was a child. Of course Jack was too young to know her own mind, even
supposing she had imagined herself sentimentally fond of Carter. Who
could tell when she would really fall in love? Perhaps Mr. Harding had
attracted her strongly. Well, if it were a mutual thing, Nan decided
that she must do all she could to further it. Jack had always been a
problem, and if it meant her happiness and her future good, why then,
of course, nothing else must be considered. Neal Harding was a fine,
clean-minded, unselfish man, missing him who could tell upon what
unworthy object Jack might next set her fancy? Nan thought it all out
as she was borne along over the mountain paths, and had settled it all
in her own mind by the time Myanoshita was reached.
[Illustration: CHAPTER XI
AT MYANOSHITA]
CHAPTER XI
AT MYANOSHITA
In a comfortable hotel, half European, half Japanese, they found
themselves settled that evening, with the mountains rearing their tops
all around them and Fujisan a nearer neighbor than ever before. The
stream, Hayagawa, babbled noisily within hearing, and the lofty pines
gave out a sweetly pleasant odor.
"This is the most restful spot I have found in Japan," sighed Miss
Helen. "I was quite worn out when we reached here, but that delicious
warm bath has acted like a charm. There must be some quality about
these springs beyond their mere temperature."
"And such lovely bath-rooms, too," agreed Nan, "so clean and
sweet-smelling. It seems good to be in the hills again, doesn't it? We
are so used to seeing them at home that one misses them after a time."
"I should really like to stay here a long while," remarked Mrs. Corner.
"The gardens are so attractive and the little town has all sorts of
enticing shops, I noticed. Then there are a number of delightful trips
to make, I am told."
"Oh, dear," sighed Nan. "And we must go to Nikko and to Kyoto and a
dozen other places which I suppose will be quite as fascinating. If
only the twins didn't have to go back to college we could just stay on
till we had seen all."
"There is no reason why you shouldn't stay on with Helen and Mary Lee,"
returned her mother.
Nan shook her head. "No, once having hold of you I realize how valuable
you are and I don't feel as if I could let you go back without me."
"Don't let us plan the going back yet a while," interposed Miss Helen.
"Just when we are beginning to have a sense of peace and rest we should
enjoy it. Let the morrow take thought for itself."
Jack and Jean were already down among the wood-carvers in the village
and came back after a while with their hands full of pretty things.
They tried to coax the others to make an immediate visit to the shops,
but no one was enterprising enough to undertake the errand that evening.
"We will go to-morrow," said Nan. But alas, when the morrow came it
brought rain again, and no one cared to venture till afternoon, when
finding time hanging heavily on her hands, Nan ventured forth
alone, clad in her rain cloak and carrying a gay oiled paper umbrella.
The streets were almost deserted but in front of one of the shops a
_jinrikisha_ was waiting. Because she was curious to see who might
be the other shopper out on that rainy afternoon, Nan entered the
wood-carving establishment and came suddenly face to face with Neal
Harding.
"Miss Nan!" he exclaimed. "Isn't this luck? I was just wondering in
which hotel you were staying. The chief has given me a week's leave,
as he thought I was a little done up. That is, I am not to be recalled
unless some special pressure of work demands, and so I thought this
would be just the place for me."
"But why did you seek us in a perfectly strange wood-carver's shop?"
asked Nan.
He laughed. "It does look as if I were making a house to house search
for you, doesn't it? I had an errand here for one of my friends
who left an order for some carving which has not been delivered as
promised. Where are you stopping?"
"At the Fujiya."
"And all stood the journey well, I hope?"
"Very well." Nan was rather non-committal.
"And you stopped at Kamakura as you intended and went to Enoshima, I
suppose."
"Yes, we did all that. We were two nights at Kamakura and have been
here but one."
"If I had only known I could get the holiday, I might have been with
you. I feel quite defrauded when I think of it. One of the other men
was to have been off this week, but he found it would suit him better
to get leave later, consequently I was offered the time in his place.
May I go with you? Were you going to buy some carvings?"
"I was going to amuse myself by looking around. After being housed
all morning I wanted to get a bit of the outside world." She gave no
permission but he took it for granted and followed on as she went from
one charming object to another. "I may as well be pleasant to him,"
reflected Nan, "for he may be my brother-in-law some day," and she
began to unthaw a little. "You said you had not been well," she began.
"I hope it was nothing serious and that you are feeling better."
"Oh, it is nothing very serious. It has been pretty hot and I have
been working rather hard of late, so I was a trifle run down; that is
all. I shall be fit as a fiddle by the end of my stay here. There are
some tremendously interesting excursions to be made from this centre,
you know. One is to Lake Hakoné and another is to that grewsome spot
O-Jigoku. There is a magnificent view of Fujisan from there. You will
need an alpenstock if you go. Here is a good one. Let me get it for
you. You can keep it to carve names on, names of places you visit and
people you meet. May I put my humble initials on it?"
What could Nan do but consent? And she stood silently by as he made
the initials of her own name first, placing his own under them, the
little Japanese shopkeeper looking on with a smile, probably to see how
much less dextrous these foreigners were than her own countrymen who
produced such wonders of carving.
Nan accepted the stick with a meek "Thank you," and felt herself very
disloyal to Jack, this giving her cause to make only a hurried survey
of mosaics and inlaid woods, of dainty carvings and ingenious toys. She
bought one or two things to give countenance to her errand in the rain
and then declared she must return, steadily ignoring all suggestions
to visit other shops or to take tea in one of the many pretty little
tea-houses. Mr. Harding dismissed his _jinrikisha_ and walked to the
hotel with her where he received a warm welcome.
"You are the one thing needed to make us a complete party," declared
Jack. "A lot of women without one man to countenance them is an
anomalous organization," and so he was taken in quite as a matter of
course.
A trip to Lake Hakoné was arranged for the very next day, if it did
not rain. "We must make the most of you," Jack told Mr. Harding, "for
if you have only a week it may rain half of it and we don't want to
put off anything that ought by rights to include you." She expected to
appropriate the young man as a right, Nan noticed.
But Jack's plan did not come out entirely as she expected, for as
they were sitting on the verandah that evening, Jean grabbed her twin
sister's arm. "Jack, Jack," she exclaimed, "here is that Mr. Warner
that came over on the steamer with us."
"Oh, bother!" cried Jack shaking her head with a frown. "I don't
suppose he will have sense enough to realize that he will be in the
way."
"You couldn't expect him to after being nice to him on the steamer,"
returned Jean.
"Oh, well, that was because he came in handy to walk with and to tuck
in my steamer rug and things like that. He is a silly ass, and I don't
want him around. You will have to take him off my hands, Jean."
"Indeed I shall not then," returned Jean. "I don't like him any better
than you do, and I am quite sure I never gave him any occasion for
thinking so, which is quite the opposite of the way you did."
"Well, all is, I hope he won't see us," returned Jack, changing her
seat so that her back would be to the garden.
"Who is the man?" Nan asked having overheard the conversation.
"Oh, he is a softy we met on the steamer. He knows some of our friends
and is perfectly respectable, of course, otherwise mother would not
have allowed us to have anything to do with him. There wasn't any one
else around, and you know what Jack is. He served her for the time
being. I don't mean there was anything like a flirtation, but she was
nice to him and he trotted after her as men like that do when a girl is
half-way kind to him. We thought we were rid of him when we left the
steamer, but you see here he is."
"Well, my dear, one is very liable to run up against acquaintances like
that when both are traveling in the same country; it happens over and
over again. Jack will have to take the consequences, of course."
But this was precisely what Jack did not intend to do, and for this
very reason she cajoled and demanded until Mr. Harding was helpless in
doing anything but what she expected. Nan, while pleasantly polite to
this young man, gave him no opportunity of returning to a comradeship
and he was more and more convinced that she wished to keep him at a
distance.
Mr. Warner was not one to avoid a group of pretty girls and as soon as
he caught sight of Jack the same evening, he made straight for her with
every exclamation of pleasure and surprise. He was not a bad-looking
person, and was perfectly assured in his own mind that he possessed
every quality a girl could desire. He was an inveterate punster and
was always doing what Jack called "monkey tricks." Nan could see that
he promised to be something of a bore, as he was invariably flippant
and frivolous, taking nothing seriously and ready to make jokes of
everything. No spot too sacred, no object too impressive to become the
target of his supposed wit. He quite resented Mr. Harding's presence as
an admirer of Jack's, and to Nan's amusement always spoke as if he were
an interloper whom Jack might reasonably wish to be rid of.
Because of all this, Nan more than once relieved the situation by
allowing the young man to become her escort and met him on his own
ground with frivolous speeches, so that he began to think that, after
all, this elder sister was almost as desirable as Jack, and when he
couldn't get pudding he would quite cheerfully take pie.
However, there were occasions when Nan could not sacrifice herself
even for Jack, and she would get out of the way, having discovered a
secluded spot from which she could get a view of the sea with Enoshima
within vision, and on the other hand the stately form of great Fujisan.
The excursion to Lake Hakoné did not take place at once on account
of morning showers, but a day later it was agreed upon and with Mr.
Warner, an attachment which they would willingly have been rid of, they
all set out through the green mountain-paths, where the high bamboo
grass colored the landscape vividly, and where many wild flowers peeped
from the thickets. It would have been a more successful expedition
but for the persistence with which Mr. Warner joked about everything
in the heavens above, the earth beneath and the waters under the
earth, allowing no one to enjoy either beauty or solemnity without
interpolating either a pun or a silly speech of some kind, so that
at the last every one was in a bad humor and whisperingly arranged a
secret session. Little slips of paper were tucked into the hand of
first one and then another by Jack. Each read: "Meet us at the deserted
tea-shed back of the Bachelor's quarters at eight this evening." So by
ones and twos the conspirators crept forth, keeping out of sight as
much as possible lest they be seen and overtaken by the marplot, as
they had come to call Mr. Warner.
Promptly the small company gathered, Jack's three sisters and Mr.
Harding. "We simply cannot have our expedition spoiled by that silly
monkey-on-a-stick," announced Jack. "We must get away for our trip to
O-Jigoku without his seeing us. He has no better sense than to butt in
without being invited and we cannot have him. Has any one mentioned
that we were going?"
No one had, and Jack proceeded to unfold her plan. "I propose that we
get up very early and meet somewhere, get breakfast at some little
out-of-the-way tea-house and then start. What do you say?"
All agreed. "It carries me back to our college days," said Nan, "when
we used to scheme in order to outwit the sophs."
"Mother and Aunt Helen are not going, I suppose," remarked Jean.
"Oh, no, the climb after we leave our chairs will be too hard for
them," returned Mary Lee. "Now we must settle just where we are going
to meet. Of course, we girls will have no trouble, but Mr. Harding must
be certain."
"Suppose we say that little place just beyond the last carving-shop;
it is unpretentious and no one would think of it; the only trouble is
that one can see right into those places as soon as the _shoji_ are
pushed aside."
"And what is more one can hear," put in Mary Lee. "I don't see how they
can possibly keep secrets in Japan when the partitions between rooms
are nothing but screens."
"Why not meet right here?" proposed Mr. Harding. "We can make a détour
and come out somewhere beyond where I will have the chairs meet us."
This was considered the best arrangement, and the party separated as
they had come, Nan agreeing to tole Mr. Warner off in such direction as
should prevent his seeing from whence the others came.
Early the next morning they crept forth, climbed the hill to the shed
where they had met the evening before and, piloted by Mr. Harding,
made their way to a spot further on where the chairs were waiting. The
mists were rolling up from the mountains and Fujisan's crest was quite
hidden. There was no sign of a living creature, but once or twice a
blithe lark caroled forth his morning song. The waving green of the
bamboo stretched on each side, making a perfect jungle, and trees of
beech, oak or fir arched overhead. It was decided to stop at one of
the tea-houses of the little village of Kiga where they could get
breakfast and then continue their journey. A pretty place was chosen
where there was a garden and a pond of goldfish, a spot not unlike many
others near by, but it seemed the most attractive, and the smiling
maids were perhaps more inviting than those they had passed by.
Exultant at having entirely outwitted the ubiquitous Mr. Warner, and
refreshed by their breakfast of tea, eggs and rice cakes, they started
on, stopping to feed the fishes first and to view the pretty little
garden. Only the rush of mountain streams broke the silence as they
went on to the pass of O Tomi Toge. Here they halted, for the rest of
the journey must be made on foot and with a careful guide.
"Oh, look!" exclaimed Nan as she descended from her chair and cast her
eyes in the direction of a great valley. "Such a view of Fujisan I
never had."
"Glorious! Splendid!" came from one and another. The mists were still
curling around the crown of the solitary peak, but this rendered it
even more beautiful, with a foreground of pines and box-trees, and
nearer still, growths of snowy flowers, as if reflected from the snowy
peak of the mountain itself.
"It smells very queer," remarked Jean sniffing daintily, "but then
Japan is so full of queer odors that I am not surprised."
"We must be near the 'Valley of the Greater Boiling,'" decided Nan.
"There is no doubt of that," remarked Mr. Harding; "look at those
blighted trees, and see that stream dashing over those rocks of black
and yellow. This must be the very entrance to the Stygian valley."
A precipitous and awe-inspiring climb they had now, following the guide
with the utmost caution lest they slip through and become engulfed in
the boiling mud. No vegetation was here, but the earth and the rocks
bore evidences of a blasting, sulphurous heat. In some spots, smoke
issued and there were ghastly sputterings and splittings of the earth's
crust.
"Isn't it the very epitome of all that is horrible and frightful?"
said Nan. "Jack, please be very careful. I heard of some one who lost
his life by falling into that awful place, and more than one has been
burned severely."
Jack promised and did intend to be very careful, but she was a
venturesome young person and could not withstand the temptation to go a
little nearer the edge of the dark stream. But fortunately Mr. Harding
was watching and dragged her back in time to prevent a misstep into the
seething sulphur. Jack herself turned pale as she realized the danger,
for the guide, taking a pole, cautiously plunged it into the crust near
which she had ventured and immediately it sank deep, deep down into
depths of boiling mud.
Nan covered her eyes. "Oh, Jack," she quavered, "just suppose you had
gone an inch nearer."
"But I didn't," returned Jack lightly.
"You would have but for Mr. Harding." Nan turned eyes still full of
horror on Jack's preserver, while Jack herself held out her hand.
"Thank you," she said. "I came near getting into a bad scrape, didn't
I?" She walked off in a direction which gave her safety, really more
overcome than she was willing to admit.
"I want to thank you, too," said Nan in a low voice to the young man.
"I cannot face the thought of what might have happened but for your
quick eye and----" She paused and turned her head, unable to keep back
the tears which nervousness brought to her eyes.
"Don't, please don't," said Mr. Harding coming to her side. "Let us
leave this terrible place and go somewhere out of danger where you can
sit down and get calm. You are trembling still."
He led her to a sheltered spot and presently she was herself again.
Mary Lee and Jean had already returned, Jean being quite too timid
to venture so far as the others. Jack meekly followed behind Nan and
her companion, for once feeling too young to demand attention, and
altogether ashamed of having given her dear Nan such cause for alarm.
She sat apart quite in the manner of a younger Jack who so often felt
herself a culprit. "We must not say anything to Aunt Helen and mother
about this," charged Nan as she rose to her feet. "Remember, Jack, not
a word to any one, not even to Mary Lee or Jean. There is no use in
giving needless worry to them, for even now that it is all over and you
are safe, it would distress mother and call up all sorts of visions."
"Dear me," returned Jack plaintively, "I am sure I shall only be too
glad not to have it known that I was such a silly thing. The worst of
it is," she added, "that I cannot feel that I am superior to Mr. Warner
after this."
This brought a laugh and relieved the tension. Then after one more look
at the curling white smoke, the bare, leafless valley, they left the
place and took the narrow path which led them back to what seemed an
upper world.
"I feel as if I had been to the mouth of the underworld," said Nan.
"It is early yet; suppose we go around by Lake Hakoné; it is so lovely
a spot that perhaps it will drive away the horror of this. We shall
enjoy it more to-day with no punster along, and moreover it is a much
brighter day and we shall see the reflections more clearly."
This plan was unanimously approved and returning by another path, they
came to the bottomless lake in whose perpetually cold waters Fujisan
was reflected in all its beauty, for now the mists had rolled away and
the Lady Mountain revealed herself without her veil.
A tea-house near at hand furnished them with lunch and after a rest and
another stop to feed the fishes in Kiga's tea-house garden they went on
their way, arriving at Myanoshita to find that Mr. Warner was off in
search of them and could not imagine how they had escaped his watchful
eye.
"We told him you started very early," Mrs. Corner said merrily, "and
that neither your Aunt Helen nor I had seen you before you went."
Later on when the young man did appear he was charged with being a
sleepy-head and so well were the tables turned that he believed himself
alone to blame for being left out of the day's expedition.
[Illustration: CURIOUS TO SEE WHO THE OTHER SHOPPER MIGHT BE]
[Illustration: CHAPTER XII
NIKKO, THE MAGNIFICENT]
CHAPTER XII
NIKKO, THE MAGNIFICENT
Before the end of the week, came a letter from Mrs. Craig urging them
all to join her in the mountains near the famous temples of Nikko. "I
have been unable to find you a proper house," she wrote, "but I think
you can be very comfortable at one of the inns. I would my own cottage
were larger so I could take you all in, but I shall insist upon having
Nan and Mary Lee at least. Eleanor gets lonely and begs that they
will not disappoint her. You know the old saying, 'Do not say _kekko_
till you have seen Nikko,' meaning that you are not to call any spot
magnificent until you have been up here."
Mrs. Craig's letter was followed by one from Eleanor herself. She
clamored for her college mates, using every persuasive word and every
argument in her power, till they felt it would be fairly wicked not to
accept.
For some reason Mr. Harding seemed almost as eager as Eleanor, lending
his arguments to hers till finally the girls wrote to say that they
would come and Miss Helen decided that they would trust to Mrs.
Craig's declaration that the rest could be well housed near by.
"We must keep it a dead secret from Mr. Warner," declared Jack, "for
the first thing you know he will bob up serenely with that ridiculous
helmet of his and that pongee coat. If I see any one up there wearing
the likes, I know I shall faint on the spot, for I shall believe it is
Sylvanus Warner reincarnated. Such a name, Sylvanus; it makes me tired."
"He will think we are going back to Tokyo to stay, so we must get off
before he gets on to the plan," remarked Jean.
"We will leave a polite little note," said Nan, "telling him that we
are going to visit and travel and then when we get back to Tokyo we
will let him know. Then we must make up our minds not to come back to
Tokyo but to keep on to Kyoto which we must see."
"But it will be hot there," complained Jean, "for it is even further
south."
"Oh, well, never mind; we can't stay in the mountains forever, and
after being up there and getting back some of our lost energy we ought
to be able to stand Kyoto for a while, anyhow," Nan decided.
Mr. Harding bade them good-bye the next day with more cheerfulness than
Jack felt was exactly flattering. Nan thought that there was a touch
of expectancy in his parting words to her. "I shall see you soon again,
I hope," he said. "I am so very glad that you will be with Eleanor and
Aunt Nora." Nan, however, kept her own counsel and did not speculate
aloud upon what he might have meant her to infer.
Mr. Warner attached himself to their party when they returned to Tokyo,
and no one seemed to mind very much, for, as Jack said, "It is always
well to have a man around when you take a journey, even if he is a
Silly Billy."
"I wonder if they called him Sylly for short when he was a little boy,"
said Jean, which was pretty good for her.
"They might just as appropriately have called him Vainy," returned
Jack; and Sylly Vainy they dubbed him from that time out.
There was only a short halt in Tokyo, and then the start was made for
the mountain retreat in the lovely highlands of Nippon. This meant a
journey of about a hundred miles by rail, over a well-managed road. At
various stations on the way, one could get from boys, only too eager
for customers, well-packed luncheons, put up in attractive boxes, so a
dining-car could be dispensed with.
"This seems quite like Europe," said Nan nibbling at her broiled
chicken, "but I wish I had something to drink; one doesn't dare to try
unboiled water in this country." Her wish was soon granted, for almost
immediately came a boy with a little earthen pot of tea and a cup which
he offered for the modest sum of two cents, pouring on hot water from a
steaming kettle he carried.
On, past rice fields, once in a while catching glimpses of vast forests
of cryptomeria, they journeyed to Nikko where they were met by Eleanor
and the colonel to receive the warmest of greetings and to be hurried
on to the mountain inn where four of the party were to stay.
"We will come to Nikko itself another day," the colonel said. "You
will find enough to interest you in this region, I am sure. If you
feel historically inclined, there are the temples and shrines rich
with suggestions of Iyeyasu, than whom is no greater character in all
Japanese chronicles. His tomb is here as well as that of his successor,
Iemitsu. If you want splendor in the way of temples you have but to
visit those erected to his memory. Then if your mood is for natural
beauties, we can show you such waterfalls and cascades, such streams
and lakes and rocky precipices, forests and glens that ought to satisfy
the most ardent nature lover."
This all sounded very alluring and the whole party congratulated
themselves that they had not left out this part of the country from
their trip.
The Craigs' house was built on the Japanese plan with matted floors,
and screened partitions. The entire front could be opened to the day,
but at night it could be shut in by the wooden amado. An entrancing
garden was kept in order by a Japanese gardener who devised miniature
lakes and forests, rockeries and waterfalls, so that the whole was a
most unique and delightful place at any hour of the day. Even in wet
weather one could find protection under a most artistic summer-house,
built of bamboo and supporting vines in flower.
The air was fresh and cool, a great relief after the sultriness of
Tokyo, and a warm bath was ready, the water being brought through
bamboo pipes. Then there was tea in the little pagoda and afterward
all walked over to see how those at the inn were getting along. They
were found to be in a state of entire content, in cool, pleasant rooms
overlooking a charming garden, a verandah running along in front of
their windows giving them a sheltered place to sit if they preferred
seclusion.
"We are all going to see the temples the first thing to-morrow,"
announced Eleanor, "so you must all be ready."
"I can scarcely wait," declared Nan, "for I have dreamed of them ever
since I began to study up on Japan. I hope you will all sleep well, so
as to be in condition for our wonderful day."
"Sleeping on mats and hearing every least sound through paper
partitions may not be conducive to sleep," returned her Aunt Helen,
"but we shall do our best. What are we to see first, colonel?"
"The river and the Sacred Bridge would be the most natural in line
of progression," returned he. "I am sure you will not exhaust the
neighborhood in a long while, so we are hoping to keep you for many
weeks."
"The more I hear, the more there seem to rise up new objects to marvel
at," said Nan. "I have just heard of a wonderful cavern in the side
of an extinct volcano. The Two-Storm Mountain they called it because
of the fearful tempests that came spring and fall, but a great saint
quelled the storm devils and now it is called Nikko-San, which means
the Mountain of the Sun's Brightness. Isn't that a nice tale? I am
trying to write down all the legends I hear, but there is such a
bewildering number of them that I know some will get away before I have
them safely captured."
The cool, mountain breezes made every one so sleepy that conversation
lagged at an early hour and no one was inclined to sit up late that
night, but there was not one who was not the better for the long
night's rest and who was not eager to start out promptly the next
morning.
"And so that is the Sacred Bridge, the red lacquer bridge over which
none but the emperor may pass," said Mrs. Corner looking at the famous
structure which spanned the torrent. "It is really beautiful against
the rich green, isn't it? Who but Japanese would ever think of building
a red lacquer bridge? But somehow it suits the landscape."
"The scarlet arch," murmured Nan thoughtfully. "Tell us something about
it." She turned to the colonel.
"I should have to give you a long dissertation on Iyeyasu and the
Tokugawa which I think would probably bore you all. We'd better wait
till some rainy day for that."
"So I can make notes and not find my eyes and thoughts wandering as
they would have to do now," returned Nan.
Jack was looking in her guide-book. "It is eighty-four feet across,"
she gave the information, "and it is said that the wood is in as good
condition as when it was put there something like two hundred and forty
years ago."
They left the scarlet arch to go on to the great grove of cryptomerias
where stood the sacred temples. Many there were, large and small.
Shrines and images, pagodas and gray stone lanterns were scattered
throughout the wood, and wonderful some of these were, showing such
richness of color, wonders in bronze and lacquer, marvels in gilt and
white and black, miracles of design and splendor of ornament. It was
all too bewildering to be taken in at one time, and they all agreed
that one could get only a general impression upon a first view.
"We shall want to come many, many times," Miss Helen declared. "With
such an embarrassment of riches one is left in a state of helpless
amaze."
"It is by far the finest thing we have seen yet." Mary Lee was sure as
to her opinion.
"I suppose every professor at college will be asking me my impressions
and will be insisting upon a detailed description, when I get back,"
said Jack. "I shall have to learn pages of the guide-books for I shall
never get a perfectly clear idea of it. I can hear myself saying
lamely, 'Oh, it is all gilt and lacquer and there are dragons and queer
beasts over everything.'"
"Such a very lucid description," said Jean contemptuously. "I shall try
to make as clear a study as possible and take only a little at a time,
one shrine, or a part of one temple."
"Good!" cried Jack, "then I can copy yours." It was exactly what Jack
would do. She always economized time by taking advantage of Jean's
plodding methods, and arrived at much more brilliant results thereby.
"We haven't seen the five hundred Buddhas," said Nan as they left the
temples. "I read about them and it is said that they are so elusive
that no two persons ever decide upon the same number when counting
them."
"Oh, do let's go find them," cried Jack, this being in the manner of a
game particularly appealing to her.
They came back to the bridge and climbed up the hillside by a flight
of stone steps. Before them were more shrines and holy pagoda-like
edifices. Mary Lee and Jean discovered the stone which marks the
resting place of the great shogun's favorite horse. They lingered by
the spot, Mary Lee reading aloud from her book. "The horse was at last
turned loose on the hillside," she told Jean, "and had a long life of
freedom here under the trees."
These two presently caught up with the others who were standing near a
long row of queer stone images.
"These are the Buddhas," announced Jack.
"Did you ever see such a strong family resemblance as they bear to one
another? I have counted them twice, but can't make anything like five
hundred. The spray keeps them always moist and that is why they have
gathered moss, like other individuals who stay in one place."
"One does seem to have been seized with a _wanderlust_," cried Nan.
"Come here, Jack. There is one at the foot of the hill. I remember
reading how he broke away from his companions once when he was afraid
of a terrible storm. He tried to reach the village, but didn't quite
get there."
They wandered about over the hillside till some one declared it must be
time for lunch, and then Mrs. Craig announced that they were to make a
picnic of this meal and were to find a silver lake where they were to
be met by the servants with the hamper, and where they could rest and
enjoy the lovely scene.
"What a delightful surprise," cried Miss Helen, as they suddenly espied
the fair lake from a turn in the road, which they had just made. "Is
this our picnic ground?"
"It is, and I hope you like it," Mrs. Craig answered. "Chuzenji Lake it
is called. It is one of my favorite spots and is rather a relief after
the gorgeousness of the temples."
"It is just that, sylvan quiet and perfect peace. One could lie here by
the sands and think many thoughts."
The servants were bustling around unobtrusively and presently had
an appetizing meal spread. They had brought a _hibachi_ with which
they could do wonders in preparing eggs, tea and various other things
grateful to tired sightseers. There was much talk of the old legends
and of later historical tales, the colonel waxing eloquent upon the
subject of the great Iyeyasu who founded the Tokugawa Shogunate which
continued almost to the present century.
"Iyeyasu died in 1616," the colonel told them, "and the present emperor
came into power in 1868. Iyeyasu boasted of having fought ninety
battles. He nearly destroyed Christianity and closed the door of Japan
upon foreign nations. He was really a great man for he accomplished
much, and although we must condemn many of his acts, we can but admire
the man's tremendous force and strength of character. It was his
request that his body should be brought to Nikko where were the most
magnificent temples in the country. He is supposed to return to earth
once a year to ride in that fine lacquered vehicle which brought his
body hither. Some day when we get better acquainted with him and when
you have become more familiar with the splendors of the various temples
we will come and look at the relics of Iyeyasu."
"I get so dreadfully mixed up on the religions. I thought all the
Chinese and Japanese were followers of Confucius," said Jean.
"Shinto is the legalized religion," the colonel told her. "It is
ancestor worship, to describe it briefly, but you will find that the
doctrines of Confucius are accepted as philosophies rather than as
religious dogmas. Shintoism means 'the way of the gods.' To quote
one writer, 'it is a mixture of nature worship and the worship of
ancestors.' It has its own mythological gods, heroes and traditions.
The god, Izanagi, and the goddess, Isanami, are supposed to be the
parents of the Japanese Islands. The great Sun-goddess, who is the
supreme deity, was born from Izanagi's left eye. The Shinto temples
are very simple compared to those of the Buddhists who introduced
their religion into the country about the sixth century. There are
several sects of Buddhists. There is the Shin-shu and the Jodo-shu,
for instance, and though all these sects differ on minor points they
agree upon the more important ones. Buddhist temples are often built
in isolated spots, upon the mountains or in deep valleys, while the
Shin sect erect their places of worship principally in the cities. One
would have to make a pretty deep study of all these different beliefs
to understand the differences, or indeed to understand just what is the
belief of any one sect. If you go in for folk-lore it will be necessary
for you to get some slight notion, at least, of the mythology and of
the salient features of the doctrines. There, I have given you a long
lecture, and I shall not tire you out by saying any more."
"It is all very interesting, and makes one want to go deeper into it,"
confessed Nan.
"Very well, any time you come up against a blank wall I will do my
best to open the way for you," said the colonel. "I am by no means an
authority, and have only the veriest smattering of the subject, but I
find it an interesting one, and in my talks with various missionaries,
I have learned something."
"There is something very wonderful about the temple gardens," said Miss
Helen. "I notice that each one has some special form of development.
Here we have the cryptomeria trees as a dominant feature; at Uyeno it
was the cherry trees, and at Kamakura the lotus held sway."
"That is all quite true, and at Kyoto you will find that water is made
to occupy the centre of interest. The gardens of Japan are alone worth
a study. I was surprised, when I first came, to see how one single
material was sometimes worked up in such a way as to give a charming
individuality. In one, garden rocks would be used; in another, there
would be little waterfalls, rills, and aquatic plants; in a third,
you would find certain scenes reproduced in miniature; a little pool
will stand for a lake, the rock in the middle will be an island, the
mountainside will be represented by small inclines planted thickly with
dwarf bushes. Such gardens are often real works of art."
There was much more talk of this kind during the time they were resting
after their meal and then the move was made for a return. "So we can
digest our luncheon and the colonel's lecture at the same time," said
Jack saucily.
"I hope both will agree with you," returned the colonel with a smile.
They returned by way of the town where a new sight caught their amused
attention. An energetic bullock, the motive power of a short railway
line, was seen performing his office of engine quite as a matter of
course, drawing cars along the track at the rate of two miles an hour.
"In this land of Upside-down-ness, that is about the funniest thing I
have seen," declared Jack. "I shall expect to see monkeys acting as
telephone girls and cats doing the postman act."
"There is one thing about the cats here, I notice," said Jean gravely,
"they don't carry tails."
The girls all groaned. "See what pernicious influence can be wrought by
one person," said Mary Lee. "Jean has been associating with Sylly Vainy
for so long that she has borrowed his peculiarities." Which remark
quite settled Jean.
[Illustration: CHAPTER XIII
CRICKETS AND FIREFLIES]
CHAPTER XIII
CRICKETS AND FIREFLIES
"To-night we must see the Bon-ichi," said Mr. Harding, "for to-morrow
will begin the Feast of the Lanterns." The young man had arrived on the
scene the day before, surprising every one except, perhaps, his sister.
"Oh, I have read of the Bon-ichi," said Mary Lee. "I think the Feast of
Lanterns must be the most wonderful of all. I wish we could see some of
the customs in the native houses."
"No doubt that could be managed," returned Mr. Harding. "The Feast
of Lanterns, or Bormatsuri, as it is called here, is truly a most
beautiful festival. It begins on the thirteenth of July and continues
to the fifteenth. It answers somewhat to the All Soul's Day which you
know they celebrate in special ways in Europe. I think, however, that
you will find the ceremonies here even more interesting."
"Tell us something about them," said Eleanor.
"New mats are woven for this feast to be placed upon all the Buddhist
altars. Shrines and altars are decorated with lotus flowers, the
natural flowers when possible, when not, paper ones are used. Fresh
boughs of anise and other plants are used as well. The little lacquered
tables from which the Japanese take their meals, and which you have
so often seen, are placed on the altar to hold the food served to the
spirits of the departed. In the very poor houses, these offerings of
food are sometimes merely wrapped in a leaf and laid on the fresh mats.
Wine is not given, neither do they give fish nor meat to the departed
friends, but they offer fresh, pure water and give them tea every hour.
They serve the meals exactly as they would to living guests, even
supplying chop-sticks."
"It is something like the Indian custom, this giving of food to the
dead," remarked Mary Lee. "Why is it called the Feast of the Lanterns?"
"Because the prettiest sorts of lanterns are hung each night before the
houses. These are in special shapes and have a peculiar kind of paper
fringe. At the going down of the sun, torches are placed in the ground
before the earthly homes of the ghosts so that they may find their way.
Welcome fires, too, are seen all along the shores of the streams, the
lakes and the sea where there are villages."
"How perfectly lovely," exclaimed Nan.
"To my mind," Mr. Harding went on, "the last evening, the fifteenth
of July, is decidedly the most interesting of all. It is then that
the priests offer food to those poor ghosts who have no friends to
give them anything, and it is the night when the dance of Bon-odori is
given."
"Oh, I should like to see that," said Eleanor.
"But the most beautiful of all the customs," Mr. Harding continued,
"is that of sending out the little boats of farewell, with a lantern
at each prow and a freightage of dainty food. In these tiny crafts the
souls of the ancestors are supposed to return to their ghostly homes by
way of the sea, bearing with them written words of loving cheer."
"It must be wonderful to see all the little boats afloat."
"It is a thing not to be forgotten. At the present time it is forbidden
to launch them on the sea at the open ports, but in isolated regions
they are still sent forth."
"It is all the most fascinating and charming feast that we have heard
anything about," declared Mary Lee. "We must go over and tell mother
and the rest about it. They will want to go to the Bon-ichi, of course."
"I will go with you," said Eleanor jumping up.
They had been sitting in the pretty garden near where a little fountain
splashed softly over rocks and pebbles, washing the feet of slender
aquatic plants and then trickling on to form a small pool in which a
tiny island was visible. Nan would have followed the two girls, but as
Mr. Harding said, "Please don't go," she sank back again into her seat.
She would yield to the temptation this once. Jack would be in evidence
that evening and she must then efface herself, so she would take these
few golden moments for her very own.
"I want you to go with me to the Bon-ichi this evening," said Mr.
Harding. "Will you?"
"Why, yes," replied Nan. "We are all going, aren't we?"
"But you will go with me, won't you?"
Nan laughed. "As if it were an opera or the theatre you were inviting
me to, I suppose."
"Exactly." He spoke quite seriously and Nan, stealing a glance at him,
saw that he looked very grave and earnest.
"Oh, very well, I will consider myself specially invited," she replied
lightly, "though I don't see what special difference it will make."
"We were lost in the crowd that night at the temple festival in Tokyo,
you remember."
Nan fidgeted with the leaf of a small plant near her. It made her very
happy to have him talk this way, yet she wished he would not. No, she
did not wish he would not. She would like to be lost in any crowd so
long as he was by her side. She wondered if Jack really did like him so
very much, and wasn't it disloyal to Carter to encourage Jack to smile
on any one else?
Mr. Harding interrupted these conjectures by repeating, "You do
remember, don't you?"
For answer Nan said, "I have the wee rabbit to remind me."
"And Kamakura?"
"I have this." She took the little jade figure from the small bag she
carried and held it out.
Mr. Harding took it in his hand, looked at it with a smile and handed
it back saying, "Will you mind very much being lost again?"
Nan shot him a swift look. She felt the color rising to her cheeks as
she answered, "I will not mind." Then fearful of further temptation she
arose and fled, not even turning her head as Mr. Harding called after
her, "Please, Miss Nan, don't go. Please come back."
Back she would not come, but she was happy, happy. She would let
herself go for this one time. Surely so much was her due. In a little
while these happy days would be over. Mr. Harding would be returning to
his work. In the meantime let him choose between her and the younger
girl. She would let fate decide.
Why Mr. Harding had gone so far as to venture on such an invitation,
Eleanor might have explained. She adored Nan and had charged her
brother with fickleness. Had asked why he treated Nan with such
coldness when at first the two had seemed to be the best of friends. He
had replied that it was all Nan's own doings, that she had turned the
cold shoulder, and that he could but accept his position. "I think she
wishes me to understand that some one else has a prior claim," he said
at last.
Eleanor considered this before she replied. "I don't believe a word of
it. I am quite sure she is not engaged to any one, but I shall make it
my business to find out from Mary Lee. If she isn't and even though she
may be interested in some other man, I don't see why you haven't as
good a chance as he has. There isn't a girl in the world I would rather
have for my sister, Neal, old boy."
"You are a trump, Nell," returned her brother, but he did not say that
there was no girl he would rather she should have for a sister, an
omission which Eleanor thought of in the light of after events.
By some hokus-pokus, Jack found herself in the society of Mr. Montell
when they all started off for the Bon-ichi. This young man had come up
with Neal Harding, and it is to Eleanor's credit that she managed to
hand him over to Jack rather than to accept his escort for herself.
Jack did not mind the experience in the least, although if it had been
given her to choose, she would have selected Mr. Harding.
Between the flickering light of lanterns and torches all the way down
the street moved a crowd of people and soon the party of Americans
became a part of the throng, themselves, though soberly clad,
conspicuous above the little women in bright garments and the small
men in blue or black or gray. In spite of this, Nan and her companion
were soon separated from the rest. They had stopped long before a booth
where were sold lotus flowers and leaves for the ceremony of the morrow.
They lingered, too, to look at the bundles of hemp sticks, the crude
dishes of earthenware, made especially for the ghostly visitors. As
they turned away from these last, Mr. Harding looked down with a smile.
"Now we are alone," he said with a smile.
Nan understood. Who is so alone as in a crowd? Some distance ahead
she caught sight, once in a while, of the colonel's soldierly figure
towering up above his companions, and once or twice she could see
Jack's hat, and her sparkling face turned gaily toward her escort.
"We have gone back to the temple fair at Tokyo, I hope," said Mr.
Harding as Nan grew more and more expansive and chatty.
"We won't talk about goings back," returned she lightly. "It is always
better to go ahead. What is done is done. We can control the future
somewhat, but we cannot help the past."
"That sounds like one of Confucius' philosophies. I accept the lesson
it holds."
Just what did he mean by that? Nan felt that she had been more didactic
than wise and wished she had said something else. She must be more
guarded. She forgot her introspections in the beauty of the things to
be seen at the next stall: wonderful lanterns of most beautiful shapes
and colors, although there were some that were a pure luminous white
and these were intended for the cemeteries. They stood long looking at
them but in time moved on to where queer little figures made of straw
were offered for sale. "What in the world are these?" inquired Nan.
"These are horses for the ghosts to ride and oxen to work for them,"
her companion told her.
"How queer, how very queer, and what is that on the next stall?"
"That is incense."
A little further along they came upon Jean and Mary Lee all absorbed in
a display of tiny horsehair cages, from which twinkled and sparkled
myriads of lights. Alongside of these were larger cages, though small
enough, of bamboo from whose interiors the strident notes of great
green crickets came incessantly.
"Aren't they darling?" cried Jean enthusiastically as Nan came up. "You
can get a cricket and a cage for two cents, and for one cent you can
buy fifteen fireflies in a cage. Mary Lee and I are getting ever so
many."
"What for?" inquired Nan.
"Oh, just to give them their freedom. We hate to see the poor little
creatures caged. The cages are so curious that we want those anyhow."
"Have they any religious fitness?" Nan asked Mr. Harding.
"Oh, no, they are only for the children."
Nan concluded that she must have a cage, too, and bore away a galaxy
of twinkling stars which she declared she would make a ceremony of
liberating.
Then while Mr. Harding told her a pretty tale of how the fireflies came
to exist at all, and then wandered off into other folk-lore, they moved
slowly out of the seething crowd to find their way into shadowy groves
and at last to come upon a shrine before which lights were burning but
where no one worshiped, for it seemed quite deserted.
"If we could but reach Kwannon-with-the-Horse's-Head," said Mr.
Harding, "we could send up a prayer for the animals which have died,
and Kwannon might answer."
"And where is Kwannon-with-the-Horse's-Head?"
"Away down near Izumo. I have seen the shrine and it seemed a very
pleasant thing to think that these people cared to remember the welfare
of their animals, and to want them to enter a better state after the
trials of this. Their religion seems very fanciful and, to us, full of
all sorts of errors, but one comes across very beautiful customs every
now and then."
Nan knelt before the little shrine and opened her cage of fireflies.
One after another found its freedom, darting out and floating up into
the dimness of further distance. They stood watching them glimmering
fitfully under the dark trees. "They seem like departing souls,
themselves," said Nan. "They make me think of 'Vital spark of heavenly
flame.'"
"Then you have found in them a symbol that the Japanese seem not to
have discovered. I knew you would surprise me with something of the
kind."
"How did you know?"
"I divined it as one sees with the eyes of his spirit."
"There is one poor little firefly left," said Nan suddenly observing a
faint glimmer still coming from the tiny cage. "I am afraid he is hurt.
If I knew what to feed him on I would take him home and keep him till
he is able to fly."
"They feed the crickets on eggplant and melon rind. We can get some on
the way back, or we can find out what to give this little fellow."
"Then that is what we must do, though I wonder if we take him so far
away if he can find his way back to his companions. Do you suppose he
will want to? Or does it make no difference to a vital spark where it
is liberated?"
"I don't imagine it will make any difference. I know my soul could find
its way to----" He stopped short fearing he was growing too bold.
"To where?" asked Nan.
"To its kindred soul," was the reply which was not exactly what was
first intended.
Nan sighed. It was all so dreamily mysterious out there in the mild
warm air under the trees. It was a great temptation to stay and listen
to perhaps more daring speeches. They were both silent for a little
while, Nan watching the feeble glimmer of the imprisoned insect, and
Mr. Harding watching her in the light of the lantern hung before the
shrine. "It is very lovely here," said Nan at last, "but I think we
should go back."
"Must we? I could stay forever."
"It is very lovely," repeated Nan, but she began to move away from the
spot.
They passed a temple where people were coming and going and heard the
clanging of its gong, the shuffle of feet upon the stairway leading to
it, the murmur of voices. "Shall we go up?" asked Mr. Harding.
Nan shook her head. "No, I don't care to, do you?"
"No, I would rather stay a little longer in the shadow of my dreams."
They stood apart for a moment watching the moving throng, and then they
turned away, each dwelling in a world far away from that which they
saw, the land of Heart's Desire.
For some reason, Nan noticed that whenever Jack started off with Mr.
Harding alone, after the night of the Bon-ichi, she was not allowed to
go far without being joined by either Mary Lee or Eleanor, but when
she, herself, happened to come upon either of these two latter in the
young man's company, some mysterious errand would take one or the other
to another part of the house or grounds. She was too happy to search
very far for the cause of this and accepted what fate brought her in
the way of a tête-à-tête. That it was anything more than accident she
did not ask, that it was really a conspiracy she did not for a moment
imagine. For one short week she would enjoy herself and then let come
what must.
The last day of the Feast of Lanterns was the great one. On its morning
Mary Lee came to her. "I want you to do something for me, Nan," she
said. "I suppose you will think it is foolish, and of course I don't
in the least believe in these queer religions, for who could? But I do
want to do one thing. It seems as if somehow Phil might know that I am
sending him a message and it would comfort me to pretend. I want to
launch a little boat on the river this evening. Will you come with me?"
"Of course I will," said Nan heartily. "I don't think it is foolish at
all. I should feel exactly the same under the circumstances. Where will
you get the boat?"
"Oh, I have it. I managed all that. I shall not do as the Japanese do,
of course, and load it with food. I shall only write a little letter
and shall send out my boat with the lantern on it. I hope Phil will
know," she said wistfully.
Nan's eyes filled with tears. This was the romance of Mary Lee's life
she understood. All the poetry and romance of her nature was centred in
the memory of the young lover she had lost. "I am sure, if our dear
angels know anything of what we do, he will know," she answered her
sister gently. "Are we not compassed about by a cloud of witnesses?"
she added. "He must know, Mary Lee."
"I am glad you remembered that," returned her sister. "It is
comforting. I will come for you, shall I? or will you come for me?"
"Whichever you say."
"Perhaps you'd better come for me, then we can steal away by ourselves
more easily. I know just the spot."
The sun had set, but there was still light in the sky, when Mary Lee
and Nan set out for a secluded place along the riverside. The little
straw boat which Mary Lee carried was carefully screened from view and
it was not till they reached the river's brink that she took it from
its wrappings to set it afloat with its tiny lantern and the written
message of love and longing. Very carefully Mary Lee lighted the small
lantern, very cautiously set the tiny craft afloat and watched it drift
off adown the current to join the fleet further along. The twinkling
lights from many another frail bark showed that a host of phantoms were
supposedly moving out upon the current to find the sea at last.
The two girls stood silently watching the boat slowly making its way
down-stream. When its tiny spark at last vanished around a bend in the
river Mary Lee turned away with a quick sob. "Sometimes I feel as if I
could not bear it," she said.
Nan put her arms lovingly around the younger girl and laid her cheek
against the fair hair. "I know, I know," she whispered, "but he is
always there, dear, and always yours."
"Yes," returned the other, "and that is all that comforts."
"Suppose you had been obliged to give him up to some one else, loving
him as you did, wouldn't it have been harder?"
"I don't know. Perhaps. Yes, he is mine, forever mine, and he may not
be very far away if I could only have faith to realize it. I shall
think he does know and is glad to have me do what I have done to-night."
They returned slowly saying little. As they neared the hotel, they saw
Jack and Mr. Harding sauntering through the garden paths. They appeared
to be having an animated conversation. "Do you like Mr. Harding as much
as you did at first?" inquired Mary Lee.
"Oh, yes," returned Nan in as indifferent a manner as she could assume
though she felt the color rush to her face. Mary Lee stole a glance at
her, and remembered what Nan had forgotten. It was when she did not
talk freely of any special man that she might be counted on as feeling
the deeper interest. Nan rarely discussed Neal Harding and Mary Lee
drew her own conclusions.
"I wonder what Carter would say if he saw Jack now," she said after a
pause.
"He knows what Jack is," replied Nan, "and moreover I don't know that
he has any right to criticize her actions. We only assume that he has
any claim. Jack has never said so."
"No, she is a perfect sphinx upon the subject. Sometimes I think she
doesn't care a rap for him and again I am convinced that she would
never consider any one else."
"She is too young to know her own mind."
"I knew my own mind when I was younger than she."
"Well, I think she ought to have her chances."
"And you think Neal Harding is one of them."
"I think it within the bounds of possibility."
"Nonsense!"
"Why nonsense? He attracts her and I think she would attract him if----"
"If what?"
"If propinquity were made a factor."
"Do you think she would be happy married to Neal Harding?"
"Certainly. Why shouldn't she be? He is a fine, honorable gentleman
with a good mind and with excellent prospects. I cannot imagine how any
one could find fault with him."
Mary Lee smiled wisely. "Oh, I am not picking flaws. I think he is fine
but I don't concede that he would suit Jack in the least."
"Oh!" Nan seemed a little bewildered, but Mary Lee, watching the pair
wandering around the garden together, made up her mind to several
things which she did not reveal to Nan.
Jack espied her sisters as they came forward. She ran to meet them
exclaiming: "Why, where have you all been? We have been looking all
over for you. Mr. Harding wants us to see the great dance, the dance
called Bon-odori. Eleanor and the rest are waiting for us. The others
have gone on ahead."
There was nothing to do but follow out the suggestion and in due time
the party reached the temple court where the strangely-fascinating,
weird dance was going on. It was one of those peculiar religious rites
performed in many countries on special feast days, though varying with
the time and place, a quaint and rhythmical march, accompanied by the
clapping of hands, the beat of a drum. A procession of maidens swaying,
turning, stepping lightly, moving gracefully around the temple court;
this is what they saw. Presently others joined the procession, men
and again other women. Then began the songs, curious antiphonal chants
rising with more and more volume as the company of marching figures
grew larger.
"It reminds me of some strange old Scriptural rite," said Mrs. Corner
to the colonel. "One might imagine the daughters of Israel going out to
meet David, or dancing before the golden calf. It is very Oriental, but
really very beautiful. The hands are very expressive and the rhythm is
perfect."
"I have seen the dance done in different parts of Japan," returned the
colonel, "and it is never quite the same, but it is always interesting."
They tarried till a booming bell gave signal that the dance was over
and then they joined the throng of toddling women and shuffling men who
turned toward their homes.
"To-morrow," said the colonel, "the fishermen can go out again, for
those who have parents need not go without meat, although those who
have lost a parent must wait a day longer before they can have fish to
eat."
"But we shall have fish," said Mrs. Craig with decision. And so ended
the great Festival of the Bonku.
[Illustration: CHAPTER XIV
JEAN VISITS]
CHAPTER XIV
JEAN VISITS
Nan hung the tiny cage with its one occupant outside her room on the
verandah and the next morning discovered that the small maker of light
had escaped through the open door. Later in the day, joy itself took
wings with the return of Neal Harding to his post. He had declared
that he would see them all again, but as he would remain in Tokyo, to
which place they did not expect to go again, it seemed to Nan that the
end of her summer had come. He had not asked her to write, and she
told herself that this dream was ended, ended with the flitting of the
ghostly visitors from another world. "It was all a phantom anyhow," she
sighed as she took down the wee cage and laid it among her treasures.
She wondered if Jack would start up a correspondence. Jack did not like
to write letters, to be sure, but she was one who made a means serve
her ends and if she really did like Mr. Harding above any other man she
had met, she would be sure to find a way of keeping him in sight.
A few days later Nan happened to come upon her mother and aunt deep in
a discussion of further plans. "You're just the girl we want to see,"
said Mrs. Corner. "Come, sit down here and talk it all over with us. We
feel that we should be thinking of starting forth again, not because
we are tired of this lovely spot, but because there is so much more to
see, and one can scarcely expect to come to Japan more than once in a
lifetime. You and Mary Lee have made the Craigs a long visit and it is
time that should be ended. Now what do you think we should make our
next point?"
Nan gave the question due consideration. "We must certainly see
Kyoto," she said at last. "It is such a very old city and was the
capital before Tokyo became so. I have been told that it is the most
interesting city in Japan."
Mrs. Corner looked at Miss Helen. "Now that is quite as it should be.
Jean has had an invitation to visit there."
"She has? Who has asked her?"
Mrs. Corner raised her voice slightly to say, "Jean, dear, come in here
and bring the letter you had this morning."
Jean, who could hear perfectly well through the thin paper partitions
of the room, appeared presently with the letter in her hand. It was
written on a very long sheet of paper, ornamented delicately upon its
surface with shadowy designs. It was in a long narrow envelope, and was
folded over and over many times in order to make it fit.
"It is from Ko-yeda Sannomiya," said Jean. "You remember her, Nan? She
was the little Japanese girl at Rayner Hall. We took her to Cloverdale
once and tried to be nice to her. She is a funny little thing, and some
of the girls fought shy of her, but I always liked her, she was so
sweet and gentle."
"And has she come back home?"
"Yes, and lives in Kyoto. She heard in some roundabout way that we were
over here and had the sense to write to Bettersley and ask to have the
letter forwarded. It has been a long time on the way, of course, but
the invitation stands for any time I may accept it."
"I don't see why she didn't ask me, too," said Jack who had come in.
"I know," said Mary Lee; "you are too big, and you would scare her
family; besides you would fill up the house and there wouldn't be room
for any one else."
"Oh, pshaw!" exclaimed Jack, "I am no taller than Nan."
"Well, they didn't ask her."
"That is all nonsense," replied Jack. "I suppose the real reason is
that Jean flocked with her more than I did, and once I laughed at her
for some funny mistake she made. I suppose I shouldn't have done it for
it wasn't very polite, but the laugh came out before I thought."
"Are you going, Jean?" Nan asked.
"I think so. It is quite a compliment, I reckon, and I ought to take
advantage of it, though it scares me rather to go in among such
exceedingly foreign people. I shall only stay a day or so, however, and
I don't reckon anything very terrible can happen in that time."
"So then it is settled, is it, that we go on to Kyoto?" said Nan.
"It will be pretty warm, I suppose, after these delightful mountains,"
remarked Miss Helen regretfully, "but if we come to Japan in summer we
must take the consequences. At all events we can be thankful that the
rainy season is over."
"I wonder what Ko-yeda means," said Nan musingly, as she handed back
the letter to Jean.
"It means a slender twig," Jean informed her. "Ko-yeda told me so long
ago."
"It is very pretty, especially for a young girl," Nan decided.
In spite of Eleanor's protests and charges of desertion, and of Mrs.
Craig's persuasions, the day was set for their departure. It came all
too soon. The evening before, Nan made a last visit to the temples
and to the little shrine where she had set free her fireflies. The
discovery that Jack had received a letter from Mr. Harding that very
morning did not give her a very serene state of mind, but in spite of
that she felt a melancholy satisfaction in visiting the places where
she had been so happy. The booths had departed from the streets and
the crowd had dwindled to the usual number, but in the garden, which
held many a dear memory, the water still lapped the slim reeds and the
nightingale still repeated its song, not a long sustained, nor so full
a strain as she had heard in Italy, but nevertheless a lovelier one to
her because of association. Here they two had sat and listened on more
than one evening when the air was soft and balmy and when the scent of
lilies came to them. "Nevermore, nevermore," was the only refrain which
Nan's heart could hear.
Eleanor found her in the little summer-house where they all had spent
so many gay and happy hours.
"I could weep when I think of your leaving me, Nan," she said. "I used
to be awfully fond of you there at Bettersley but I have enlarged the
borders of the place you occupied in my heart and now you take up such
a lot of room that I don't see how I can let you go."
"Better come along," said Nan lightly.
"Do you really mean it?"
It had not occurred to Nan before, but, as she turned the plan over in
her mind, she was pleased with it. "Why not?" she said.
"I'd simply love to. Of course I must see all I can of Japan, and Aunt
Nora wouldn't leave the colonel, neither would he leave her, if he
could, which he can't. As for Neal he is not to be depended upon except
upon occasions. I don't in the least see why I shouldn't go with you,
for a time anyhow. I know Aunt Nora will say I must. Are you really in
earnest, Nan, and do you think your mother and aunt would consent to
let me hang on to your skirts?"
"I am sure they would be delighted. You all have been mighty nice to
us, Nell Harding, and even if we didn't like you so powerful much as we
do we'd say, 'Come along.'"
"Don't talk of our having been nice. Why, my dear, you all have been
the whole show this summer. You have simply lifted us all out of stupid
monotony into delirious excitement."
An hour later it was all settled that Eleanor should be one of the
party and after a whirl of packing on her part, she started off for
Kyoto with the Corners the very next day.
After all it was found that Kyoto would be more easily reached by way
of Tokyo than by any other route and in the latter city was made the
stay of a night. It brought Mr. Harding post haste to see them all,
but, as luck would have it, Nan was laid up with a headache and could
not appear. She insisted upon going on the next morning, and so Tokyo
brought her no added memories. At the quiet European hotel in Kyoto,
Jean met her late schoolfellow and was borne off without delay.
She made a little wry face over her shoulder as she said good-bye
to her sisters, but Jack was very envious of her opportunity and
bemoaned her luck in not having won Ko-yeda's regard. "It doesn't make
it any better to tell me it is my own fault," she said to Mary Lee,
who reminded her of the fact. "Never mind, I will have some sort of
adventure before I leave this town; you see if I don't."
However reluctantly Jean started forth, nothing could have exceeded
the gracious welcome she received from the family of Ko-yeda. Mrs.
Sannomiya bowed to the floor, likewise did Grandmother Sannomiya, as
well as every one else in the establishment. Into a fresh, sweet room
covered with mats of rice straw she was ushered, a silken cushion
was placed for her and she was at once served with "honorable tea,"
sweetmeats and cakes. This ceremony over, she was taken to another
matted room where, as she told her sisters afterward, she hung up
her clothes on the floor and listened to what they were saying in
the next room. After this Ko-yeda led her to the front of the house
which did not face the street, but the garden, and a charming one it
was. Not large, but displaying a tiny grotto, a miniature pond where
goldfishes and little turtles lived, and where, at this season, lovely
lotus blooms floated. Along the stone paths potted plants were set and
in one spot Ko-yeda pointed out with pride a cherry tree which was
the garden's glory in spring. It was not a very big place but it was
admired and beloved by the whole family from the opening of the first
budlet to the falling of the scarlet leaves from a baby maple tree. The
verandah of the house overlooked the garden rather than the street.
Ko-yeda's pleasure in her company was boundless. She spoke English well
and chattered away asking innumerable questions of this and that one
and inquiring all about what Jean had seen in Japan. "You are traveled
more than I," she said. "Never to Nikko have I been. I go some of the
day. You see I do not mean be as other Japanese girl. I am student
of America and I very free in my thinking of what I mean do. My
grandmother frown and say I naughty little girl, for that I wish no be
like the honorable ancestor. She Christian, too, but she cannot forget
the ancestor. For myself, I like better remember my present ones."
"Do you think you will marry, Ko-yeda?" asked Jean.
"I cannot say. I would not like to think. It is not respectable for me
here in Japan to do so. In your country it is opposite. You marry some
of the day?"
"Oh, dear me, I don't know. You may not believe it, Ko-yeda, and I
would not like to confess it to my sisters even, but I have never yet
been in love, though I am eighteen."
Ko-yeda laughed merrily. "You should be as I am. Some day when come
a good Christian somebodies to my father and mother and say I wish
Ko-yeda for my son, then perhaps I think, but I shall wait till that
day. I will not marry any but my own countryman, I suppose, and I do
not wish other, but I wish Christian."
"Of course you do. Will you have to wait on your mother-in-law, then?"
"Oh, yes. My mother do the same. I will do unless perhaps is adopted a
young mans to my family. I think will be this for we have no son. Then
is my mother my mother-in-law." She laughed merrily.
"Oh, I hope it will turn out that way," said Jean who had her own
opinions of Japanese mothers-in-law, and who would have been sorry to
see her little friend occupy the position that some young wives must.
Ko-yeda was a dainty, pretty little person, with small oval face, very
dark brown, not black, hair, a clear skin over which sometimes crept
a soft rosy tint, soft dark eyes, a small mouth and delicate little
hands. Her dress was of pale blue crape with a handsome _obi_, or sash
confining the kimono. The sash was subtly brilliant but not gaudy.
Altogether Jean thought her a charming figure, much more so in her
native costume than she had been at school in European dress. So much
could not be said of the grandmother who looked shrunken and yellow,
whose teeth were blackened and who wore a sombre robe of gray. "I
wonder if Ko-yeda will look like that some day," was Jean's thought as
she was escorted in to take dinner.
This was served to her upon a little lacquered table about a foot high
while she ate seated on a flat cushion laid upon the matted floor.
There was cold soup and stewed fish and rice into which raw eggs were
broken. There was raw fish, too, served with soy, and there was
chicken and some queer sort of meat which Jean did not recognize.
Indeed the sweetish sauces served with nearly everything rendered most
of the dishes unpalatable to her, but she could eat the rice and the
chicken and managed to taste the other dishes. In consideration of
her preferences, there was real bread, and Ko-yeda had prepared with
her own hands a pudding which she presented anxiously. Of course Jean
praised it and really but for this quite substantial dish, might have
fared rather badly. There was tea, of course, and various sweetmeats,
not very attractive to a foreigner.
"If you show me I make some of the American somethings for you," said
Ko-yeda.
"Where is your kitchen?" asked Jean.
Ko-yeda laughed. "We have not like you, for we use the _hibachi_ much.
I show you our cook place and the go-down and all that."
So they went on a voyage of exploration. The go-down or _kura_ Jean saw
to be a sort of storehouse where many things were placed for safety
against fire, only too frequent in the cities of Japan. The _kura_ was
built of bamboo and wood and was covered two feet thick with clay so
that it was quite fire-proof. The little garden which Jean first saw
led into another and she was surprised to see how many rooms were in
the rambling house, or at least how many there could be when screens
were drawn. There were numerous little maids at work here and there
and, as Ko-yeda led her guest this way and that, she caught glimpses
of cool, quiet, dimly-lighted places where different members of the
family were squatting on the floor,--Ko-yeda's mother busy with some
delicate embroidery, her grandmother arranging a vase of flowers, her
father bending over a table with a brush and a long sheet of paper
upon which he made deft marks with great rapidity. He was writing a
letter, Ko-yeda told her. Upon entering the house from the garden, they
took off their shoes and Ko-yeda provided Jean with a pair of _tabi_,
a queer kind of sock, foot-mittens Jean called them, for instead of a
place for the thumb was one for the big toe. As they went through the
corridors and peeped into one after another of the rooms, Jean saw how
very simple a Japanese home could be. Even the best room, the guest
room as it was called, had in it only a number of flat silk-covered
cushions to sit or kneel on, a couple of small chests of drawers, lamps
with pretty shades, some folding screens, a shining mirror of steel,
and a few of the small lacquered tables. In several of the rooms were
alcoves which Ko-yeda called _tokonoma_ and _chigai-dana_.
"In the day of old," said Ko-yeda, "the great gentlemans of the house
would use to sit before these. We place here our decoration for the
day, in the one, our _kakemono_ and the flowers; in the other a
something pretty which we like, a vase, a carvings, what you will. I
show you. To-day because of your coming I am wish of our best. I think
you like it maybe." She took her into the room where a panel picture
hung; it showed a pair of birds exquisitely painted upon white satin,
the branch upon which they sat being perfect in detail and the birds'
feathers wonderfully wrought. "I remember you teach me 'Birds of a
feathers flock together,'" said Ko-yeda.
Jean laughed. She had forgotten, but how well Ko-yeda had remembered a
little joke of theirs. In front of the _kakemono_ was a slender vase
in which was a single spray of flowers. In the other alcove stood a
beautiful piece of carved ivory. This room was shaded from the outside
glare of the sun by sliding windows covered with paper through which
the light fell softly. Beyond were smaller apartments and above stairs
were still more, bath-rooms among them. The place seemed very cool and
spacious and peaceful. Every one was kindness itself and all tried in
every way to make Ko-yeda's guest feel at home.
The next meal was a more elaborate one. There were several kinds of
soup, eels, lobster, more fish, vegetables and then rice served from a
large lacquered box. There were odd sweets and some very delicate and
delicious cakes. The sweetmeats were in various forms, lotus flowers,
and little brown twigs, green leaves and the like, among them. It was
all very odd and pleasant. Jean was glad that she and her sisters had
experimented with chop-sticks as she felt herself less awkward with
them. They were really not so very difficult to manage and they all
praised her use of them. Of course the honorable tea had to form a
part of the meal, and after this was taken and the obsequious servants
had removed the dishes, the girls went out into the garden where Mr.
Sannomiya was walking around, a paper umbrella over his head and a
large fan in his hand. "My father, he dress European and my mother too,
when they go out," Ko-yeda explained, "but at home we all feel more
comfort in the native dress."
"I think it is much prettier than ours," said Jean. "I wish you would
not give it up."
"But my father so ashamed to have Western man say he what you call a
rear number."
Jean smiled. "A back number, you mean?"
"Oh, yes, a back number. I thank you. I am forgetting my English. He
say we must not appear like the old Japan which shut the door upon
all progress. If we wish be like the rest of world we must do as the
other nations and so we wear the dress so to show that we are not
behind in things."
As the girls came up Mr. Sannomiya bowed very low and said that he was
honored that Jean should come to his poor mean house to see his ugly
and uninteresting daughter. Jean was a little startled at the remark as
translated by Ko-yeda, but her friend laughed and said, "It is but the
way we speak; you must not mind; I know you are not accustomed."
"Do please say something nice to him in your own way," returned Jean.
"Tell him how pleased I am to come and how flattered I feel that you
have invited me."
This was quite sufficient material for Ko-yeda to make into a very
gracious speech, and then with much ceremony each took a different path
around the garden.
Later on came callers--Ko-yeda's elder sister and her husband who bowed
low and bumped their heads against the floor upon being presented. Jean
tried to respond in like manner, but felt her bow was very awkward.
Mrs. Sanzo, as well as her husband, was in regulation European costume,
but Jean thought Ko-yeda much more charming in her delicate pink crape
kimono and _obi_ tied in an immense bow at the back. The funny little
hunchy manner of walking which the little Japanese woman displayed
was not suited to French gowns and hats, Jean thought. However, most
gracious and sweet was Mrs. Sanzo, with a lovely voice and the most
charming smile. She could speak a little English and made her sister
promise to bring Jean to see her. During the hour that followed the
arrival of these visitors others came and Jean had fairly to pinch
herself to discover if she were not dreaming as she sat curled up on
a little cushion listening to the unfamiliar language in such a very
unfamiliar kind of house. Not any more familiar was the appearance of
the little maids who came in from time to time to bring refreshments,
and who knelt whenever they slid open the _fusuma_, or screen, between
the rooms and who presented their trays of sweetmeats, or the pipes and
tobacco for the gentlemen, still kneeling.
But at last bedtime came. Mrs. Sannomiya clapped her hands and the
maids again appeared to slide the _fusuma_ while Ko-yeda led the way
through the corridors to an upper room where piles of comfortables,
or _futons_ as they were called, had been laid on the floor. A little
pillow had been provided for Jean in place of the hard wooden bolster
usually considered proper for a lady. This because her hair would be
disarranged by the use of anything different.
It was a warm night and the _shoji_ and _amado_ were both open toward
the garden, though down-stairs Jean heard them putting up the wooden
shutters called amado, and knew the house was thus being closed for
the night. She could hear the murmur of talk around her, and the plash
of water from the fountain in the garden. There was a queer scent of
incense in the air and this mingled with the odors of the garden and
the smoke of her lamp made her realize that this was indeed a foreign
land. She lay under her canopy of mosquito net, a very necessary
protection, and wished that Jack were there and that she could fly
across the great city to where her mother and sisters were, that she
might kiss them all good-night. "Well, I am glad I am not further
away," she thought. "Suppose they were across the ocean. I might have
reason for feeling homesick."
The next day came a round of entertainments. A visit to Mrs. Sanzo
where there was a fat, laughing, slant-eyed, cunning baby, exactly like
dolls Jean remembered having had as a child. There was a little glimpse
of the city, and a call at one of the mission schools where it seemed
pleasant to find American women teachers and gentle little girl pupils.
Then there was a drive to the country to see the silk spinners.
"This is the time when the cocoons are ready," Ko-yeda said. "You will
like to see?"
Indeed Jean would and so they drove on to where some lowly little
cottages made a village. The doors, even the fronts of the houses,
were all open, and inside Jean could see fluffy piles of pale yellow
or white stuff before which sat withered, brown-faced old men or
women with rude little hand-reels upon which they wound the delicate
thread. More than once the girls alighted to watch the process, Ko-yeda
speaking and evidently telling about Jean, for they eyed her with eager
interest and one gave her a soft puffy ball of the silk and would take
no return.
There was more than one stop, for no excursion is complete without a
cup of tea, and then back to the city to another meal at a foot-high
table, more ceremonious bows and visits, another night upon the
_futons_ with the insects shrilling outside in the garden to the
accompaniment of water trickling over the stones, and the mosquitoes
buzzing outside the net, then Jean was ready for her own people and her
own way of living. She would see Ko-yeda? Oh, yes, many times before
she left Kyoto, and they would have many more pleasant talks.
She went away laden with presents, with all the servants prostrating
themselves at each side the door, and with an impression of having
lived for two days in an Arabian Night story.
[Illustration: GLAD SHE HAD EXPERIMENTED WITH CHOP-STICKS]
[Illustration: CHAPTER XV
A MOCK JAPANESE]
CHAPTER XV
A MOCK JAPANESE
"Sit right down and tell us all about it," said Mary Lee as Jean
appeared before the family after her visit. "Did you have a good time?"
Jean took off her gloves and folded them neatly. "I had a most
interesting time," she said. "I never knew kinder, more hospitable
people, and when I came away they loaded me with gifts till I was so
embarrassed I didn't know what to do. Of course I gave all the servants
something, but I have got to do something for Ko-yeda after all this."
"Where are your presents?" asked Jack. "Fetch them along; we want to
see what they are like."
"You know it is a custom to give presents to a departing guest," said
Nan. "They always do it, and it is in accordance with the station and
wealth of the entertainer. I know it is very overwhelming sometimes but
it has to be endured."
"I'll get the things presently," said Jean. "Tell me what you all have
been doing since I left you."
"We'll do that when you have told your tale, which will be much more
interesting. How many are in the family and did you see them all, and
what were they like?" Nan asked the questions.
Jean began to count off the answers on her fingers. "In the family
there are Mr. and Mrs. Sannomiya, Grandmother Sannomiya and Ko-yeda.
There was a son but he died two years ago and that is why Ko-yeda was
called home. There is a married sister, Mrs. Sanzo; she is very nice
and has a darling baby. I went to her house. She is very tiny and
looked like a little doll in her dress quite like ours. Her husband
is tiny, too, and dresses like any of our men. The others adopt our
costume when they are out, but at home they go back to kimonos and all
that. It was very funny to see Mr. Sannomiya in the garden with a big
fan and an umbrella. The old grandmother has blackened teeth and is the
most important person in the house. Mrs. Sannomiya waits on her hand
and foot, and they all hang on her words as if she were an oracle. She
is rather a nice old person but I can imagine that a daughter-in-law
might have a very unpleasant time of it in some households."
"Poor Ko-yeda," said Jack, "I hope she won't have any hard time."
"I don't believe she will, for she told me that if she married it is
probable that her husband would be adopted into the family to take the
place of her brother who died. In that case, he will take her name and
be considered a true son. His own people won't be anything at all to
him."
"There are cases not unlike that in our own country," said Eleanor. "I
have known men who were completely weaned from their own families as
soon as they were married. I think a woman is a horrid selfish pig to
completely absorb a man that way. If any one steals Neal from me and
makes him indifferent to his people, all because she is such a jealous
pig she wants him all to herself, I shall have my opinion of her."
They all laughed at Eleanor's vehemence, but only Mary Lee noticed
Nan's heightened color. Mary Lee was taking notes these days.
"What did you have to eat?" asked Jack.
"Oh, all sorts of queer stuff, some of it perfectly impossible," Jean
told her; "but some of it was very good, the cakes especially. Ko-yeda
tried to have some English food. We actually did have bread, and the
fish was served me without that awful sweet sauce. I didn't starve."
She went on with her account, Jack taking notes rapidly while her twin
talked.
"What on earth are you doing?" queried Mary Lee as Jack scribbled away.
"Oh, I am just getting it all down so I can use the material in the
future. Jean may forget some of it. It is much easier to get hold of it
now when I have nothing else to do; it may save me lots of time later
on. I can make a daily or a weekly or some kind of theme of it."
Jean told about her drive to the little village where she had seen
the silk-spinning, of her callers, of the routine in the house and
much that the others found interesting. "They do things in the most
contrary fashion," she dilated upon her subject. "They push the eye of
the needle on to the thread; their keys always turn in the opposite
direction from ours, and the other day I was watching Mr. Sannomiya
writing a letter. Will you believe it? He did it all backwards."
"Go on and get your things," urged Nan. "We are crazy to see them."
Jean retired and presently came back with her treasures. "This," she
said, unrolling something from its wrapping of first soft paper and
then an under covering of fine silk, "is what Mr. Sannomiya gave me."
She displayed a beautiful silken panel charmingly painted. "It is a
_kakemono_, you know. After seeing those lovely cool rooms ours do seem
overcrowded. When I get home I think I shall fit up a room in the wing
and that shall be a Japanese room."
"Oh, let us do it," cried Jack. "We can do just as the Japanese do and
can have different decorations for different days. We can have tea
there sometimes and wear our costumes, just as you were planning, Nan."
"I think that will be a lovely idea," agreed Mrs. Corner; "then you
will all have a chance to display your treasures."
Jean carefully put away her _kakemono_ and took from a box, sweetly
smelling and prettily decorated, a beautiful Satsuma vase. "This is
from Grandmother Sannomiya," she announced.
"Such a beauty," said one and another as it was passed around.
"And this," Jean next produced a silken scarf of wonderful tint and
beautifully embroidered, "is from Mrs. Sannomiya."
"How perfectly gorgeous," cried Jack. "Oh, Jean, I am green with envy."
Jean was very complacent at having aroused all this admiration of her
gifts. "I am sure you will be more so when I show you what Ko-yeda
herself has given me," she said as she drew forth a small bag or
pouch to which was fastened an exquisite carving of ivory. "It is a
real _netsuké_," said Jean with pride. "I learned something about a
_netsuké_ from Ko-yeda," she went on. "It is really just the thing that
keeps the pouch from slipping through the sash. It used to be used on
all sorts of things, pipes, tobacco pouches, medicine cases and, Mr.
Sannomiya says, originally on shrine cases. This one is quite old, but
the very oldest are made of wood instead of ivory. There used to be
very celebrated carvers of _netsukés_ who signed them and their work is
very valuable. Mine isn't signed but I think it is a love."
The gift was passed from hand to hand and was pronounced a prize worth
having. Then Jean carefully replaced it in its pretty box and carried
off her presents. She was a most particular little person and very
exact about all her belongings. Not so striking as merry Jack she,
nevertheless, had her own good points, a neat figure, small hands and
feet, a gentle expression and good features. Her eyes had not the depth
and expression of Nan's nor the changefulness and sparkle of Jack's but
they were soft and clear.
"And what have you been doing?" asked Jean when her own affairs had
been discussed sufficiently.
"Seeing the town," Nan told her.
"What have you seen?"
"The great Yasaka tower, for one thing, the Mikado's palace for
another. We haven't been to the temples yet, at least not to the
principal one," Jack told her.
"I believe it is said that there are three thousand temples in Kyoto,"
remarked Nan.
"We couldn't possibly see them all," returned Jean.
"Oh, yes, we have seen them all," declared Jack with a twinkle in her
eye.
"What perfect nonsense," said Jean disgustedly. "How could you in two
days?"
"We could and we did, from the top of the Yasaka tower. They must have
been all there before us even if we couldn't distinguish one from
another."
"Now, isn't that just like you, Jack?" retorted Jean. "What is the
tower for? It was pointed out to me yesterday, but there were so many
other things to see I didn't learn anything about it."
"I think it was built by an emperor that his children might view the
whole city. In the former days royalty was so sacred that no one was
allowed to look upon the emperor and empress. When they gave audiences,
they were concealed by a purple curtain down to the knees, but the
present ruler has done away with all that; he and his wife appear among
their people quite as any European monarch would do," Miss Helen told
them.
"And how their people adore them," said Jean. "I heard no end of tales
of their goodness. The empress is so very charitable and is so kind to
the sick and the poor; so is the emperor for that matter. Ko-yeda could
not say enough about them."
While they were talking Jack had slipped away. She could not get over
the fact that Jean had been having adventures in which she had no
part. "Very well," she told herself, "I will make an adventure for
myself." In this city of beautiful brocades and embroideries the girls
had found the shops most fascinating, and had made several purchases.
Jack had provided herself with an entire Japanese costume, a pretty
kimono, a gorgeous _obi_, a pair of _geta_ or clogs, and all the other
paraphernalia. She had carefully studied the arrangement of hair and
since her own was no lighter than Ko-yeda's she could arrange it to
look quite like that of a Japanese girl. While the others were still
busy talking, she donned her costume, arranged her hair as nearly as
possible like Ko-yeda's, stuck many pins and ornaments in it, slipped
on the _getas_ and sallied forth with fan and umbrella. Both she and
Jean had often before this practiced walking on the queer little shoes
and could shuffle along fairly well, though when Jack was actually on
the street, she felt awkward and a trifle uneasy.
But she was determined to carry out her adventure and went on trying
her best to toddle along in imitation of the women around her.
Passers-by looked up at her curiously, for she was so much taller
than the usual run of persons on the street that she could not but
attract attention. She had made herself up very well, but her eyes
and her height gave indubitable evidence of her being a foreigner,
yet no one did more than smile as she went along. The scene was a
gay one, _jinrikishas_ hastening hither and thither, street criers,
venders of all sorts of wares, workmen, strollers, crowded the way.
Shops displayed many kinds of rich wares, little wooden houses with
gray roofs were surprisingly many. Jack, entertained at first, at
last thought it time to return. She looked about her. It was all very
unfamiliar, but she decided she knew the way. All at once she found
herself in a narrow labyrinthine street and surrounded by a curious
crowd of little urchins who began to jeer, to point at her, to jabber
uncomprehended words. Finally one, bolder than the rest, came up and
tweaked her sleeve. This was the signal for further disagreeable
attentions. One jerked away her fan; another poked a hole through
her umbrella. She tried to take it as a joke and to smile upon their
naughtiness, but they were excited with the chase and meant to run
their prey to cover. So unpleasant did they finally become that poor
Jack looked this way and that for a way of escape. She had long ago
exhausted her vocabulary of Japanese speech and had not a word left to
suit the occasion. There seemed no one in sight but the boys and she
fervently wished they were not there.
But presently, to her great relief, she saw some one approaching, and,
as good luck would have it, the figure was that of a woman in plain
garb but it was the familiar dress of her own country. At sight of this
individual, the boys scattered. Jack stood still and waited. She was
sure if she spoke her own tongue she would be understood.
The newcomer soon was at her side. "Will you please tell me where I can
get a _jinrikisha_?" asked Jack.
The person so accosted started. "Why----" she looked Jack over,
surprise giving way to amused interest. "Why, my child, what in the
world are you doing over in this part of the city dressed like that,
when you don't know the language?" she asked.
Jack colored up. "I was out for a walk," she said. "I didn't realize
how tall I was and that I would attract attention. I thought I could
pass along and no one would notice very particularly, for I am sure I
have my things on quite properly and I can walk on the _getas_, though
not so very fast."
The lady listened with still an amused expression. "Come along with
me," she said. "I can soon set you all right. I am a teacher in a
mission school in this part of the city. I am going there now."
"Oh, I should love to see a mission school," declared Jack, gladly
accepting the invitation. The two walked along together both asking
many questions and becoming on good terms by the time they had reached
the door of the school. As they went in, an older person came forward,
but stopped in surprise as she saw the tall girl in Japanese dress.
The circle of little girls sitting on the matted floor looked up also,
their serious faces broadening into smiles as they beheld Jack. "This
is Miss Corner, Mrs. Lang," said Jack's companion. "She has lost her
way in this big city and needs to be sent home." Then she gave an
account of Jack's escapade and the elder teacher laughed merrily.
"I suppose I ought to have known better," said Jack ruefully. "It is a
downfall to my pride. I thought I looked so lovely and Japanesy. I even
put little dabs of red on my cheeks and my lower lip, you see."
"But that didn't lessen your inches nor slant your eyes in the right
direction," Mrs. Lang said. "Of course you slipped out without your
mother's seeing you."
"Yes, of course," returned Jack rather meekly. "If it hadn't been for
those horrid little boys I should have had no trouble. Of course people
laughed and one or two men said something to me but I just went on and
didn't answer."
Mrs. Lang shook her head. "Don't do it again. It wouldn't be exactly
safe for you to go alone into the native part of the city in your
accustomed dress and as a mock Japanese you might expect some trouble."
"But I thought they were always so gentle and polite here that I would
be quite safe."
"There are circumstances when it doesn't do to trust too much to
theories," Mrs. Lang replied.
"Miss Corner would like very much to hear the children sing," said Miss
Gresham, Jack's first acquaintance.
Mrs. Lang turned to the little group and said something, then she
started a song. Jack listened attentively and with perfect gravity, but
the children, whose voices were so sweet in speech, sang execrably,
with very little idea of tune, and so raucously as to make one wonder
how they could do it. "Nan would curl up and die if she were to hear
them," she said to herself.
The children then went through several exercises for her benefit and at
last subsided in order with solemn set little faces.
"I thought them so expressionless and unresponsive when I first came,"
said Miss Gresham as she conducted Jack to another room, "but you have
no idea how receptive they are and how attentive. We are doing good
work here and I wish you would bring all your party to see us and some
of the other classes which are more advanced."
Jack promised and was told the name of the street, and how to reach
Miss Gresham herself and then she took her leave with a feeling of
thankfulness that she had been so lucky as to come across one of her
own people. "It was truly a missionary act," she said with a smile
as she bade Mrs. Lang good-bye. "I begin to realize what a debt of
gratitude I owe you."
"It was only what the veriest stranger might do in any place,"
protested Miss Gresham, though Jack felt it was more.
"I might have been any kind of a horrid person," she said, "and you
were just as nice to me as could be."
"My dear," said Miss Gresham, "I knew as soon as I looked at you that
you were not a horrid person."
"With all this powder and rouge on my face?"
"_I_ could see under that," responded Miss Gresham with a smile.
Miss Gresham insisted upon going all the way to the hotel with her in
a _jinrikisha_ which carried them swiftly through the streets to the
place in no time.
"I wish you would come in and see them all," urged Jack.
"Not to-day; perhaps another time, but you will be sure to come to see
us."
Jack was earnest in her promise to do this and went on feeling rather
shamefaced. It had been easy to slip out but the coming back was quite
a different matter. She could not but be observed, she reflected, and
it might not be as pleasant for her to be pointed out as the flyaway
girl who masqueraded as a Japanese. She hesitated so long on the steps
that Miss Gresham came back to her. "What is the matter?" she asked.
"I wish you would go in with me," she begged. "I am afraid the servants
will discover me, or, if they don't, that they won't let me go up
without questions. If you were to ask for Mrs. Corner, I could go along
with you and no one need notice particularly."
"I understand," responded Miss Gresham, "and of course I will go." So
the matter of entrance was effected without undue remark. If any one
observed the tall Japanese girl, she passed by so quickly that it gave
but a momentary interest, and so was forgotten.
The adventure was frowned at of course, but in the presence of Miss
Gresham and in the interest her account of the mission aroused, Jack
was allowed to escape with less of a scolding than she really deserved.
It was her first serious scrape since she had arrived in Japan, and
perhaps that was one reason why it was treated with some degree of
mildness. "Jack was bound to do something," said Nan, "and we are lucky
to have her do nothing more serious. I am sure she won't venture forth
again in such a get-up." And it is safe to say that Jack did not.
[Illustration: CHAPTER XVI
A PROSPECTIVE SERVANT]
CHAPTER XVI
A PROSPECTIVE SERVANT
Although Jack's escapade was the talk of the hour, the excitement it
brought died away in a day or two, while Jean's experiences continued
to be discussed for a longer time. Every now and then would crop up
something funny or, at least, interesting, which she had to tell about.
"I found out why the people here make such a noise in that piggy way
when they eat," she told her family. "It is to show appreciation of
your food. It is particularly desirable to do it when you are dining
out, the more succulent the sound the more polite."
"Oh, Jean," protested Mary Lee.
"It is a fact, really it is. Ko-yeda told me and I noticed it myself."
"Let's all do that way the next time we go over to Jo's," proposed
Jack. "She won't know what to make of it, but after a while we will
tell her it is a custom we learned in Japan."
The girls laughed and agreed to try it. "Poor old Jo," said Jean. "She
is out of it this time. I really miss her once in a while. She has
always been around when we were having our good times."
"Don't you believe but that she would a thousand times rather be where
she is." Nan spoke with conviction.
"I wonder if I shall feel like that ever," said Jack thoughtfully. "I
can't imagine myself so devoted to a husband as Jo is to Dr. Paul."
"I wouldn't trust you," returned Jean. "You will quite as likely outdo
her in your abject devotion."
"I hope I shall at least not be abject," retorted Jack stiffly. "That
is one thing I shall not care to learn from the Japanese."
"Is Mrs. Sannomiya abject?" inquired Eleanor.
"Well, she is a little bit, but I have seen American women with big
bullies of husbands quite as much so," Jean replied. "Not that Mr.
Sannomiya is a bully, far from it, but I suppose it is the Japanese
woman's prerogative to be humble as it is the man's to be lordly.
The girls are all trained from the beginning to be meek and gentle,
to exercise self-control under all circumstances, to smile and be
agreeable no matter how mad they feel inside."
"Humph!" ejaculated Jack. "I'd like to see me."
"You would have to if you were a Japanese," insisted Jean.
"I think we will leave Jack here for a year in a Japanese household,"
remarked Mary Lee.
Jack made a face at her. "I'd run away," she said.
"Where?" said Mary Lee teasingly.
"Oh, I would throw myself upon the mercies of the American legation and
get the chief to let me marry one of his nice attachés," returned Jack.
Mary Lee did not pursue the subject, but turned to Jean to ask, "Does
Ko-yeda do anything about the house?"
"Oh, yes, though there isn't so very much to do; not near so much as in
our homes. She always serves tea when there is extra company, and when
her father has a particular guest she waits on them, not because there
are no servants nor because they don't know how, but because it is
considered the thing to serve the two, or three, or whatever number of
men with their meal separately, and it is more hospitable and courteous
to have it served by one of the ladies of the family."
"That is something the way they do in provincial districts at home,"
remarked Nan.
"What do the maids do?" inquired Mary Lee.
"Oh, they roll up the beds and store them away for the day in the
closets, take down the mosquito nets, sweep and dust the rooms, wash
the porches, and the dishes, maybe. The market people come with baskets
to the door sometimes. Ko-yeda or her mother or grandmother used to go
to the go-down and select what was to be the decoration for the day and
one of them spent a long time arranging the flower vases. Then there
always seemed to be some kimonos or something to be ripped up or dyed,
for they use them over and over while there is anything left of them,
and whenever they are washed they must be taken apart."
"Again like the primitive methods of our grandmothers and our thrifty
New England women," said Nan.
"Just what class do the Sannomiyas belong to?" asked Mary Lee.
"I think that they must have been in the _daimio_ class," Jean told
her, "for they showed me some wonderful embroidered robes that had been
in the family for years. I asked Ko-yeda why she didn't wear them, and
she said that there was no class distinction nowadays, that the castles
were done away with, for Japan is quite democratic."
"What has that to do with the robes?" asked Jack.
"The handsome embroidered robes were worn only by nobility," Jean told
her. "The _daimios_ were proud as Lucifer and their establishments in
their castles must have been very much like those we read of in old
feudal times. I believe there are still very exclusive households who
keep up many of the old traditions."
"And the _samurai_ class?" interrogated Nan.
"They were the military who had their special lords, and served them
and the Shogun to the death. They were what we might call retainers,
and they were the class between the upper nobility and the common
people."
"And what were the _ronin_? Don't you know we are always hearing that
tale of the 'Forty-seven Ronin'?"
"They were the masterless _samurai_, who wandered about, owing no
special allegiance to any master."
"Oh, I see. This is all very interesting," declared Nan. "You certainly
have learned something from your stay with the Sannomiyas, Jean. Tell
us some more. What about the classes below the _samurai_, the common
people, 'po' white trash' as it were?"
"So far as I could learn, the peasant class are called either _eta_
or _heimin_, though it seems to me that the _eta_ is lower than the
_heimin_, for they are the ones who are considered very unclean, as
they slaughter animals, tan skins, and are sometimes beggars."
"But tanners are quite respectable persons at home," put in Jack.
"They are not so here, for the having something to do with dead animals
puts them quite without the pale. The _samurai_ would be disgraced
if he married into an _eta_ family and would be considered an _eta_
himself, although they maintain that there is no such thing as any
difference in class nowadays. Mr. Sannomiya told me, through Ko-yeda
as an interpreter, that the _samurai_ despised trade and all that. The
merchant class is considered, or used to be so, below the farmers; in
fact they were not up to the mechanics, and were very low down in the
social scale. That partly explains why there is so much talk of the
dishonesty of tradespeople in Japan; it is the lower class who carry
on the shops and all that, or so it was. The _samurai_ try to keep to
the professions and such employments, for it was formerly thought very
low down indeed to barter in any way. All this is passing away, Mr.
Sannomiya says, and many of the _samurai_ are going into mercantile
life, adopting Western standards and trying to establish a reputation
for honest dealing which the merchant class have not always had."
"Did you make any dreadful mistakes?" inquired Jack.
"No, I don't think so. I wasn't quite as bad as the lady who wanted
onions for dinner and told the cook to serve up a Shinto priest. The
two words are almost the same, only one has a very different meaning
from the other. The worst thing I did was to sit in front of the
tokonoma when I went in. It was like planting yourself at the right
hand of your host without being asked."
"How did you find out it was not the thing to do?" asked Mary Lee.
"I begged Ko-yeda to tell me if I had made any mistake. She was
overcome with confusion at the idea of saying anything to the discredit
of a guest, but I just insisted and she told me that."
"It was like Nan's taking her seat on the sofa in Germany," remarked
Jack.
"Just about the same thing," Jean answered. "I imagine that American
free and easy manners often shock the Japanese. Ko-yeda says that when
she first came to Rayner Hall she was overwhelmed by the rudeness of
American girls, and I can well believe it when you consider her point
of view. I think you can set it down as a safe rule that it is well to
apologize to a Japanese for anything and everything, that is, if you
are using their language."
"Dear me," Jack sighed, "I suppose I have said dreadful things when I
have tried to speak the language."
"I haven't a doubt of it," Jean was ready to agree. "When you are
speaking of doing anything yourself you must say 'I humbly do thus
and so,' but when you speak of another's doing the same thing you
must say they do it honorably. If you give a present it is poor and
insignificant, but if you accept the same thing it at once becomes
magnificent."
"Well, I don't see how a foreigner ever learns," said Jack. "I shall
never become a missionary or a teacher or anything that leads me to
study the language."
"They insisted upon my entering the bath first," Jean went on, "and I
soon saw that it would be very much out of place if I didn't. It may be
the family all used the same water; I didn't inquire; I only know that
it is the custom, the servants coming last, and they all do it in the
frankest way. At the Sannomiyas' they were quite as particular as we
would be, but I know it is not always so. The Sannomiyas are becoming
quite Americanized. I am sure Ko-yeda has been teaching them our
manners and morals. She thinks she may become a teacher; it was with
that idea they sent her to us to be educated, but I have a notion that
she will marry, though she said she meant to keep on with her studies
here."
"Don't you wish she would have a wedding while we are here so we could
see how it is done?" said Jack.
"I don't imagine it would be very different from our own ceremony,"
Jean rejoined, "for you know they are a Christian family, and her
father says she shall marry none but a Christian. He is devoted to
her and thinks we treat our women so well that she must have the same
consideration."
"I am glad he thinks that," said Jack heartily.
This ended the conversation for the moment, for Nan, who had been
looking up the attractions, announced that they must certainly see Lake
Biwa. "It is the largest," she said, looking up from her guide-book,
"and must be very beautiful."
"I heard some interesting things of Fuji," said Jean. "A beautiful
goddess is supposed to make her home there. She has such a pretty name,
'The Princess who makes the Trees to Blossom.' I think a great many
people think that the mythological stories are wicked because they are
those of a false religion, but I really don't think that they ought to
be frowned upon any more than those of the Greek heroes."
"I suppose," said Nan reflectively, "that the reason some persons
condemn them is because the temples and the old rites are still
present, while the Greek ones are a thing of the past."
"Well, they certainly can't hurt us," declared Jack, "and I want to
hear them all."
"If you were to do that you would spend most of your time listening,
for their name is legion," Jean told her. "I think they are perfectly
fascinating, and so are the rites, and many things the people still do.
I don't see why we shouldn't study all these things as curiosities, not
as a religion."
The rest quite agreed with her and as Nan began to hurry them off, they
went to get ready for their trip to Lake Biwa.
This, however, was interrupted in a manner entirely unlooked for. It
was decided to take _jinrikishas_, as the country through which they
would go was exceedingly lovely and they could enjoy the journey quite
as much as the final view of the great lake. Past palaces and temples,
long rows of gray-roofed houses, gay shops, parks and gardens they
were carried to where the high hills arose above them on each side. In
this warm weather and beyond the limits of the big city, little naked
babies, and larger children scarcely clad, rolled about in play in the
village streets through which they went. Jack and Nan were in the
first _jinrikisha_, behind them came Jean and Miss Helen, while Mary
Lee and Eleanor occupied the third. Mrs. Corner had decided to stay
at home being rather afraid of the heat. Generally when the runners
gave their call of "Hi! Hi!" the little ones scattered but there was
one little youngster who, if hearing, did not heed and was bowled over
completely, directly in the path of the runners. These stopped short
nearly upsetting Jack and Nan who looked out to see what was the matter.
"What in the world are they jabbering about?" asked Jack looking out.
"We seem to have stirred up the community, for, see, the people are
coming running."
"We'd better get out," decided Nan, "and see what is wrong."
They suited the action to the word and presently found themselves
on the edge of a group where there was much talk and gesticulating
going on. The two tall girls could easily see over the heads of the
nearest bystanders and discovered that the centre of interest was
a small chubby little lad whose plump brown body bore evidences of
having been hurt in some way, for blood was streaming from his head
and he was quite limp and helpless. A woman was kneeling on the ground
holding him while the coolie who had been the unfortunate cause of the
accident was squatting near looking most unhappy.
"Oh, dear," cried Jack, "the poor little tot is hurt." She pushed
through the crowd and reached the child. "What is the matter?" she
asked the runner who knew a few words of English. But his vocabulary
was not equal to the occasion and Jack could learn but little. However
she made out that the child was hurt, and when the man took him in his
arms to carry him to the nearest little cottage, she followed with the
rest.
By this time the occupants of the other _jinrikishas_ had alighted and,
as one of their runners knew more English than the rest, they were able
to get at facts. The little boy had been knocked down, had hit his head
against a stone, was slightly stunned but was recovering.
"Where are his parents?" Jack inquired.
"He have none, honorable lady," replied the man addressed, who was the
runner speaking English.
"Poor little rabbit!" exclaimed Jack compassionately. She stooped to
pick up the little fellow and to set him on her knee where he sat
looking at her unblinkingly with his queer little slits of eyes.
Whether it was surprise or fear which made him so still she could not
tell. She smiled down at him, but not a quiver passed over the little
face. Jack took a coin from her purse and put it in his chubby fingers
but he only looked at it gravely and made no response.
"He is like a graven image," remarked Jean who stood by. "Did you ever
know such immovable gravity?" Presently Mary Lee who wore some flowers
in her belt drew them forth and held them out to the little fellow, and
then he smiled.
Jack gave him an ecstatic hug. "Isn't he the cunningest ever?" she
cried. "I wish we could take him home. I would so love to have him."
"Oh, Jack, what an idea!" exclaimed Jean. "What in the world would you
do with him?"
"I'd train him to be a cracker-jack of a servant and when I am married,
I would take him into the house and he could live with me always."
"I never heard such nonsense," returned Jean. "I think he is all right.
We must go on or we will never get to the lake."
Jack was very unwilling to give up her little brown boy, but knew that
she could not keep the entire party there any longer, so after seeking
out his proper guardian, who proved to be an aunt by marriage, they
gave her some money and went on their way. But all the beauties of the
lake and the mountains were of small interest compared to the little
naked child they had tumbled over on their way.
Jack talked of little else. She had a baby bee in her bonnet as Nan
expressed it and it was like her to become completely possessed with
the idea of taking him home, once she had decided that she wanted to.
"I am going to talk to mother about it," she declared, "and I am going
to hunt up Miss Gresham and get her to come out here again with me to
talk to the aunt. No doubt they would be only too glad to get rid of
him, for you see they are such a poor looking set of people. We upset
him and we ought to do something for him. Besides," she added after
using all other arguments, "we could do some missionary work and make a
Christian of him, so I am sure it would be worth while."
She was so in earnest that Nan did not laugh, but it was a habit of
Jack's to make her duty wait upon her desires, and Nan knew that the
missionary spirit was aroused for the occasion.
However, in some way or other Jack did get around her mother to a
degree sufficient for her to give consent to a second visit to the
village in Miss Gresham's company. Whether Jack had pictured the
child's condition as so pitiful as to arouse her mother's commiseration
or just how she had managed no one could exactly tell, but sufficient
to say that Jack and Miss Gresham did go a day or two after and to
the dismay of every one came back with the little lad, whose brown
nakedness was covered by clothes fitted to his estate. These Jack had
bought, with Miss Gresham's help, and the two had very much enjoyed
their mission.
Miss Gresham had a way with children and, knowing Japanese fairly well,
could manage the conversation without difficulty. She found that the
child had no special claim upon any one. Both his parents were dead.
His mother's sister had taken him but she, too, had died and those who
now cared for him were no blood relation, but were too charitable to
turn him away.
"Miss Gresham says she can keep him at the school as well as not," Jack
informed her mother eagerly, "so we need not be bothered with him while
we are traveling, and when we are ready to go she can find a way to
send or bring him to Nagasaki when we sail for home."
"You seem to have bewitched Miss Gresham completely," said Mrs. Corner.
"She is the nicest kind of missionary lady," returned Jack heartily.
"She is so different from my idea of such. Her brother is a medical
missionary, and she has been out here ten years. She has been home
but once in all that time. She has told me the most interesting
things about her work. I shall always be interested in missions after
this; I used rather to think them a bore, but after seeing the work
in her school, and hearing what has been accomplished by the medical
missionaries, I have changed my mind."
The small boy continued to remain under Miss Gresham's care, and was
the loadstone which drew all the girls to the mission school more
frequently than any one of them could have prophesied. Little Toku
was quite placid during this change, the only objection he made being
to clothes, which, in the state of the weather, seemed perfectly
reasonable to every one. He was serene, well cared for and happy.
"At all events," Jack said to Miss Gresham, "if I can't take him home
with me I shall see to it that he is provided for. Nan says she will
help me, and I know you will see to it that he is brought up properly."
"I will certainly do that," Miss Gresham promised. "He is a dear,
bright little fellow, and the girls all make a great fuss over him. He
is the youngest in the school, you see."
"I hope to persuade mother to let us have him," Jack went on, "but if
I can't I shall feel a stronger interest in Japan than ever."
And so the small Toku remained at the school while the Corners went on
with their sightseeing.
[Illustration: CHAPTER XVII
IN A TYPHOON]
CHAPTER XVII
IN A TYPHOON
"Time is growing short," said Jack one morning in August, "and we have
not seen the Inland Sea nor Kobe nor have we climbed Fuji."
"There is a Japanese proverb which says that there are two kinds of
fools," remarked Nan; "one has never climbed Fujisan and the other has
climbed it twice."
"Set me down for the first kind," said Jean, "for I don't intend to do
any such fool trick as to climb a mountain nearly thirteen thousand
feet high."
"If we are going to do a lot of other things, I don't see how any of
us are to undertake that stunt," said Eleanor. "I vote we pick out the
things we cannot reasonably pass over and then take the leavings as we
can."
"Good girl," cried Jack. "That is the ticket. Tell us, Nan, oh,
honorable lady of the guide-book, what is it up to us to see?"
Nan spread out her map, propped her two elbows on the table before her
and began making investigations while the others chattered away about
Fuji, Lake Biwa and other things that had lately interested them.
"I wish I could remember all the stories about Fuji," said Jean looking
at her neat note-book. "I know that Biwa is called the Lake of the Lute
on account of its shape. There is a legend that tells of its having
been formed by the sun-goddess at the time of a great earthquake. The
rice-fields of the poor people were all destroyed but in their stead
was seen this lake full of fish."
"It was at the same time that Fujisan was formed," Mary Lee went on
with the tale. "It has so many pretty poetical names; one is the
Mountain of the White Lotus, because it rises, all snowy white, from
out the stagnant fields at its base."
"And Japan is called the 'Islands of the Dragon-Fly,'" put in Eleanor;
"I wonder why."
"There is a story of that, too," said Jean. "I have it somewhere in my
note-book. It was when the god Izanami shook from his spear bits of
sand and mud that stayed among the reeds of a watery place and became
dry land. It was in the form of a dragon-fly that the dry part spread
out and so the god called it the Land of the Dragon-Fly."
"Fuji is called the Holy White Mountain, too," put in Jack.
Here Nan looked up. "I think I have puzzled it out," she announced;
"we can go from here to Osake, and then to Kobe. We must see Miyajima
and Sakusa; they are so interesting. There is a great _tori-i_ at
Miyajima which is fine. They say the beauty of the Inland Sea is beyond
anything, so we can stop along its shores and get to Nagasaki in time
to sail when we have planned to."
"What is at Susaki, or whatever the name is?" inquired Eleanor.
"It is Sakusa, and it is not very far from Matsue; we ought to go to
Matsue, for it is a very old and very interesting city. We could go to
Kitzuki from there. Let me see how it would work out." She turned again
to her map. "From here to Kobe and then to Matsue. I think we could
manage it, but there would be some cross-country going. It would make
a tremendously interesting trip. I will see what Aunt Helen says. For
my own part I should like the cross-country trip, but perhaps mother
wouldn't."
"She might take an easier route and one of us could stay with her,"
suggested Mary Lee.
"I would be perfectly willing to," spoke up Jean, who loved her ease
and was not so keen for variety as to sacrifice comfort to it.
"I don't care a rap about those old stuffy places. Just because they
are old doesn't recommend them to me. I would really rather stay in
a pleasant bright city and go about in a 'riky when I want to see
anything."
"Very well, that lets us out," remarked Jack. "I am in for anything,
Nan, the wilder and queerer, the better."
"So am I," responded Eleanor.
"Me, too," put in Mary Lee.
"Then if Aunt Helen will go, we shall be all right," rejoined Nan
closing her book with satisfaction.
As a result of all this, Kyoto was left behind and the party turned
toward the south. At Kobe they left Jean and her mother while the rest
went on to the marvelous temples at Nara, then back to pick up Mrs.
Corner and Jean and to travel on along the shores of the beautiful
Inland Sea to arrive at last at the sacred island of Miyajima, where
a wonderful _tori-i_ rising out of the water appeared mysterious and
strangely picturesque under a sunset sky. A little further on, they
left Jean and her mother, the others taking the trip across country to
the ancient city of Matsue.
"Well, it was something of a jaunt, but I don't believe we shall regret
it," said Nan looking from her window upon a fair lake and a range of
mountain peaks which made a background for the queer old town. "I am
crazy for a short turn about the place, a view of Daisen, which they
say is much like Fuji."
"You certainly are enterprising, Nan," said her aunt. "Aren't you
tired?"
"A little, but not so much but I can walk more. The city looks quite
flat, Aunt Helen, but the hills beyond are beautiful. It was a feudal
stronghold until quite modern times and it must still show remnants of
its use-to-be-ness. There are three special quarters, the shopkeeping
part, the temple and the residence section. There is a great castle,
too, about which there are the grimmest kinds of legends. There are
ever and ever so many temples. I wonder if we shall have time to see
them all."
"Not if we do all the other things your energetic mind has planned."
Miss Helen was quite right, for a fierce typhoon came sweeping up the
land that very night, and before it every one trembled and thanked
heaven to be under shelter. The day had been so depressingly hot as to
be most uncomfortable in the lowlands. By evening all were gasping for
breath and then came a queer sensation as if one were unsteadily trying
to keep his balance. The girls arose from their beds, groped their way
to one another and sat huddled together in Miss Helen's room to which
they went with one consent.
"Do you suppose it is an earthquake?" queried Eleanor shakily.
"I shouldn't be at all surprised," returned Miss Helen. "There!" As
she exclaimed, the whole house seemed to rock from side to side, then
came a sweep and rush of rain, a perfect deluge, which threatened to
engulf everybody and everything in its furious attack. There had been
much running back and forth before the storm broke. The wooden shutters
were secured, the doors bolted. There were weird sounds outside, gusts
that went shrieking up the hills, thunderous sounds of lashing waves
and roaring streams, heard once in a while between the dashing rain
which never ceased. At intervals was felt the alarming tremor which
made the girls all huddle closer together with white faces and nervous
clutchings of one another's hands.
"There is one thing," whispered Nan trying to be encouraging, "if we go
we shall all go together."
"But I wish mother and Jean were here," said Jack chokingly.
Mary Lee gave a convulsive sob, and Eleanor broke down completely. "I
wish I had never come," she wailed. "I wish I had stayed home with my
mother, and I wish Neal were here. Oh, dear, why did I come to this
dreadful place?"
"My dear children," spoke Miss Helen from her bed, "don't get
hysterical. I imagine the worst is over. Do try to calm yourselves. No
doubt they have had storms like this before and the house has stood,
as you see. It sounds dreadful, but I do not believe we shall have a
truly upheaving earthquake. Some slight unsettling always accompanies a
typhoon, I have been told."
"Do you think this is a typhoon?" asked Eleanor trying to stop her
tears.
"I imagine so; it seems very like the descriptions of such storms as I
have read about."
"I verily do believe it is not quite so furious," remarked Nan.
"But we can't be sure." Eleanor was still apprehensive. "I could never
go to bed this night."
"Nor I," came from one and another.
They all sat in silence till Jack spoke. "I wonder if poor little Toku
is all right. I expect he is scared to death," she said mournfully.
Eleanor giggled hysterically. "I don't believe he knows anything about
it. He is probably sleeping the sleep of the innocent," she said.
Somehow Jack's remark relieved the tension, and, as it was evident that
the gale was less violent, they all began to be more cheerful though
there was no sleep for any of them that night. At last only the lashing
waves and the rush of water along the streets remained of the noises of
earth and sky, and by daylight the girls crept back to their beds to
sleep uneasily till it was time to get up.
The typhoon had left its mark behind in the overthrow of trees and the
snapping of wires, the tearing down of signs and the wrenching off of
roofs. Later on came accounts of damage in the hills, of the washing
away of bridges and the complete demolition of paths.
"So we shall have to give up Kitzuki altogether," Nan announced after
an interview with the proprietor of the hotel. "It would not be safe,
they say. But it is not so very far to Sakusa, and if we wait long
enough we may be able to get there, though we shall have to walk even
then."
"You don't catch this child walking." Jack spoke with decision.
"Well, we don't want to go to-day anyhow," Nan answered, "and as it is
pretty bad everywhere after the storm we'd better just hold our horses
till we can decide what is best. There are enough excursions to satisfy
us, probably, though I am awfully disappointed not to go to Kitzuki."
"What is its particular vanity?" inquired Eleanor.
"It is first of all a very holy place, according to Japanese creeds,
then it is a very fashionable seaside resort."
"The latter appeals to me more strongly than the former," Eleanor
declared, "but I can resign myself to leaving it out of our itinerary
if there are any dangers. What is this Sakusa that you are so keen
about?"
Nan hesitated before she answered. "There are some interesting
ceremonies take place there, and there is a temple."
"A temple!" said Eleanor scornfully. "I have seen temples till I am
worn out with them. What are the ceremonies?"
"I know," spoke up Jack as Nan again hesitated. "I have been reading
up. Sakusa is the place where lovers make a pilgrimage and tie wishes
on the trees. The wishes are supposed to come true and there are queer
charms sold there and all sorts of funny doings."
"Oh!" Eleanor gave Nan a swift look, which Nan, seeing, resented.
"Oh, I am not so very anxious about it," she said nonchalantly, "though
I think those odd customs are always interesting to see. If you all
don't care about going or if there is anywhere else you prefer, why
just let us leave it out."
"I am crazy to go," said Eleanor. "I suppose we can join any band
of pilgrims that we see going up and down the breadth of the land.
They really have a pretty good time of it, I fancy. The old folks
particularly. I haven't a doubt but some of those old ladies get no
other outing; you always see them moseying along as cheerful as the
next, although they may have walked far and have not had much to
sustain them on the way. You get up the excursion, Nan, and we will be
your happy band of pilgrims."
"I'm going out to see what it looks like after the storm," announced
Jack. "Come along, any one who wants to go."
Mary Lee and Eleanor decided to accept this invitation and Nan was left
to her guide-books. "You'd better join us," were their parting words.
"Tell me where you are going and perhaps I will come and hunt you up,"
returned Nan.
"We shall go to the great bridge," Jack told her. "It is always
interesting there."
So they passed out and it was a couple of hours before they returned.
In the meantime Nan had occupied herself in various ways, but had
found no time to go to the bridge to meet the others. They came in
hilarious from their walk.
"Why didn't you come, Nan?" asked Eleanor. "We waited for you ever so
long. Neal wanted to come back for you but Jack said he might miss you,
as you would probably be on your way."
"Neal!" Nan looked up startled. Then she recovered herself. "Oh, your
brother," she said with too great a show of indifference. "What is he
doing here?"
"He came to see if we were all alive after the typhoon. The papers
reported a great deal of damage in this part of the country and so he
rushed over to see whether we were sound in life and limb."
"And where is he now?" inquired Miss Helen, to Nan's relief asking the
question she would have put but for a self-consciousness she could not
overcome.
"Oh, he has gone off with Jack. She is showing him the town, but we
were tired and wouldn't go."
Gone off with Jack, very willingly of course, thought Nan. He was so
little eager to see her that he had not even returned for a moment's
greeting. She wondered how many letters Jack had received from him
during this interval, and again she began to build up the altar of
sacrifice upon which she would lay her heart. "Was it worth while going
out to see the havoc?" she asked.
"Oh, I don't know. Yes, it was rather interesting to see what was going
on down by the wharves. We saw a good many funny things."
"Suppose we go, Aunt Helen," proposed Nan suddenly. "We have been
cooped up all morning and I have been reading about a little temple
of Jizo which they say is worth while. These others don't care about
temples, so we won't insist upon their going. What do you say?"
Miss Helen agreed to the proposition and they began to make ready.
"Aren't you going to stay for lunch?" queried Mary Lee.
"No, we will get something at a tea-house on the way," replied Nan, and
was off without further remark.
As Nan disappeared from view, Eleanor turned to Mary Lee. "Well," she
exclaimed, "what do you make out of that?"
Mary Lee shook her head. "It is beyond me. I really thought she cared,
but it looks as if she didn't. I wonder if, after all, she likes
Rob Powell. There may have been a misunderstanding or a quarrel or
something like that."
"Maybe, but I'll stake my best hat that she is in love with some one,
and I really did hope it was Neal. Do you suppose by any accident that
she has gone off in this way because she is jealous of Jack, is miffed
because Neal didn't come back with us?"
"She would have some reason to, it seems to me."
"It seems so to me, too. You don't suppose Jack has been putting
notions in Neal's head, do you?"
"What kind of notions?"
"Oh, making him think Nan has a single steady at home or something of
that kind."
"I am sure Jack wouldn't do it with any malicious intent, but she
may have done it inadvertently. You see we are rather in the dark
ourselves and cannot swear to anything. Nan is expansive enough about
some things, but she is the most elusive person when it comes to an
affair of the heart. I have been puzzled a score of times myself about
her. She gets very high-flown romantic ideas about sacrifice and all
that kind of thing, and if she took it into her head that Jack must be
interested in Neal she would go the whole length. I know she did have
some such fancy a while ago, but I said enough to disabuse her mind of
it, I thought."
"Well, I must talk to Neal," decided Eleanor.
"What will you tell him?"
"Goodness knows. What can I tell him? That Jack is fond of Carter and
that Nan is not pledged to any one?"
Mary Lee shook her head doubtfully.
"What we do must be done quickly," declared Eleanor. "Once you are all
out of this country, good-bye to Neal's chances."
"How long is he going to be here?"
"Don't know. I haven't had a chance to ask him. He can often stay till
he is recalled, but no one knows the hour or minute that may be. This
much is certain; he was certainly more interested in Nan than I have
ever known him to be in any one. He didn't say so in so many words,
but he said enough to make me sure of it, and I am convinced that he
wouldn't have been so eager for opportunities of getting her off to
herself if he hadn't been pretty far gone."
"Then why under the sun did he march off with Jack to-day without a
word with Nan?"
"That is where you have me, my child. There is something queer and
we have to find out. Suppose you tackle Jack and I will get at Neal.
Between us we may be able to find out the truth."
Mary Lee agreed to this, but her opportunity did not come that day nor
the next. Nan and Mr. Harding met with a polite greeting, much less
effusive than that which had passed between the young man and Jack
on his arrival. But for the furtive glances which he gave Nan, when
he thought no one was looking, Eleanor and Mary Lee would have been
convinced of his absolute indifference. Nan, herself, did not once look
his way unless compelled to.
"There is this about it," confessed Eleanor, when the two conspirators
got together. "They are entirely too deadly indifferent for it to be
altogether natural. It is my opinion they have quarreled. Have you
noticed how Neal watches Nan when he thinks no one is looking?"
"And how she never looks at him at all?" returned Mary Lee. "I have not
seen them exchange a dozen remarks since your brother came, and Nan
has scarcely mentioned him to me. When she has, it has been because I
dragged his name into the conversation."
"It is vastly more suspicious than if there were not this studied
ignoring the one of the other."
"Of course it is," agreed Mary Lee.
"Poor old Neal; I hate to have him unhappy," said Eleanor.
"Poor old Nan; I can't bear to have her unhappy."
They both laughed. Then Mary Lee exclaimed, "I have just thought of
something that makes me sure it is all on account of Jack and that Rob
isn't in it at all."
"Do tell me."
"Nan asked me a while ago upon a certain occasion, don't ask me when
it was, please, Nell, but she asked me then if I didn't think it was
almost as hard to give up one whom you loved to another as to have him
taken from you to another world. You know, Nell, I can't talk of such
things very much, and this was a sacred hour, but I thought I would
tell you."
Eleanor put her arm around her friend. "It is dear of you to tell me. I
understand, Mary Lee, and because it was a sacred hour you can be sure
that Nan spoke from the very depths of her heart."
"That is exactly it. It doesn't prove anything, but it meant more than
I realized at the time, of that we can be sure. Yes, we must get some
light on this subject and do it soon." Here Nan herself came into the
room and the girls, in a very lively manner, tried to appear as if they
had been talking over their days at college.
[Illustration: CHAPTER XVIII
JACK'S EYES ARE OPENED]
CHAPTER XVIII
JACK'S EYES ARE OPENED
Mary Lee's opportunity came sooner than she expected and in a manner
she had not looked for. Jack brought a pile of mail to her one morning
and then went off to distribute other letters, but she had espied one
letter whose contents she much desired to know, although she did not
show the least curiosity at the moment. Later in the day she took pains
to seek out Mary Lee at a moment when she knew she would be alone in
her room. "Well," began Jack, "what did the mail bring you to-day?"
"Oh, a lot of letters," returned Mary Lee. "One from Jo, and Cousin
Mag's usual nice fat one, and one from Rita; she doesn't often write to
me because Nan is generally the favored one."
Jack waited, but Mary Lee did not mention the correspondent in whom she
was specially interested.
"Rita say anything of Rob Powell?" queried Jack to make conversation.
"No, not to me; she may have mentioned him to Nan. I notice that Nan
had a letter, too."
"What do you think Mr. Harding asked me the other day?" said Jack
suddenly. "He wanted to know if Nan were engaged."
"What did you tell him?" Mary Lee asked quickly.
"I told him I didn't know. I knew there was some one greatly interested
in her and in whom we thought she was interested, but she had never
told any of us that she was actually engaged."
"Why did you tell him that?"
"Oh, because I wanted to let him know that blessed old Nan could have
attention even if she were getting on."
"Oh, Jack, you ridiculous little goose; as if a girl only twenty-three
could be said to be getting on. Nan is a mere child."
"Oh, Mary Lee, she doesn't seem so to me."
"She does to every one who has any sense. Just because she is the
eldest you have fallen into the habit of thinking of her as an elderly
person; the sooner you get out of it the better. Did Mr. Harding ask if
you were engaged?"
"No."
"What would you have told him if he had asked?"
"I would have hedged."
Mary Lee determined to press the question home this time. "But aren't
you?" she asked.
"Has Cart been telling you anything?" queried Jack with a quick glance
at the pile of letters on the table by her sister's side.
"I know what his feelings are without his telling me. Is there
something to tell, then?" she asked diplomatically.
"Nothing for him to tell, nothing he has any right to. If he should
tell, there would cease to be anything existing to tell."
"What a very mystical remark. Japan has laid its spell upon you. If
there were anything he should not tell it oughtn't to exist, of course.
I can make that much out."
"Oh, there is nothing so very dreadful about it, only----" Jack paused.
"About what, Jack? You might tell your own sister."
Jack shut her lips resolutely and shook her head.
"Poor old Cart," said Mary Lee reaching for the letter which lay on top
of the heap.
"Why 'poor'?" jerked out Jack.
"I've just had a letter from him."
"It's more than I have had, then," returned Jack.
"I imagine he believes you don't care for one. When did you write to
him last, Jack?"
Jack answered reluctantly. "Not since we left San Francisco to come
here."
"Why, Jack Corner, I think that is cruelty to animals. Why haven't you
written?" Mary Lee spoke indignantly.
"Oh, just because."
"That's no reason. Have you quarreled with Carter?"
"Not exactly. He is so tiresome about some things."
"What special thing?"
"Oh, just a soft, silly thing."
"Well, I think you ought to write. He is mightily discouraged. He is
ill and wretched, poor boy."
Jack leaned forward, her eyes fixed on the letter which Mary Lee did
not offer her. "It isn't--it isn't--his old trouble, is it?" she
questioned, a note of anxiety in her voice.
"No, I don't think so, but he seems tired and heart-sick, somehow as if
the world were all awry. I never had such a doleful letter from him,
and Nan's is about like it. It isn't Carter's way at all to be bitter
and talk of giving up and going to the uttermost parts of the earth."
"Very likely he doesn't mean it," said Jack regaining her hard manner.
"We might think so if Mrs. Roberts hadn't written to Aunt Helen that
Carter was looking wretchedly and that he had overworked and they were
urging him to go abroad, and to spend next winter in Egypt."
Jack made no reply but left the room and a moment later was at her Aunt
Helen's door. "May I see Mrs. Roberts' letter, Aunt Helen?" she asked.
"Mary Lee said you had heard from her."
"Why, yes," was the answer, "you can see it, of course."
Jack took the missive which her aunt hunted up and went over to the
window, keeping her back turned. She stood some time pretending to be
still reading when she had really come to the end of the last page,
but the truth was, her eyes were full of tears. She did not see a body
of gallant troops go marching bravely by, nor did she notice a band of
pilgrims carrying staves, girt about the loins, and wearing great straw
hats. She presently wiped one eye in a manner as if a mote were in it,
then after a while she furtively did the same to the other, and when
she considered that all undue moisture must be removed, she handed back
the letter saying cheerfully, "She writes quite a newsy letter, doesn't
she? Too bad Cart isn't feeling up to the mark." She made a few more
light remarks and then went back to Mary Lee.
"Do you mind my seeing Cart's letter?" she asked meekly.
"Certainly you can see it," Mary Lee responded. "I would have offered
it to you before but I didn't gather from your manner that it would
interest you."
Spunky Jack made no reply to this, but took the letter and sat down.
Once or twice Mary Lee glanced at her, and noticed that by degrees Jack
had swung her chair around so that her face was almost hidden. "She
cares a lot more than she pretends," Mary Lee commented inwardly.
After a while Jack returned the letter with a backward movement of her
arm, her face being more turned away.
Mary Lee got up to take it but did not stop there. She came around
to face her younger sister, whose eyes were wet and whose lips were
trembling. "Jack," said she, "suppose you should never see Carter
again."
Jack started up with a cry and pushed her sister from her. "Don't,
don't," she said fiercely. "How can you say such cruel things?"
"But if you don't care, Jack, and if you make Carter think you do
not, it is you who are cruel." Then her voice became very gentle and
sad as she went on. "Jack, you poor little child, you don't know
what it means to lose one you love very dearly. I do know, and so I
can tell you this that it is my greatest comfort to remember all the
loving things that were said to me, and to feel that Phil knew that I
loved him as dearly as he loved me. If he had died without knowing, I
couldn't have stood it. We were separated all those last months but his
letters to me are my life now and I know mine were the greatest joy
to him. I was no older than you when he told me what I was to him. We
kept it a secret because we were so young, but, oh, Jack, think what I
should have lost if I hadn't my memories."
By this time Jack was crying softly, but with no effort at concealment,
her head buried in her sister's lap as she sat on the floor. "I am
all you say, a wicked, cruel girl," she sobbed. "I do love him, and I
told him I would marry him when I was through college, but I wouldn't
let him mention it again because he wanted to kiss me. That was what
made me mad, and this last time he wanted to kiss me good-bye and I
didn't write just to punish him for it. The first time it was because I
thought he took too much for granted, and the last time it was because
I wanted to show him he couldn't break the compact."
"What was the compact?"
"He was not to say a word of love to me or mention that I had made him
any promise. If he did, I said I wouldn't marry him."
"And has he?"
"No, but he did ask me to kiss him good-bye."
"I think it has been pretty hard on him, for it gave you a chance to do
as you please and yet it bound him."
"I know, and I was very selfish, but I didn't want it known, Mary Lee."
"No, of course not, and it needn't be known now, although I wish you
would tell Nan."
"Why?"
"Because she thinks you like Mr. Harding, and I am pretty sure if it
were not that she believes she must not stand in your way, she would
like him mightily herself."
Jack lifted her tear-stained face.
"Oh, Mary Lee, have I been twice a selfish pig? Poor, dear old Nan.
I never once thought of her in the matter. I was mad because Carter
didn't write and I told myself I would have a good time and I would go
back and tell him about it. I never thought of hurting Nan. Of course I
will tell her, and what is more I will tell him, if you say I ought."
"I don't think you need do that, but I do think you ought to show the
same grace Nan has shown you whenever you walked off with Mr. Harding."
"You don't think then that it is Rob Powell whom Nan likes?"
"No, I am pretty sure she doesn't care a rap for him except as a
friend."
"What a blundering idiot I have been, to be sure. Well, I will make up
for it to Carter, and to Nan, too, if I can. Thank you, Mary Lee, for
bringing me to my senses. You don't really think I shall never see Cart
again, do you?"
"I hope you will, and I think the very best way to cure him will be for
you to write him a letter such as you know he is longing for."
"I will, I really will, and what is more I will do it this minute."
Jack never did anything by halves, though it must be confessed that
she made it an excuse to write that she wanted to interest Carter and
the Robertses in Toku. She wanted him trained as a good servant so
that when she had her own home he could live with her. What did Carter
think of that? Wasn't she far-seeing? They had been telling her that he
was not well. He must hurry and chirk up for her sake. She was looking
forward to seeing him on her return and then----The rest was left
to the imagination, but at the end of the letter there was a funny
little scalloped character which was not explained at all, and away
down in one corner of the page was written in very fine letters, almost
microscopic, "If you love me you may tell me so once when you next
write." Altogether it was a very Jack-like document, yet never before
had Carter received one which gave him such assurance of Jack's real
feeling for him.
Her letter finished, Jack proceeded to hunt up Nan whom she found quite
alone in the garden. "I've just been writing to Carter," she announced
cheerfully. "Why didn't you show me his letter, Nan?"
"Because it was so dispirited and I didn't want to spoil your good
times," returned Nan.
"Poor old Cart," said Jack. "Do you think he is really ill, Nan?"
"I think he is more heart-sick than body sick."
"All because of wicked me, do you reckon? I am a beast, Nan. I am free
to confess it, but I am not going to be so any more. When Carter and I
are married, I am going to have Toku for our very best servant."
"When Carter and you are married?" exclaimed Nan. "I thought that was
all over and done with, Jack, that it was only a childish idea."
"It isn't," returned Jack with decision. "I shall never marry any one
but Carter, and he knows it, or he will know it by the time he has read
my letter. I know I seem like a skittish, heartless creature, and I do
like to jolly around with the boys, but Carter is my single steady and
always will be. I wanted you to know, Nan, because I know Carter writes
to you oftener than to any of the others, and I don't want you to tell
him things that are simply figments of your brain, as I might give you
reason to do sometimes if you didn't know the bona fide truth. You
mustn't always trust appearances, you know. They are deceptive. Are you
glad, Nan, you old dear?" She looked at her sister mischievously, so
that Nan checked her impulse to hug her.
"Of course I am glad," she returned. "You know that Cart is already
just like a brother, and I have felt so awfully sorry for him of late
that I could almost have cried. I did want you to be happy," she said
wistfully, "even if Carter were sacrificed, but it seemed pretty hard
on him."
"You blessed old thing," cried Jack, herself giving the caress Nan had
withheld. "You are about the most loyal and faithful darling out. I
don't deserve such sisters."
With this remark she walked off, leaving Nan uplifted and yet at the
same time strangely apprehensive of facing her own future. She had
driven Neal Harding from her by her coolness and indifference. Would he
ever return? Had he not already learned to prefer Jack? She shook off
these doubts at last and went back to the house with a determination
not to interfere with fate again.
In the meantime, Jack had continued on with her performance of duty.
She had met Mr. Harding, and had asked if he didn't want to go with her
to mail a very important letter. He acquiesced, of course, and on the
way she let it be known that the letter was to an especial somebody who
must have it by the very earliest outgoing mail, and then craftily she
let him know that Nan was sending no such letters, and that she, Jack,
had discovered that Nan's interest in a certain individual was purely
a friendly one. Then with a virtuous feeling of having done all that
could possibly be expected of her, Jack returned to the hotel not even
hinting at such a proposition as extending the walk.
"You won't say anything to Eleanor, will you?" said Jack to her
sisters. "It is a family secret, remember. Of course I shall tell
mother and Jean as soon as I see them. I suppose I ought to have told
them before, for it isn't nice to have even one secret from your
bestest mother and your own twin."
"Yes, you must tell them," agreed her sisters, Mary Lee adding, "Mother
was the only one I told when I had my secret, and she never so much as
hinted it to any one."
Jack sighed. "I think we'd better be getting back to those two pretty
soon, and I don't care how soon we sail for the States." Her sisters
understood that she could not reach California too soon, and that she
would not mind in the least a little delay there before starting for
her own home.
"You'll not tell Eleanor," she repeated.
"Oh, no," promised the others, "but we cannot help her forming her own
conclusions."
What these conclusions were, Mary Lee found out that very evening when
Eleanor enticed her off into the garden. "I have tried to pump Neal,"
she said, "but he is mute as a clam, and I can get nothing from him but
that he has no right to poach on another's preserves."
"He knows there is no other and that there is a free way to the
preserves," Mary Lee told her.
"What do you mean?" cried Eleanor.
"Jack has taken it upon her contrary little self to inform him that
nobody has any claim on Nan."
"What made her do it?"
"Oh, she took the notion after my having impressed it upon her that
Nan was not thinking about Rob. To give Jack credit she assumed that
Nan was, and moreover," Mary Lee laughed, "she thought Nan quite too
antique to form any new attachments."
Eleanor laughed too. "The point of view of eighteen. Isn't it funny?"
"I don't suppose she would have looked upon Nan as such a fossil if she
were not the eldest of the Corners," Mary Lee went on, "but all her
life Jack has been accustomed to look up to Nan and to have it dinged
into her that she must regard her eldest sister as second only to her
mother."
"I see, and what do you suppose will happen now?"
"Don't know. It is getting a trifle exciting, isn't it?"
"I shall lose all my respect for Neal if he doesn't take advantage of
his opportunities," Eleanor went on. "We must consent to that walk to
Sakusa to-morrow if we fall by the way, for it will be such a great
chance for confidences. I want to tell you something, Mary Lee. Mr.
Montell is coming to-night."
"He is? Aha, my young miss, so there will be chances for more than
those other two."
"Oh, I didn't mean that," said Eleanor in confusion. "Don't allow your
unbridled fancies to roam too far afield."
Mary Lee shook her head sagely. "I think my own thoughts," she remarked.
She and Jack contrived to interest Miss Helen in such a way that Nan
was not missed that evening. Jack made her confession which Miss Helen
received as they knew she would. She was very fond of Carter who was
the son of one of her old school friends, and she had long ago formed
her own opinion of the affair.
"I couldn't ask for a dearer nephew than Carter Barnwell," she told
Jack, "but you are nothing but a baby yet, Jack."
"I have been so informed more than once to-day," returned Jack. "I knew
you would all think I was too young, and indeed, Aunt Helen, I haven't
a notion of being married till I have left college. I wouldn't have
told only Mary Lee thought I ought."
"You certainly ought if there is really an understanding between you,"
said her aunt.
"I suppose there is," Jack responded, "though I had intended to keep
Cart guessing for some time yet, but now that he is so miserable
I can't do it. I had to give him just a wee little twinkling of
encouragement in thinking I meant what I said, but it must be a dead
secret to all but the family."
In spite of her cheerful exterior, Jack was the least happy of the
group that night, for while Nan lay blissfully making plans for the
morrow and Eleanor was beginning to ask herself searching questions
which her evening with Mr. Montell had created, Jack was wondering if
Carter were really ill and would he be worse before her letter reached
him. Alas! that it took so long for the mail to span the distance
between them. If she could but visit him in spirit to whisper all that
her heart would say. That night Jack's chickens came home to roost if
they never had before, and of all who were to make the pilgrimage to
the sacred grove on the morrow no wish more fervent than hers would be
offered up at the shrine for lovers.
[Illustration: CHAPTER XIX
VOTIVE OFFERINGS]
CHAPTER XIX
VOTIVE OFFERINGS
By the next day it was considered safe enough to make the trip to
Sakusa. It was a tortuous way, and one that required the services of a
guide, but a young Japanese, whom Mr. Montell knew, consented to make
one of the party. He could speak English, and, being an intelligent,
educated gentleman, was much more desirable as an adjunct than the
ordinary interpreter. By bamboo forests, and rice-fields, past many a
temple and shrine, they trudged, part of their journey being indicated
by a stone path difficult to walk upon yet necessarily used. Here they
must go single file.
"It is getting rather tiresome," said Jack over her shoulder to Mary
Lee who followed closely, these two walking in the footsteps of their
guide while the others lagged behind, the two couples separated by a
perceptible space.
"We'll get there after a while," returned Mary Lee. "It is all for the
cause, remember, Jack."
"I feel precisely as if I were doing penance," Jack answered back.
"Perhaps you are," replied her sister with a little smile.
Jack said no more, but toiled on till at last a small cluster of houses
indicated that they were nearing a village.
"Is it Sakusa?" Jack asked Mr. Tamura, their guide.
"Sakusa," he replied with a wave of the hand toward where a _tori-i_,
a high paintless structure, stood, and in another moment they had left
their rough stone path to step upon the pavement of the temple's court.
Here they waited for the others to come up. Meantime they could observe
the fine old trees, the quaint monuments and the gateway itself.
"This is the temple of Yaegaki," Mr. Tamura told them. "It is a very
noted shrine, small as it is. We will go to the main temple which is
the most interesting."
The group, now complete, went forward and presently, with one accord,
stopped short. "What are they?" inquired Eleanor wonderingly looking at
myriads of tiny flags inserted in the ground all around the base of the
shrine.
"Those," Mr. Tamura said, "are tokens of gratitude. They mean that many
lovers' prayers have been answered."
"And those white wisps upon the gratings of the doors?" Eleanor
continued to question.
"Those are the prayers of the lovers who have made the pilgrimage."
"So many, so many," murmured Nan.
"And what is that which looks like hair, there with the little knots of
paper?" Mary Lee put this question.
"It is hair," she was told, "most of it, though some is seaweed,
probably brought from a long distance. These are votive offerings. A
maiden making a vow, a wish, a prayer, will often cut off her hair and
hang it upon the shrine that she may thus show her strength of desire,
her faith, her intention to propitiate the deities of love and marriage
who preside over this shrine."
Mr. Harding stepped nearer to see the many names carved upon the doors
and the woodwork. These he could in some instances read, but as they
were written in the Chinese characters, the girls could not make them
out.
"Now," said Mr. Tamura, "we must see the famous Camellia tree which is
supposed to be inhabited by the beings who answer lovers' prayers. It
is very ancient and much revered. We will look at it before we go to
the sacred grove."
They all stood a few moments before the gnarled old tree and then
followed on to where their guide again paused. "Here you can find the
talismans and the charms, if you wish to buy," Mr. Tamura informed them.
"Oh, we must have some of them," declared the girls, and though neither
Mr. Harding nor Mr. Montell said a word, they did not hold back.
"Which are considered the nicest?" inquired Jack.
Mr. Tamura smiled as he answered. "If you are in love this _mamori_ is
supposed to be the most wonder-working, and will assure you a blessed
union with the object of your affection." He picked out a long folded
paper with queer characters and a seal upon it.
"Can I open it?" inquired Jack. "Will it break the charm?"
"Oh, no, you can see what it holds within the interior," Mr. Tamura
told her, and Jack did not delay in opening the paper.
"Oh, look," she cried, "aren't they cunning?"
The others gathered around to see two tiny little figures in ancient
costume. One enfolded the other in his embrace.
"It is the small wife enfold to the heart of the small husband," their
guide explained. "If you marry the man of your ambition, you must
return this charm to the temple. It does not promise you the happiness
of after marriage, but only the marriage."
"I would run the risk of the happiness," said Mr. Harding in a low
tone to Nan who for some reason blushed furiously.
"If you wish the love of after marriage you must purchase another. It
is the leaf from the tree we have just seen, but you see it is of the
most preciousness." And of the whole party there was not one, with the
exception of Mary Lee, who did not buy one of each of these two charms.
Mary Lee contented herself with some little amulets which she declared
were more worth her while.
"Of course," said Eleanor lightly, "we don't believe in them at all and
have no special use for them, but we may be able to make presents of
them to some of our friends."
"That is just it," echoed Nan.
"And the little lady and her husband are so cunning," declared Jack, "I
just had to get one to show Jean."
Mary Lee smiled wisely but said not a word.
"They are really great curiosities," remarked Nan airily. "I do not
remember ever having seen their like. I know mother and Aunt Helen will
be greatly interested in them."
Again Mary Lee smiled and kept her counsel.
They went on further till they came to a great grove of cedars, pines,
and bamboo with other trees, making so deep a shade that they seemed in
a sunless world. When their eyes became accustomed to the half light,
they observed that wherever possible upon the bark of the bamboo trees
names were written. "Names and wishes," said their guide.
"How weird and mysterious it all seems," said Nan to her companion.
"The very Court of Love," returned he, "and you are treading it with
me," he added softly.
Nan's heart beat fast but she made no reply. It all seemed so
intangible, so unreal an existence, that even his presence began to
appear unreal.
"There is a little pond further on, Tamura says," Mr. Harding remarked
after a period when silence was upon them both. "There are water newts
in it, and one tests his fortune by sailing a small boat in which he
puts a _rin_. If it sinks to the bottom and the newts touch it all will
be well, but if it does not sink and if the newts disregard it, then it
is an ill omen. Shall we go and sail a boat?"
"It might be amusing," returned Nan, trying to hide her confusion.
They found the rest of their party already on the brink of the pond
where others were launching tiny crafts of paper. Mr. Tamura was
showing Jack how to make one. He seemed to surmise that more than one
would be required for he soon had a little fleet of them ready, and
himself set one afloat with a _rin_ in it. He watched it gravely as it
went on its course. Mr. Harding launched his, giving Nan a smile as he
did so. It drifted out upon the clear water and became so saturated
as soon to succumb to the weight of its freight of copper coin, then
down it sank. It could be seen distinctly through the limpid water and
presently the newts were observed to approach it. Mr. Harding rose to
his feet, and waved his hat gaily. "A good omen," he cried.
Most of the other boats acted in the same way, although they did not
wait to see the fate of all that were launched, but turned to wander
about and look up the remaining strange evidences of superstitious
faith.
Nan and her companion allowed the others to put some distance between
themselves and this lagging pair.
"Let them alone and they'll come home bringing their tales behind
them," whispered Jack to Mary Lee. "Their love-tales, I hope they will
be. What a self-absorbed, blind ninny I was not to see things before.
Why, they are simply daffy about one another. I don't believe any one
else exists at this present moment for them. Did you ever think dear
old Nan would be so far gone?"
"Oh, yes, I knew when Nan did really let herself go that there wouldn't
be any question about it," returned Mary Lee with a half sigh.
"I hope he is good enough for her," said Jack a little jealously.
"Nobody is good enough for any of you sisters," returned Mary Lee.
"Oh, Carter is entirely too good for me," declared Jack frankly. "All
the same I would scratch any one's eyes out who tried to take him from
me."
"I haven't a doubt but that some one will try to if you don't treat
him better," Mary Lee said teasingly. "You can't expect a man to stay
forever faithful to a girl who behaves as if he were an old shoe to be
picked up and cast aside at will."
"You don't mean that," Jack averred. "If you did, I would take the next
steamer home and marry him before any of you reached there to stop me.
When he gets my letter he will understand, so don't you go trying to
stir me up. Where in the world are those two?"
"Oh, never mind them," rejoined Mary Lee. "There are Eleanor and Mr.
Montell just ahead and we can get along for a while without Nan."
Meantime Nan and Mr. Harding were lingering in the deep grove. They
stood by a bamboo tree upon which were cut many names. "There is just
a little space here where I can cut a dear, small name," said Mr.
Harding, "the name of the dearest, sweetest girl in the world." He
began to carve the letters while Nan stood by with half-averted face.
"N-a-n," he wrote, with the N much longer than the other letters. After
he had finished, he came to Nan. "Will you look?" he said, "and will
you tell me if I may put my name there too? The same initial does for
both, you see. Dear Nan, sweet Nan! this is the Court of Love and you
are my queen. You have been so kind to me these last few days and I may
be called away any moment, so I am daring enough to tell you that I
love you."
Nan took from him the knife he still held. She went up to the tree, and
upon the smooth bark she began to trace the letters which, following
the initial of her own name, became that of her lover:
N-A-N
N-E-A-L.
"Is it true? Is it true?" breathed he close by her side.
"I am afraid it is," returned Nan in a whisper.
"Afraid, you darlingest girl?"
"No, no, I don't mean I am afraid, I mean--oh, what do I mean?"
"You mean that all the queer little charms have nothing to do with you
and me, because you loved me, didn't you, before we even started out to
come here? You did love me yesterday and the day before, didn't you,
Nan?"
"And even so far back as last week," admitted Nan.
"When you wouldn't even look at me?"
"Yes."
"Why wouldn't you?"
"Because you wouldn't look at me."
"I did look when I could steal a glance at you. I wanted to look at you
every minute and I was afraid, for I loved you from that very first
time in the grove of Kamakura. I tried to keep away from you, and I
couldn't. I was so unhappy and so moony and headless that the chief
noticed it, and said I'd better take a rest for I was ill. He didn't
know what was the matter, but I did."
"Oh, dear," sighed Nan, "and I was unhappy, too. I thought you liked
Jack."
"And I thought you liked a miserable somebody whom I could have
annihilated."
Talking on in the strain which so pleases lovers the world over, they
neared the group waiting for them by the temple gate. "Please don't
tell any one," said Nan hastily. "Mother must be the first to know."
"And I hope I may go to her myself that I may ask her for your precious
self. Will she give you to me, Nan?"
"She will, when she knows that it is for my happiness."
"And you will be willing to go to a strange country with me? You will
wait for me till I can feel I have something more than myself to offer?"
"I will wait years if need be, and----" She hesitated. The strange
country away from all those she loved best did seem appalling, but she
bravely went on, "Strange countries do not seem so distant as they used
to be."
Seeing them approaching, the others started on their stony way. "It is
a rough road," said Neal, "but for me it was the way to Paradise."
Nan could have echoed the words, but she did not. They must walk single
file for a time, but she might have been side by side with a heavenly
host, so uplifted was she. Of all queer places to find her happiness;
in the grove of a Shinto temple in a distant and difficult part of
Japan. It all seemed like a dream from which she awoke to reality only
when she saw a beloved form striding along behind her when she turned
her head. He must keep her in view, he said, lest some accident befall
her.
On their way through the streets of the old city which they reached
foot-sore and weary, but so glad at heart they had no thought of
bodily aches and pains, they passed a little shop. "Let us stop here a
moment," proposed Neal. "I want to get you something as a reminder of
this day."
"Do you think I will ever forget it?" asked Nan with a shy glance.
"You adorable girl, no, I don't, but all the same I want to get
something."
They entered the small establishment and from the carvings Neal
selected a little figure of Hotei, the God of Happiness, whose
counterpart Nan declared she must buy to give in exchange. Then they
went on, arriving at the hotel long after the others.
"And did you have a happy day?" asked Miss Helen who had passed the
hours of her nieces' absence in the quiet garden and in the streets of
the old city. "Was it worth the hard trip?"
"Well worth it," was Nan's reply given with emphasis though not a word
did she tell of the joy the day had brought her.
"The others seemed pretty well tired out," Miss Helen went on, "and
have gone to lie down, but you appear fresher than any of the party."
"I am a little tired, for it was rather far and quite rough, but it was
so very interesting," Nan vouchsafed, and then began to describe the
temples and shrines, but of that carving of her own name on the bark of
the bamboo tree she said nothing.
Mary Lee and Jack looked at her glowing face questioningly when she
went in to where they were, but she gave them no confidences beyond
explaining for her tardiness by saying that she and Mr. Harding had
stopped at a shop on their way.
"It will have to be 'boots and saddles,' as soon as we can manage it,"
Mary Lee announced. "Aunt Helen thinks we should start as soon as we
get rested, so we shall pack to-morrow and the day after begin our
journey across country. Eleanor will go with us, she says, though I
didn't think she would, for she could easily go back with her brother
from here and save herself the longer trip."
"Is her brother going back from here?" asked Nan.
"You ought to know. Is he?" queried Mary Lee.
"No," Nan replied with a laugh.
"Oh!" Mary Lee gave Jack a little prod with her elbow and Jack
responded with a soft pinch which expressed her understanding.
"Is Mr. Montell going back from here?" asked Nan.
"I don't believe he is. You see he is free to come and go as he may see
fit and I understand that he thinks he can gather profitable material
by joining our caravan. Nell vows that she means to see the last of
us and will stand by till we are fairly off. Ergo Mr. Montell follows
suit."
"Good old Nell," remarked Nan apropos of what she did not explain.
"Well, what do you make of it?" inquired Mary Lee as soon as Nan was
out of hearing.
"I think it is very, very near the climax," responded Jack.
"I go further than that. I think the hour and the man have arrived this
day, and that it is all settled."
"Oh, Mary Lee, do you really?" Jack propped herself up to look at her
sister. "Then why didn't she tell us?"
"For the same reason another young person of my acquaintance did not
tell until it was forced from her," rejoined Mary Lee.
Jack sank back again. "Oh," she ejaculated in a discomfited way. "I am
crazy to know, aren't you?" she asked presently.
"Of course I should like to know, but I can wait. Nan has such a
telltale face and I never saw such a radiant expression as she has. Oh,
dear me, Jack, I don't feel happy over it myself, for do you realize
that it means we shall have to part with our dear old Nan, and that
she may go goodness knows where to live? Neal Harding is hoping for
diplomatic service for keeps, you know. He hopes for an appointment as
consul somewhere, and that means that Nan may have to go away off from
all her kinfolks."
"Mercy me, I hadn't thought of that. Oh, dear, I wish now I had kept up
my little game, then perhaps this would never have come about."
"You mean child. I don't wish that, and after all it would not have
done any good, probably, for if Neal Harding were in real earnest,
he would not have allowed the thing to stop here. Eleanor would have
seen to it that he knew of Nan's comings and goings, and then the evil
day would simply have been put off. Meantime poor Nan would have been
wretchedly unhappy." Jack agreed that this was all very true and that
they must make the best of it. Later on they conferred with Eleanor who
had nothing more to add to what they already suspected.
"I quite agree with you, Mary Lee," she said, "that it is all right,
and I will tell you why. When Neal came in he came up and kissed me
as if he had not seen me for a long time. I said, 'Why this unusual
effusiveness, my dear?' 'Oh, just because I feel so jolly happy,' he
said. I take that to mean something, whatever you may think."
But they were kept in the dark for several days longer, and in the
meantime, the journey was undertaken which would bring them to the
Inland Sea again and to the spot where they would find Mrs. Corner and
Jean waiting for them.
[Illustration: "IS IT TRUE?"]
[Illustration: CHAPTER XX
IF IT MUST BE]
CHAPTER XX
IF IT MUST BE
The long journey from the Sea of Japan to the Inland Sea was over and
Nagasaki was reached at last.
"The end of our travels in Japan," sighed Nan. "Won't it be queer to
see no more tea-houses, no more rice-fields, no more odd-looking men
with mushroom hats and women tipping along on their _getas_?"
"I shall not miss those things a bit," averred Jack. "It has been
mighty interesting to see and I have enjoyed it down to the ground, but
me for the old U.S.," she added slangily.
"I shall not be sorry, myself, to get back," Mary Lee agreed with Jack.
"I had seen all that I wanted before you all started off on that
frantic trip to the western coast," Jean declared.
Nan smiled blissfully. She had yet to make her confession to the three.
"I wouldn't have missed that for anything," she said. "I shall always
remember it as the happiest time of my life."
Jean, who had not yet been given an inkling of what was in the wind,
stared at her. "You must like hard travel, then," she remarked. "Jack
has been telling me of that awful jaunt to Sakusa and how you were all
used up afterward. I don't see where there was any great bliss in that."
Nan smiled down at her. "Jean, dear, and all of you, I have something
to tell you. I would have told you, Mary Lee and Jack, before, but I
had a feeling that mother must know first. I am going to marry Neal
Harding."
"Maybe you think we are surprised," scoffed Jack. "Why, you old fraud,
the fact was written on your face on that very day of our wild trip to
Sakusa, wasn't it, Mary Lee?"
"You certainly bore all the hall-marks of an affianced maiden," Mary
Lee assured her sister.
"Never mind, Nan," Jean spoke up. "I am surprised, and I am pleased,
too. It will be lovely to have a brother."
"What's the matter with Cart?" asked Jack indignantly.
"Oh, he's all right," responded Jean, "but you have been parading Cart
before us ever since you were twelve years old; he is no novelty, and
besides it is all talk on your part anyway."
"It isn't at all," retorted Jack, who felt that she must have some of
the importance accorded Nan in her position of an engaged girl. "I
always said I was going to marry him; you know I did, and I mean it now
just as much as ever."
"Does Cart have anything to say about it?" inquired Jean teasingly.
"Of course he does. Do you suppose I would be so sure if it were not
all settled?"
"Do you really mean that it is all settled and that you never told me?"
ejaculated Jean indignantly.
"I didn't tell any one," Jack asserted. "I am going to tell mother
now; while such affairs are in the air. It won't be so hard for her
to get used to two such things together as to have them sprung on her
separately." And off she went. But she was back again in a minute.
"What did mother say to you, Nan?" she asked as she slid inside the
door closing it after her. "Was she very serious and--and--oh, you
know,--overcome and all that?"
"She was perfectly dear," said Nan, her eyes shining. "I told her first
and then Neal came and we talked it over together. I went for Aunt
Helen and then we four----"
"Had a heart to heart talk," interrupted Jack. "I don't think I could
stand that. I shall try to make short work of it, for I should collapse
under a long session. There is this much about it, mother ought not to
be much surprised for I always maintained that I meant to marry Cart,
while you vowed you would marry no one but a Virginian."
"That is all I knew about it," returned Nan. "I would marry Neal if he
were a Japanese or a Chinaman."
Jack laughed. "Won't old Jo have it in for you when you have given her
such digs about her devotion to her Dr. Paul?"
"You'd better go along and find mother so as to get it over," warned
Jean.
"I fool so feelish," returned Jack using an expression of which they
all were fond. "I am just making conversation so as to put off the evil
hour. Well, I suppose I might as well go. Remember me in your prayers,
girls," and this time she was really gone.
She hesitated before she tapped at her mother's door. To the invitation
to enter she poked her head in the door and said, "I just thought I
might as well tell you, mother, that I am going to marry Carter."
Her mother smiled. "I have been hearing that for the past six years,
Jack. It isn't really a very great surprise to hear you say so."
"But I really mean it this time," declared Jack, coming a little
further into the room. "I have been treating him like a dog and I feel
like a crawly worm about it, so I thought if I told the family I might
not be tempted to flaunt myself so outrageously hereafter."
"Don't you think it is rather hard upon a mother to have two such
announcements thrust upon her in one day?" inquired Mrs. Corner gravely.
"Oh, but just think what darling men we have chosen," replied Jack
encouragingly. "Suppose I had fallen in love with Mr. Tamura, and Nan
had picked up some crooked stick of an oily-haired musician who hadn't
two cents to rub together and would waste the one cent he might have.
Just think of that, and then look at dear old Carter and Neal Harding.
Why, if you hunted the world over, you couldn't find two nicer men."
Mrs. Corner had to laugh. Jack's arguments were always of such a
nature. "Well, dear, I quite agree with you," she said. "If I have to
lose my girls, I certainly must commend them for having chosen wisely."
"Oh, but you won't lose us," rejoined Jack. "I don't intend to marry
for years and years, and besides, you know they always say that when
a daughter marries, a mother gains a son, but when a son marries, a
mother loses him entirely. Aren't you glad we are all girls, mother?
You may have three or four sons yet."
Mrs. Corner smiled. Who but Jack would take such means of smoothing
over unpleasant facts? "Come in, dear," she said.
"I will if you will say you think Carter will make an adorable son and
that I am not a silly for thinking so much of him."
"I am ready to admit all that," Mrs. Corner replied gravely.
Jack sidled in, ran to her mother, snuggled her face for one moment
against her mother's shoulder, gave her an ardent kiss and then backed
away. "I can't stand any more just now," she said with a distinct
quaver in her voice. "I am such a bally ass, you know. I'll come back
again some other time," and she was out of the door before her mother
could reprove her for using such expressions.
When she had finished mopping her eyes and had resumed a palpably
don't-care manner, she returned to her sisters.
"Well, did you get it over?" inquired Jean.
"Oh, yes," was Jack's reply.
"Of course mother was lovely." Nan made the remark.
"Of course. She always is. It would be out of all reason to expect
anything else. There never was such a precious mother in all the world."
There was unanimous agreement to this, then Jean said gaily, "I
suppose then that Miss Jacqueline Corner is open to congratulations."
Jack warded off a precipitate advance upon her person. "Don't you
dare," she cried. "Why don't you all fall upon Nan? She is in a tighter
box than I."
"Just what do you mean by that remark?" asked Nan coming nearer
threateningly.
"I mean that not a soul outside the family is to know about Cart and
me, but you will have to tell Eleanor, at least, and Jo, of course, and
so it will go."
"I won't have to tell Eleanor, for Neal is going to do that himself,"
retorted Nan.
"I will venture to say that is she now," cried Mary Lee as a tap was
heard at the door.
She was right, for they admitted Eleanor who came in buoyantly. "Where
is that dear old Nan?" she exclaimed. "I can scarcely wait to get hold
of her. Neal has told me and I can't tell you how glad I am to have a
sister, and such a sister! You blessed old dear, if you don't like me
for a sister-in-law it will not be for lack of love on my part."
"How sweet you are to say such things," returned Nan with feeling. "I
hope the rest of the family will be as kind as you."
"Oh, they are bound to, and you know we are not so many, just the
two boys and myself after father and mother. Oh, girls, if I hadn't
promised to stay out here a year, I should be inclined to go back with
you, but Aunt Nora would think it mean of me after she has been so good
as to let me have these weeks with you all. Wouldn't it be fine if, at
the end of a year, Neal and I could go back together and that he could
then have an appointment not so far off?"
Her question was interrupted by a summons which came for Jack. Some one
wished to see her.
"It couldn't be Carter, could it?" whispered Jean to Mary Lee.
The latter shook her head. "I don't believe so," Mary Lee returned in
the same lowered tone. "He hasn't had time to get her letter yet."
Jack was gone some time and when she returned she broke into a laugh.
"Who do you think has come?" she said.
"Carter," cried the girls with one accord.
"You're way off," returned Jack. "It is Ko-yeda and her father with
Toku. Miss Gresham couldn't come and so Ko-yeda said she would, at
least Mr. Sannomiya was so good as to bring her. They know Miss Gresham
and all the missionary people of her church, you remember, so here
they are. Toku looked so cunning."
"Are you really going to take him back with you?" queried Mary Lee.
"Yes, for there are two Japanese girls going to the States and they
will take charge of him on the ship and be glad of what I can pay them
for doing it."
"But when you get back home what then?" asked Jean. "We can't take him
to college with us."
"No, I shall hand him over to Carter and let him find somebody to bring
him up in the way he should go."
"Poor Carter," said Mary Lee compassionately.
"You needn't 'poor Carter' him," retorted Jack. "He will just love to
do it when I tell him that Toku is to be reared in such a way as will
make him a good servant for us. It will give him a new interest and
besides----" She broke off but added, "Oh, well, I understand Cart
better than any of the rest of you do, and besides I would be pleased
to pieces to do that much for him."
And so it was settled that little Toku should sail the seas over with
his future planned out for him. Ko-yeda herself looked after him during
the few days that they all remained in Nagasaki, for Mr. Sannomiya was
contented to stay till these American friends should take their leave,
and made himself useful in many ways. Neal, too, took upon himself all
the difficult matters relating to their departure, and was so attentive
and considerate that Mrs. Corner confessed to Nan that it would seem a
very pleasant thing to have a son.
These last were happy days for them all. With three such intelligent
guides as Mr. Sannomiya, Neal and Mr. Montell, they were able to do
their final sightseeing with more ease and celerity than if they had
been a party of women alone. Jean and Ko-yeda had many good times
together, the tractable little Toku being left in charge of the two
Japanese girls who had agreed to see to him during the voyage. Neal
and Nan received consideration from every one, and Nan, who had always
been the one to take the heavier burdens in traveling, for once in
her life threw aside all responsibility and gave up her days to the
companionship which grew dearer and dearer as the moments flew.
"Sayonara--If it must be," the Japanese farewell, came to their lips
with more and more meaning as the hour approached when they must be
separated.
Mary Lee and Miss Helen showed their tender sympathy in a hundred ways,
for both knew to the fullest what a good-bye may contain for those who
must leave one another in the height of their devotion.
More than once Mary Lee came upon her sister watching with trembling
lips the form of her lover as he went down the street. "And soon, soon,
I shall not be watching for him to come back," she said on that last
day before they should leave.
"I understand," whispered the younger girl. "I know how hard it is,
dear old girl." Nan gave a squeeze to the hand that had sought hers and
the two went in together.
At last the morning of departure came. The big steamer was crowded
with a motley throng of people. Flags were flying, men were calling,
women and children were crying. The bright blue waters were dotted with
queer looking crafts. Placid-looking little girls with even more placid
babies were trotting up and down the wharf, their bright costumes
adding to the brilliancy of the picture.
"They are a contented folk," remarked Miss Helen to Mr. Montell who,
with Eleanor, stood by her side.
"Yes, and I hope ambition will not alter that fact," he returned. "A
love of the beautiful with a simple life go a long way toward making
content. If they lose those two things, I am afraid we shall not
observe such contentment in ten years from now."
"What is gained in one direction must mean loss in some other," said
Miss Helen looking over to where Nan and Mr. Harding were standing with
no eyes for the scene before them.
"How can I let you go?" the young man was saying. "You will not forget,
sweetheart?"
"Not a day, not an hour," was Nan's answer.
Little Toku, with his two attendants, was walking up and down, vastly
entertained yet a little afraid at all this confusion and these strange
faces, but as he looked up into the faces of those who led him by the
hands, he smiled, for these were friends and would not leave him to the
unknown.
Ko-yeda and Jean were having last words together, while Mr. Sannomiya
talked as best he could to Mrs. Corner, both appealing to Ko-yeda
whenever there was absolute need of an interpreter.
Mary Lee and Jack were leaning over the rail to see the bustle below.
"What a queer, queer summer it has been," said Jack musingly. "It
passes before me, such a jumble of strangeness and yet with some things
standing out so clearly. That dreadful day in the boiling mud when
Neal snatched me away and probably saved my life."
"You never told me about that," said Mary Lee.
"No, but I will tell you now, because it accounts partly for my
appropriating Neal when I had no business to. I felt so grateful
to him." Then she gave her sister an account of what had happened.
"Another day," she went on, "is that one when you had the letter from
Carter. I think I shall remember that to the day of my death. I think
my heart really woke up that minute. I didn't quite realize how much I
cared till you showed me. And to-day," she continued, "I am going back
to him."
A little further off, Nan was saying, "Suppose I had never come to
Japan. I cannot bear to think of what I might have missed."
"You mean?" Mr. Harding spoke.
"I mean you, dear boy."
"You would not have missed me, nor would I have missed you. Fate could
not have been so unkind. Somewhere, somehow, sooner or later we would
have met. I can't think otherwise."
Here a deep whistle sounded warning for all, who were not passengers,
to be going ashore. Then were seen low bows, frantic embraces,
shakings of hands. "Sayonara! Sayonara!" the air was filled with the
sound of the parting word. Nan clung to her lover's arm. "Come soon,
come soon," she whispered. "This is good-bye."
"Nothing shall keep me from you, nothing," he said with grave
earnestness. "God bless my darling girl." He held her hand while the
others crowded around for a last farewell.
"Good-bye, my sister Nan," whispered Eleanor. "Write as often as you
can. Yes, yes, of course I will. I will take good care of him, and I
will let you know if anything goes wrong? Why certainly, only nothing
will go wrong. It is going to be all right and the first thing you
know, you will be coming to meet us both."
"Sayonara! Sayonara! If it must be!" Another hoarse blast from the
steamer, a last hand-clasp, a scramble to get ashore by those tardily
lingering and in a few minutes the great vessel began to move out.
Nan strained her eyes to watch for the last glimpse of the beloved
figure who, standing on the dock, was waving farewell. Her eyes would
dim with tears which she wiped away from time to time quite reckless of
observers.
"Sayonara! Sayonara!" the words came very faintly now, and then only
the churning of the water, the throb of the engine, the queer junks
sailing by, the flecks of foam. "Farewell, dear Japan, I have left
my heart with you," Nan sighed. "Every moment takes me away from the
loveliest dream, the sweetest memories that ever girl had."
Jack standing where the fresh wind blew in her face watched the
vessel's prow rush through the blue. On and on and on. "Every minute
takes us that much nearer. We're coming, Cart, old boy, we're coming.
It won't be long now," so sang her heart.
"Sayonara! Sayonara!" sighed the little Japanese girls by Nan's side.
"Sayonara!" piped up Toku smiling into Nan's face.
Transcriber's notes
The book has been re-bound with a plain green cover. The title page
was used as cover.
Clear printer's errors were corrected.
Original spelling was not modified or harmonized.
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