"That's a very moral story," said Hanano thoughtfully. "I feel kind of sorry for Mr. Wind and Mrs. Rain, but I love Lady Moon. Let us fix a table like they have in Japan. Clara will give us the things and the moonshine is beautiful on our porch edge."
"I have something just as good," said Matsuo, starting for the stairway. "Wait a moment."
He brought a small wooden box and put it on the table. It was a phonograph with records on spools of wax and with a little horn attached, into which we could talk and make records of our own voices. Matsuo was to start to Japan in a few days on a business trip and he had selected the phonograph as a gift for my mother, that it might carry to her the voice of her little granddaughter. We called Mother, and all of us had quite an exciting time watching Matsuo arrange the machine. Then he took his seat before it, with Hanano on his lap, and they had a rehearsal. Not until she began to prattle away in her sweet, childish English did it dawn upon us that her puzzled grandmother would not be able to understand a word that she said.
This made us realize what a little American we had in our Japanese nest, and brought directly before us one of the great problems of Japan.
"If our daughter were a boy," Matsuo said that night, "we might have reason to look serious. I should not want to prepare my son to live in a country where, if capable, he would not be welcome to occupy the highest position his country has to offer its citizens."
"Even for our daughter," I replied, "there is no permanent place in this country; nor in Japan either, with only an American education."
The result of this conversation was that when Matsuo returned from Japan he brought an entire set of school readers, from kindergarten to high school; also the five steps of articles for the Doll Festival. This festival is ages old and educational in character. Any one who understands it thoroughly has a nearly complete knowledge of Japanese folklore, history, customs, and ideals. Every girl has a doll festival set, and when she marries, takes it with her to her new home. The set Matsuo brought to Hanano was mine—the one which Brother objected to my bringing with me to America.
When the set came we all went out to the big, light carriage house, and after William had opened the rough board box, Matsuo and he carefully lifted out the smooth, various-sized whitewood boxes, each holding a doll. My eyes fell on a long, flat package wrapped in purple crêpe bearing the Inagaki crest.
"Why, Mother has sent the Komorokamibina!" I cried in astonishment, lifting the package respectfully to my forehead.
"I thought all the Komoro dolls were gone except the two that you used to play with," said Mother.
"Thekamibinaare different," said Matsuo.
"Yes," I said slowly, "thekamibinaare different. They belong to the family. They can never be sold, or given away, or disposed of in any way. My mother must have had these put away for years—and now she has sent them to me."
I was touched, for it brought forcibly before me the truth that I was the last of the "honourable inside" of the house of Inagaki. A doll festival set belonged to the daughter; the master of the house having no control over the home department.
No doll festival set, however elaborate, is complete without these two long, odd-shaped dolls. In olden timethey were always of paper. Later, extravagant families sometimes made them of brocade or crêpe, but however rich the material, they werecalledpaper dolls and were always folded in the same crude shape of the primitive originals. When the set is arranged for the celebration, these dolls have no fixed place, as all the others have, but may be put anywhere, except on the top shelf reserved for the Emperor and Empress.
The origin of the Doll Festival reaches back to the crude days of Shintoism. At that time a sinful person would seek purification by bathing in a stream. As time passed, and power or riches brought independent thought, it became customary for the lazy and the luxurious to send a substitute. Still later, an inanimate sacrifice in human form was considered satisfactory, and from anything near and dear as a part of one's own self the two images were made. There were tiny wooden spools, two cocoons or simply shaped bunches of floss, the most valued possession of weaving villages; even crudely cut vegetables in farming districts. There were always two, supposed to be male and female, thus representing the entire family—both men and women members. Gradually, dolls rudely cut from paper—a precious material in those days—came to be universally used and were calledkamibinawhich means "paper dolls."
In time one fixed date was decided upon for universal atonement, and the "First Serpent Day of Spring" was chosen, because the time of the dragon's change of skin is symbolic of the slipping from winter's darkness of sin into the light and hope of spring. That date is the one still observed.
In the days of shogun power, when the Emperor was considered too sacred to be seen, this festival represented an annual visit from the invisible ruler to show his personal interest in his people; thus it encouraged loyalty tothe loved and unseen Emperor. In feudal times, when, in the samurai class, a wife's duties became those of her absent husband, and children were necessarily left to the care of high-bred attendants, this festival became, in those families, the only opportunity for girls to be trained in the domestic duties which were such an essential part of every Japanese girl's education.
The lunar calendar advanced "First Serpent Day" to March 3d, and after Hanano's set came, we celebrated that day each year just as it is done in Japan. Five steps were put up in the parlour and covered with red cloth. On these we arranged the miniature Emperor and Empress with court ladies, musicians, and various attendants. There were also doll furniture and household implements. On the lowest steps were tiny tables with food prepared by Hanano herself, with some help from me, and served by her to the playmates who were always invited to join her. And so "Third Day of Third Month" came to be looked forward to by Hanano's little American friends just as it has been by little Japanese girls for almost a thousand years.
One of these celebrations, when Hanano was almost five years old, was an especially busy day for her, as, in addition to her duties as hostess, she received several telephone messages of congratulation, to which, with a feeling of great importance, she replied in person. Her happy day was made more so because her best friend, Susan, brought her little sister, a delicate-faced, golden-haired child who was just learning to walk. Hanano was a gracious hostess to all, but she was especially attentive to the dainty little toddler. That night when she was ready for her usual evening prayer she looked up at me very seriously.
"Mamma, may I say to God just what I please?" she asked.
"Yes, dear," I replied, but I was startled when, from the little bowed figure with clasped hands, came a sudden, "Hello, God!"
I reached out my hand to check her. Then I remembered that I had always taught her to respect her father next to God, and that was the greeting she used to him when he was too far away to be seen. I softly withdrew my hand. Then again I was startled by the solemn little voice, whispering, "Please give me a little sister like Susan's."
I was too much surprised to speak, and she went on with "Now I lay me" to the end.
As I tucked her into bed I said, "How did you happen to ask God for a little sister, Hanano?"
"That's how Susan got her sister," she replied. "She prayed for her a long time, and now she's here."
I went away a little awed, for I knew her prayer would be answered.
The March festival was long past, and May almost gone, when one morning Hanano's father told her that she had a little sister and led her into the room where the baby was. Hanano gazed with wide-open, astonished eyes upon black-haired, pink-faced little Chiyo. She said not a word but walked straight down the stairs to Grandma.
"I didn't pray forthat," she told Mother, with a troubled look. "I wanted a baby with yellow hair like Susan's little sister."
Clara happened to be in the room, and with the freedom of an American servant, said, "Yellow hair on a Japanese babywouldbe a funny sight!" and burst out laughing.
"It'snota Japanese baby!" Hanano indignantly cried. "I didn'taskfor a Japanese baby! I don'twanta Japanese baby!"
Mother took the child on her lap and told her howproud we all were to have two little Japanese girls in our home, and so brought a slow comfort to the disappointed little heart.
That afternoon Mother saw Hanano sitting a long time very quietly in front of the big mirror that stood between the two front windows of the parlour.
"What is it you see, dear?" Mother asked.
"I s'pose I'm a Japanese girl, too," Hanano answered slowly. "I don't look like Susan or Alice."
She winked several times very fast, then, with a choking gulp, her loyalty to blue eyes and yellow hair succumbed to loyalty to love, and she added, "But Mamma is pretty! I'm going to be like her!" and climbed down from the chair.
No one can sound the depths of a child's thoughts, but from that day Hanano developed an interest in Japanese things. Matsuo was fond of listening to her prattle and of playing with her, but she depended upon me for stories; and so, night after night, I would talk of our heroes and repeat to her the songs and fairy lore which had been part of my child life. Best of all she liked to have me talk of the pretty black-haired children—I always said they were pretty—who made chains of cherry blossoms or played games in a garden with a stone lantern and a curving bridge that spanned a pond set in the midst of flowers and tiny trees. I almost grew homesick as I painted these word pictures for her, or sat in the twilight singing a plaintive Japanese lullaby to the baby, while Hanano stood beside me, humming softly beneath her breath.
Was this sudden love for the land she had never seen an inheritance, or—for children sometimes seem to be uncannily endowed with insight—was it premonition?
One day the old familiar world ended for me, leaving me with memories—comforting ones and regretful ones—all closely wrapped in a whirl of anxious, frightened questioning, for no longer had I a husband or my children afather. Matsuo, with a last merry word and a sleepy smile, had quickly and painlessly slipped over the border into the old-new country beyond our ken.
And now, for my children and myself, nothing was left but farewells and a long, lonely journey. The country that had reached out so pleasant a welcome to me, that had so willingly pardoned my ignorance and my mistakes, the country where my children were born and where I had received kindness greater than words can express—this wonderful, busy, practical country had no need of, nor did it want, anything that I could give. It had been a broad, kindly, loving home for me and mine, but a place for the present only. It held no promise of usefulness for my growing children and had no need of my old age. And what is life if one can only learn, and of what one learns give nothing?
The past years were like a dream. From a land of misty, poetic ideas I had drifted through a puzzling tangle of practical deeds, gathering valuable thoughts as I floated easily along, and now—back to the land of mist and poesy. What was ahead of me? I wondered.
CHAPTER XXIV
IN JAPAN AGAIN
Whenthe weary sight of tumbling and tossing waves was past and I was once again in Japan, I found myself in the midst of surroundings almost as strange as those I had met when I landed in America.
The provinces and classes in Japan had for so many centuries held steadfast, each to its own customs, that even yet there were only occasional evidences to be seen of their slow yielding to the equalizing influences of modern life; and I had gone at once to Matsuo's home in western Japan, where standards of dress and etiquette, ideals, and even idioms of speech were entirely different from those of either Nagaoka or Tokyo.
We were met on our arrival by a crowd of Matsuo's relatives, all in ceremonial dress, for we had brought the sacred ashes with us; and from then until the forty-nine days of ceremonies for the dead were over, I was treated as an honoured messenger-guest. After that my position was very humble, for a son's widow is an unimportant person in Japan, and, virtually, that is what I was, Matsuo having been, until he decided to remain in America, the adopted son of Uncle Otani.
I was very anxious about my little girls; for in Japan children belong to the family—not to the parents. Hanano, on the death of her father, had become the head of our little family, but we were only a branch of the main family of which Uncle Otani was the head. So it had been taken for granted by all relatives, my own as well asMatsuo's, that the children and I would make our home with Uncle Otani. He would have made room for me in his handsome house and would have supplied me with beautiful clothes, but I should have had no authority, even over my own children. This might not have been so bad under some circumstances; for Uncle Otani would have been generous in giving the children every advantage that he considered proper for them to have. But with all his kindness—and a kinder man never lived—I could not forget that he belonged to the old-fashioned merchant class that considered education beyond the grammar school undesirable for girls.
The situation was difficult; for, from my humble position, I could not say a word. But I had one hope. Hanano, although legal head of our family, was a minor; and her mother, as present regent, held a certain power. Exerting this, I asked for a consultation with Uncle Otani. I explained to him that Matsuo had expressed in his will a desire that, since he had no son, his daughters should receive the liberal education that had been planned for them in America. Then I boldly asked, in Hanano's name and by the power of her father's request, that I should be allowed the privilege of guiding their studies.
Uncle Otani was astonished at such an unheard-of request, but the situation was unusual and a family council was summoned at once. In the case of a consultation concerning a widow, it is customary for her family to be represented; and Brother being unable to be present, Mother sent in his place my progressive Tokyo uncle—the one who had taken so vigorous a part in our council meetings before my marriage. It was necessary for Hanano, as official head of her family, to be present, but of course she was to speak only through me.
Since she had not yet learned to wear Japanese dress properly, I put on her best white dress, trimmed with laceand ruffles. I arranged everything so that it would be very loose; for it is difficult to sit quietly in Japanese fashion while wearing American clothing, and yet it is inexcusably rude at a ceremonial gathering to move—however slightly—the lower part of the body. I explained this to Hanano, and told her how her grandfather, when two years younger than she, had held the seat of state in the formidable political meetings before the Restoration. "Honourable Grandmother told me he always sat very straight and was dignified," I said, "and you must be like him." Then we went in to the meeting.
I could not help being uneasy about the way my bold request might be received. To most of the council I was nothing but a widowed dependant of my daughter—a woman with advanced and peculiar notions—and they had the power, if three voices of the council disapproved of me and my ideas, not only to refuse my request, but to separate me from my children entirely. I should be well provided for, in my present home, if I chose, or elsewhere, but the children would remain with their father's people; and no law of Heaven or earth was powerful enough in Japan to prevent it. Matsuo's family had no desire to do any unjust thing; nor did I suspect that they had, but—they held the power.
The conference, which was long, consisted of a series of polite suggestions and earnest, but never excited, arguments. I listened with my head bowed, occasionally—but not too often—glancing toward my little anxious-eyed daughter, sitting erect and motionless in the midst of the dignified row of elders. For two hours she did not move. Then one poor, cramped little leg jerked, her fluffy dress spread out, and with a quick catching at her knee, she gasped, "Oh!"
Not a face turned toward her, but with an anguished clutch in my throat I bowed to the floor, saying, "Ihumbly pray the honourable council to pardon the rudeness of my foreign-trained child, and permit her to retire with me from the august assembly."
Uncle Otani, without moving, gave a grunt of assent.
As I made my last bow at the sliding door and slipped it back in place, my Tokyo uncle tapped his pipe carefully against the rim of the tobacco box by his side.
"It is fortunate that O Etsu San seems a reliable woman," he said slowly; "for surely it would be a puzzling venture for any of us to take into our family two rough American children with their untrained feet, their flouncing garments, and their abrupt speech."
Whether that remark was intended to be kind or cruel, I never knew; and whether or not it had influence, I never knew; but after another hour of slow, careful, earnest, and perfectly fair discussion, the council decided that on account of Matsuo's request, combined with the fact that his widow appeared to be a trustworthy person, consent was given to a temporary trial of the experiment.
That night I pulled my cushions in between my children's beds—close, close—and crept beneath the covers, faint with relief and gratitude.
CHAPTER XXV
OUR TOKYO HOME
A fewweeks later the children and I, with capable little Sudzu in the kitchen, were settled in a pretty home in Tokyo. The arrangement with Matsuo's family was that some one of the relatives would visit us at intervals to see that everything was satisfactory; and that I was to consult the council about every new, even trifling, problem which might arise.
I was chained—but I was content.
My relatives in Nagaoka were much concerned over my peculiar position; and Mother, because it would be undignified for a young widow to be alone, decided to come and live with us. Not being able, however, to make immediate arrangements, she sent Taki, who was now a widow, and who, because her father and her grandfather had served in our family, had claimed the right to return to Mother and calmly settle herself as a member of the household. When she came to Tokyo she at once assumed the combined responsibilities of chaperon, house-keeper, cook, seamstress, and commander-general of us all—including Sudzu.
In less than three days Taki had discovered the best fish-shop in the neighbourhood; and in less than a week all second-rate vegetable venders and fruit peddlers went trotting by our kitchen door, holding their swinging baskets away from the keen eyes of our countrywoman who knew so well when the first blush of freshness was gone.
From the first I relied entirely upon Taki's judgment.Nevertheless, I had some annoying experiences, for to her heart I was still little Etsu-bo Sama, although her lips acknowledged that I had reached the dignified position of "Oku Sama"—Honourable Mistress—and although I had acquired some wonderful ideas and possessed two astonishingly active children, who dressed queerly and talked too loud.
My troubles began the very first night. After Taki had closed the outside gates and fastened the front and kitchen doors I heard her sliding the wooden panels which ran along the outer edge of the porch overlooking the garden. These were for protection in stormy weather and to keep us safe at night, but when closed they shut out the air completely.
"Don't close theamadoestight, Taki," I called. "Leave a little space between them. We need fresh air for the rooms."
"Maa! Maa!" cried Taki, with profound astonishment in her voice. "You left your home when you had but little learning, Oku Sama. Air without the smile of the august Sun goddess has poison in it."
"But, Taki," I protested, "this is like a foreign house. It has gas for the heaters, and we need outside air, even at night."
She hesitated, evidently much distressed.
"It may be that air in the honourable foreign house is different," she muttered, "but it seems peculiar—peculiar. And besides, it is not safe in a great city where burglars live."
She walked away shaking her head and grumbling to herself. Feeling that I had established my authority, I went to bed, only to be awakened by a stealthy, intermittent rumbling, which presently ended in a muffled snap as Taki pushed in the wooden bolt of the last panel.
"Well," I said to myself, half provoked, half amused,"Taki always had her own way, even with the jailer of Nagaoka prison. So what couldIexpect!"
Like many Japanese women of the working class, Taki had been obliged to take a large share of the burden of livelihood on her own shoulders. Her husband was a kind man and a good workman, but he drank too muchsake, and that meant not only a mysterious slipping away of wages, but frequent imprisonment for debt.
Whenever this happened Taki came to our home, and Mother would give her employment until she had saved enough to set her husband free. One day while she was working for us, my older sister went out with her on an errand. Just beyond the gate they saw two men approaching. One was a well-dressed man, his head covered with the basket mask worn by all prisoners outside the walls. Sister said that Taki stood still, watching the men suspiciously, and did not seem surprised when they stopped.
The officer bowed and said pleasantly: "Only threeyenis due now. Pay that and he is free."
"Oh, please, Mr. Officer," exclaimed Taki in great distress, "pleasekeep him just a few weeks longer. Then I shall have all the debts paid and a little start for the next time.Pleasekeep him just a little longer. Please!"
The husband, poor man, stood meekly by while his wife and the officer argued, but Taki stubbornly refused to pay the threeyen, and the officer walked away with his basket-headed prisoner. Taki stood looking after them, triumphant. But a few moments later she pulled a fold of paper from her sash and, wiping her eyes, sniffed a few times and said: "Come, little Mistress; we have wasted much time. We must hurry!"
I said nothing more about not closing theamadoes, but several days later I had a carpenter put up a wide, open-work strip of carved iris—the flower of health—betweenthe eaves and the top of the panels. At intervals were inserted iron bars run through the hollow tubes of bamboo. Thus we were safe in every way; for not enough poison air could filter through the health-giving blossoms of the carving to injure us, even in the opinion of our good, fanatical Taki.
The children surprised me by the readiness with which they accepted conditions in this strange land. Hanano, from babyhood, had been attracted by new things, and I concluded that our life of constant change had kept her from homesickness. And three-year-old Chiyo—who had always been a contented little thing—seemed so happy in the unbroken companionship of her sister that I did not realize the possibility of her having opinions and desires of her own. While we were visiting she expected strange things, but when we reached a place that I called "home" and she found her clothing arranged in drawers and her playthings put where she could get them, she began to miss many things.
"Mamma," she said one day, coming up and leaning against my shoulder as I sat sewing, "Chiyo wants——"
"What does Chiyo want?" I asked.
She took my hand and led me slowly through our six tiny rooms. White mats were on all the floors except the kitchen. In the parlour alcove hung a roll picture with a flower arrangement on the polished platform beneath. A small upright piano stood in one corner. Sliding doors of silk separated the parlour from my own and the children's rooms, side by side, just beyond. In both, standing against the tan-coloured plaster wall, were whitewood chests of drawers with ornamental iron handles. My desk and Hanano's, both low white tables with books and pen-stands on top, were so placed that, when the paper sliding doors were pushed back, we could see across the narrow porch into our pretty little garden with its well-trimmedshrubbery, its curved path of stepping-stones, and its small lake with nine darting gold-fish.
The dining room, at right angles to our rooms, overlooked the garden, too. It was the sunniest room in the house. The closets were hidden by sliding doors covered with tan-coloured tapestry, and the long, square-cornered fire-box with drawers—the invariable adjunct of every dining room in Japan—was a handsome one of white birch. On one side was always a cushion, ready any moment for the mistress when she came to talk over house matters with the maid, called from the kitchen just behind another tan-coloured door which looked a part of the wall. The bathroom, Taki's and Sudzu's room, and the servants' entrance, were just beyond. Our own "shoe-off place" and entrance hall were in front, opening toward the big wooden gates with the "camel's-eye door" in one of them.
From room to room Chiyo led me, stopping in each and pointing aimlessly here and there. "Chiyo wants——" she repeated, but her wants were so many that she had no words. The emptiness, which I loved, oppressed her. She longed for the big canopy beds of Mother's home, for the deep-cushioned chairs, the large mirrors, the big square piano, the flowered carpets and the windows curtained with lace, the high ceilings, the wide rooms, the spaciousness! I looked at the wistful little face and my heart smote me. But when she pulled my sleeve and, burying her face in the folds of my dress, said piteously, "Oh, Mamma, take me home to Grandma and Papa's picture! Please! Please!" I caught her in my arms and, sinking to the floor, hugged her close and, for the first time since I could remember, I sobbed aloud.
But this must not last. Where was my samurai blood? Where my childhood training? Had my years of unrestrained freedom in America weakened my character andtaken away my courage? My honourable father would be shamed.
"Come, Little Daughter," I said, choking and laughing together, "Chiyo has shown Mamma what we have not in our new house; now Mamma will show Chiyo what we have."
So, gaily we went over the same road. In the parlour I pushed back the low silk doors beneath the moon window, and we saw two deep shelves in which were neatly arranged all of Hanano's and Chiyo's pretty books from America. I pointed to the wonderful panel over the doors—a broad, thin slab of wood, strangely delicate and beautiful—carved by unknown years of dashing waves into its odd, inimitable pattern. I showed her the post of the alcove: only the scaled and twisted trunk of a forest pine, yet so polished that it looked as if it were enclosed in crystal. We looked at the rich, dark wood of the alcove floor, "as smooth and shining as Grandma's mirrors in the big parlour at home," I told her, and she bent over to see the reflection of a grave little face, changing, as she looked, into one with a twisty smile. In another room I opened the tiny door of our unused shrine. Within the dainty carved interior stood her father's picture, framed in America, which was to hang over the piano when the carpenter could come to put it up. I showed her the big closets where our bed cushions slept in the daytime, gathering, in their silken flowers, talk, music, and laughter to weave into pleasant dreams for her to find hidden in her pillow at night. I gently opened the wee mountain of ashes in the dining-room fire-box so that she could see the softly glowing charcoal, always waiting with warmth and comfort for any one who wanted a sip of tea. I had her peep into the tiny drawers—one for small rice-cakes of pink and white, in case a child should come to visit, one for extra chopsticks, and one for a tiny can of tea with itsbroad wooden spoon near by. But the big, broad drawer at the bottom—Oh, dear! Oh, dear!—we didn't need at all. That was made for some old-fashioned grandmother who sometimes, after she had told a fairy story to her little grandchild, would reach in for a long, slender pipe with a silver thimble for a bowl. After three whiffs she would tap it on the edge of the box—just here—three times, tap-tap-tap, and then put it away with its fragrant silken bag (sniff, sniff!—poof, poof! Mamma doesn't like!) to wait for another time of meditation or loneliness, or perhaps for an hour when another dear old grandmother might chance to call. Then there would be three more whiffs, or perhaps double three, while the two grandmothers sipped their tea and talked in gentle voices of olden time.
"And here is where Sudzu keeps the boats of the food fairies," I said, "all waiting for their burden of good things to eat."
I pushed back one of the panels which didn't look at all like a door, and we peeped into a closet of many shallow shelves, on which, in piles of five, were wooden bowls for soup, china bowls for rice, oval plates for fish, deep ones for pickles, and many plates and cups and dishes, each shaped for a special purpose and each decoration telling a story of old Japan. Below were our lacquer tables, each a foot square and a foot high; and piled up, a little distance away, were our cushions,
"Just One and Two and Three,For She and Her and Me!"
as Hanano sang when Sudzu brought them out for meals.
"And now the kitchen," I went on. "This door doesn't slide, but opens by turning a little bronze pine-cone. Step into these sandals, Chiyo; for no one goes into the kitchen with only foot mittens on—or stockings. Here we are! One half the floor is of smooth, dark boards, you see, andthe other half—step down!—of cement. There is the gas range, and close beside it a pottery fire-box for the big swelling rice-kettle with its heavy wooden top. No bit of waste-paper or scrap of any kind must be thrown onthatfire; only straw to start it and charcoal to continue it, for it is used just to cook rice—the staff of life for Japan—and we must treat it with respect. Here comes Taki; and now she will show us something, little Chiyo, that will make you want to run to the big box that smells all camphory, like the forest near Uncle Otani's house, and get out the fur collar that Grandma gave you last Christmas Day. See!"
Taki stuck two fingers in two little holes in one of the narrow boards of the floor and lifted it; then another, and another. Next, up came a light, broad square of whitewood, and there, within easy reach of Taki's hand, was a small cellar where was a block of ice, roughly cut in shelves, on which were set wooden plates of fish and vegetables, eggs and fruit.
"That is what becomes of the cold, cold bundle the man brings every morning in the straw saddle on his back," I said. "And there is Taki's wooden sink, standing high up from the cement part of the floor, just like a table with legs made of water-pipes.
"Now, turn to the right. Down the narrow little hall we go—five steps of mine and eight of yours—and here we are in the bathroom. The oval whitewood tub, with its two faucets above and little row of gaslights below, is so deep that even Mamma can kneel with the water up to her chin. Here are the three little shelves for our bran-bag, cup, and toothbrush, each with a carved towel-hanger below; and over in the corner is a big bamboo basket for laundry and a coil of hose to water the garden. Oh, it's a very interesting little house, Chiyo; just like a big play-house, with Mamma at home all the time to play with you when Hanano has gone to school."
CHAPTER XXVI
TRAGIC TRIFLES
My findinga suitable school for Chiyo almost at once was a piece of good fortune. Not far from our house there lived a gifted educator who was interested in modern methods of teaching young children. He and his wife had in their home a small model kindergarten, to which I was given the privilege of sending my little girl. Chiyo could not speak Japanese, but fortunately there were in the class two children of an American missionary, who spoke the language well, so the little Japanese-born Americans became kind interpreters to the little American-born Japanese; thus forming an international combination that resulted, on one side at least, in a lifetime remembrance of grateful friendliness.
But Hanano's education was a problem. In selecting a school for her the remembrance of my own happy school life in Tokyo naturally influenced me in favour of a mission school; but, after careful examination, I concluded that, although the atmosphere of the mission schools was unquestionably superior, they could not compete with the government schools in scholarship. Therefore I decided upon a public school, the principal of which was reputed to be one of the best in Tokyo, and which, fortunately, was not far from our home. Of this I knew Matsuo's relatives would approve.
Hanano's knowledge of the Japanese language was meagre, but of the history, literature, and traditions ofJapan, she knew almost as much as other children her age, and so was too advanced for the primary class.
It was a puzzle for the authorities to know what to do with her; for rules in Japan are not flexible. Official life still moves in grooves, and in a minor officer, the old feudal pride in rigid faithfulness is frequently so extreme that to be jostled out of the established line is hopelessly disconcerting. Time and again I heard with a sinking heart that no place could be found for Hanano in any class, but—I did notdarefail! Patiently I persisted, arguing that, since Japan claims her foreign-born children, and also has the rule of compulsory education, surely something could be done.
Well, I had a world of trouble and felt as if the child were being wound closer each day in a red-tape cocoon, but at last she was admitted into the third grade and I given permission to sit in the rear of the room, a silent spectator with a notebook.
I shall never forget those first days. Hanano was naturally quick and observing and already familiar with third-grade studies; but the ideographs were wholly unknown to her, and she could understand very little of the teacher's explanations. Again and again I would see her face light up with an expression of alert attention, which the next moment would change to a puzzled look and then gradually settle into one of blank hopelessness. Every evening our home was turned into a schoolroom, where I went over each lesson of the day, translating and explaining in English. At odd hours, even during meal-time, we played games in which words were limited to those in common use, and whenever Hanano heard Taki bargaining with vendors at the kitchen door, she was immediately at her elbow. But I think her greatest help from any one thing came from the playground at school. There she was a delightful curiosity. She took part in all games,running, gesticulating, and chattering in English, while the others ran, gesticulated, and chattered in Japanese, all having a good time, and Hanano piling up, by the dozen, unforgettable words which carried their own definitions too clearly to need interpretation.
I was faithful in my reports to Uncle Otani, and, on the whole, rather enjoyed the "investigation visits" of the relatives; but my being required to ask council advice before making a change, however slight, in my programme, was often very trying and useless. Formally to request an opinion regarding which of two studies to select for Hanano, when not a member of the council knew or cared to learn anything of her former school work, and every single member considered both of the suggested studies entirely unnecessary for a girl to waste her time over, was absurd. But I was conscientious to the minutest degree, and as time passed the visits from relatives became less frequent and more friendly; and my requests were mostly returned with orders to use my own judgment.
When Hanano reached the stage where she began to recognize characters on the street signs and to listen intelligently to conversation going on about her, I gave up my visits to the school and turned my attention to home duties. Here I found many problems. Some were seemingly too small to be noticed, and yet, like stinging gnat bites, extremely annoying. I had thought it would be well to keep the children in American clothing. They had a goodly supply, and progressive families were beginning to advocate it for children, except for formal use. As the weather grew colder I put heavy underclothes and woollen stockings on them; for the schoolrooms were heated only with two charcoal fire-boxes in each large room. But, notwithstanding my care, one day Chiyo came home with a cold. The next morning was chilly and damp. I had no heart to keep her from her greatestenjoyment; yet to risk her taking more cold was out of the question. What could I do? Suddenly I had a wicked inspiration. She had a coat of soft woollen goods which covered her dress completely. I put it on, buttoned it up close and, telling her not to take it off, sent her on her way.
Then I sat down to have it out with my conscience. In Japan, when one enters a house, the shoes, wrap, and hat are removed. It was as unpardonable for Chiyo to keep on her wrap in school as if it had been her hat; but I knew that, in the eyes of the teacher, the pretty red coat with its lace collar and cuffs would be only a foreign dress, no more suggesting a wrap than did her usual clothing. And to think that I had taken advantage of the ignorance of the teacher and done this deceitful thing! I thought of Kishibo-jin and wondered if in every mother's heart is hidden an unborn demon.
Presently, with a sigh, I rose to my feet and prepared to go out. As I approached the mirror to arrange my hair I stopped with a half-ashamed laugh. For one instant a superstitious hesitation had held me back, as if I might see in the reflected face a hint of the deceit in my heart.
I went direct to the nearest shop and purchased material for ahifu—a loose but proper and elegant house-garment, which in winter is padded with the cobwebby cut silk taken from empty cocoons. It is the lightest and warmest garment in Japan. Taki, Sudzu, and I sewed all day, and the next morning Chiyo went happily to school with herhifuover her American dress.
It was this incident that decided me to change the children from American to Japanese clothing.
There is another link, less tragic, in the chain of my memories of growing adaptability. When riding in jinrikishas it is the custom for the honoured person to go first. Therefore a child should follow a parent. But I never feltsure that some unexpected thing might not happen to my active little ones; so I always put them together in one jinrikisha just ahead of me. One day, as we were passing through a busy street, I saw Hanano looking back and waving frantically; almost standing up in her eagerness to have me see a small table and two chairs of bamboo in a shop window. Both children pleaded for me to buy them. It was nonsense to take them to our pretty home; for chair legs ruin the soft mats, and foreign furniture is wholly inartistic in a Japanese room. But the children looked at them so longingly that I made the purchase, ordering thin strips of wood to be fastened on the feet to make a flat foundation that would not injure our floor. They were to be delivered the next day.
Early the following morning I went shopping, returning home about noon. What was my astonishment when I entered the house to see the bamboo table in the centre of the parlour and on each side of it a chair, with Hanano seated on one and Chiyo on the other! They had no books, no toys. Sudzu said they had been there for an hour, occasionally changing places, but otherwise sitting still or talking in low voices.
"What are you doing, children," I asked, "sitting here so quiet?"
"Oh, just enjoying!" replied Hanano.
After a moment Chiyo said: "Grandma's chairs are soft, but this one has knobs on the edge. Let's swap again, Hanano."
Then there was the affair of the bedclothes. The pride of a Japanese housewife is to have not only dainty and pretty, but also appropriate, bed cushions. Mother had sent with Taki enough silk and linen for both children's beds. The pattern for Hanano's was, for her flower-name, the "Flowers of the Four Seasons," in which bunches of many-coloured blossoms were scattered loosely over a background of shadowy pink. Chiyo's—for her name, which means "Long Life"—was a flock of white storks flying across a blue sky with floating clouds. Taki and Sudzu had sewed steadily for several days making the cushions, so, on the night they were finished, and when Sudzu had made up the beds side by side, I told the girls that I would put the children to bed and they could go out to a street fair held on the temple grounds, not far away. In the midst of the undressing some friends came to call and I left the children to finish alone.
My friends stayed late. I heard Taki and Sudzu come in, and a short time later there was a disturbance in the children's room. Hanano's voice sounded clear and loud in English, "It isn't fair! Stop! It isn't fair!" Then came a low murmuring in Japanese—sleepy complaints—a soft scrambling—a gentle, "Pardon my disturbing you. Honourable good-night!"—a sliding door, whisperings, and presently—silence.
As soon as the guests had gone I hurried into the children's room. Both were sleeping quietly. I waited for Sudzu to come in after locking the gate, and then I learned what had happened. Faithful Taki, on her return, had peeped into the children's room to see that all was safe, and behold! the "Flower in a Strange Land" was asleep beneath the flying storks and the long-life lassie was peacefully reposing beneath the scattered blossoms of the four seasons. Taki's orderly habits of a lifetime had sprung to the rescue of an upset world. Pulling off the covers with a jerk, she had lifted Hanano in her strong arms, and then, standing the startled child upright, had caught Chiyo and plumped her into Hanano's bed, muttering constantly, "Ignorant children! Ignorant children!" Paying no attention to Hanano's indignant protests that they had changed purposely, "just to swap," she had tossed her back into bed, whirled up the covers,and then, politely bowing good-night, had softly pushed the doors together and retired as gently as if she feared to awake a sleeping child.
"Taki is just like she used to be," I thought as I lay down on my own bed with a laugh. "People who think Japanese women are always gentle ought to widen their acquaintance."
But one thing about which I have never laughed was a peep I had into a hidden part of my children's lives. Hanano always had been brave about bearing silently little troubles that could not be helped, and she seemed so busy and interested in her new life that I did not realize that deep in her heart was a longing for the old home. Our garden had two entrances, one through the house and one through a little brushwood wicket on the path that led from a wooden gate to the kitchen door. One day, just as I reached home, a sudden shower threatened to drench me. So, instead of going around to the big gateway, I slipped through the wooden gate, and ran across the stones of the garden to the porch. Leaving my shoes on the step I was hurrying to my room when I heard the voices of the children.
"This shady place," said Hanano, "is where Grandma's chair always was, on the porch. And under this tree is where the hammock was where you took your nap and where Papa almost sat down on you that time. And this is the big stone steps where we always had firecrackers on Fourth of July. And this is the well. And this is the drawbridge. And this is the place where Clara went to feed the chickens. It's all exactly right, Chiyo, for I drew it myself, and you must not forget again. Don't tell Mamma, for she would be sorry, and she is our only treasure that we have left. All the rest are gone, Chiyo, and we can never have them again. So it can't be helped, and we just have to stand it. But you mustn't forget thatall this—for ever—is where our love is. And now, let us sing."
They stood up, holding hands, and the childish voices rose in a clear, steady "My Country, 'tis of Thee!"
I cried softly as I moved about in the next room and thought of the transplanted morning glories. "Is it right," I wondered, "to plant a little unasked flower in a garden of love and happiness, from which it must soon be wrenched away, only for another, and a dwarfed, start in strange, new surroundings? The garden had much to give of strength and inspiration, but is it worth the cost? Oh, is it worth the cost?"
CHAPTER XXVII
HONOURABLE GRANDMOTHER
"Honourable Grandmother is coming—coming!Honourable Grandmother is coming to-day!"
happily sang Chiyo as her little foot mittens came pattering over the white mats, following me as I went through the rooms giving touches here and there to complete arrangements for our expected guest.
Foot mittens took the place of stockings now, and the free American dress had given way to a gay-flowered kimono with scarlet lining and graceful swinging sleeves.
"Japanese fashions are the prettiest for Japanese people," I thought as I looked at Chiyo's black hair, short in the back and cut square across the forehead. She had not been a pretty child in American dress. Japanese clothes were much more becoming, but oh, the opportunities for comfortable and healthful bodies the untrammelled children of America have! I sighed, yet I was so bound by outside influences that I could not regret having changed the children into Japanese dress before their grandmother saw them.
We had been very busy after the arrival of Mother's letter saying that she was ready to come. The children and I moved in together, and I arranged a cosy little room for her, which I knew she would find more convenient and comfortable than any other in the house. I wanted everything to look homelike to her; so I had the swinging electric lights changed to three-foot-high floor lampsshaded by black lacquer frames with paper panels, like the candle-stands at the Nagaoka home. Our gas heaters were already in bronze braziers so ingeniously set up that they looked like charcoal burners. Mother would have accepted everything new with the smiling philosophy of a lifetime, but I did not want her to "accept" things; I wanted everything to look homelike so she could fit in happily without effort.
The empty shrine I had been using for books and the children's hats. Even Taki had not objected to "high objects," as she called them, being placed there; for Japanese people are taught to respect books as "intellectual results," and hats as pertaining to the revered "crown of the body." But, nevertheless, she was unreservedly pleased when I removed the things and began to prepare the carved wooden alcove for the small belongings that Mother would bring with her from the large shrine at home.
"Where shall we put the shrine that Honourable Grandmother will bring?" asked Hanano, thinking of the elaborate gilded and lacquered cabinet in Uncle Otani's home.
"It's as easy for Honourable Grandmother to wrap up all the really necessary things for her shrine as it would be for a Christian to carry a Bible and a prayer book," I answered; "and we will have this little alcove all fresh and clean for them. Honourable Grandmother loves the things that have been sacred to her through all the sorrows and joys of her life."
"Do Honourable Grandmother's God and our God know each other up in heaven?" asked Chiyo.
I was leaning in the alcove to brush a bit of dust off the carving, and Hanano replied.
"Of course they do, Chiyo," she said. "Jesus had just as hard a time as the August Buddha did to teach people that God wants them to be good and kind and splendid.Mamma always says that Honourable Grandmother and our dear American Grandma are good, just alike."
While we were talking, there had been sounding a constant pata-pata-pata from the next room, where Sudzu, with her sleeves looped back and a blue-and-white towel folded over her freshly dressed hair, was vigorously cleaning the paper doors with ashojiduster—a bunch of cut papers tied on the end of a short stick. The sound stopped abruptly and Sudzu appeared in the doorway.
Quickly removing the towel and pulling off the cord that held back her sleeves, she bowed to the floor.
"Taki San thinks that the bath water heated by gas will be too harsh for the delicate body of Honourable Retired Mistress," she said. "Shall I go for a carpenter?"
I had forgotten the belief of country people that only charred wood must be used for bath fuel when one is frail or old. I hurried Sudzu out on her errand, and within two hours the gas coil had been exchanged for a small charcoal furnace, and our arrangements were complete.
That evening was a memorable one for the children. We all went to the station to meet Mother, except Taki. She remained behind so that the welcoming red rice and the fish, baked head and all, would be in hot readiness; and after we reached home, even before the bustle of welcome was over, she had the shrine belongings in place and the candles lighted. Then, with the gilded doors wide open and the pungent odour of incense filling the air, she brought in the little shrine table laden with food. Our own tables came next, and once again I was sitting down to a meal with my mother beside me and the kindly spirits of the ancestors welcoming me and mine into cheerful companionship. Afterward we retired to the parlour and spent an hour in what Hanano called "getting-acquainted talk," before Mother would confess to the weariness which her pale face already betrayed. Then we all gatheredbefore the shrine, Taki and Sudzu sitting just within the doorway.
How familiar, and yet how strange! The chanting, the soft sound of the little bronze gong, Mother's voice reading the sacred Buddhist scriptures that so often I had heard from the lips of the dear one who long ago had passed away—oh, how quiet and safe it all seemed! The anxious loneliness of months was gone, and there crept into my heart a peace that had not been mine since the protected days when my little family were all together in the dear, dear home of our kind, beloved American mother.
"How alike are the two sides of the world!" I thought. "Both have many gods of little worth, but with one wise, loving, understanding Power over all, the time must surely come when we shallallunderstand."
The weeks following were filled with new and unexpected lessons. I had had no thought but that family loyalty and natural affection were the only requisites necessary to draw together my mother and my children. But I soon discovered that, though neither loyalty nor affection was lacking, mutual interests were only possibilities of the future.
My attempts to combine the old and the new frequently resulted in my having to give up the combination and decide wholly in favour of one or the other. With material things this was only an inconvenience; but a puzzling problem, indeed, when it came to Mother's old-fashioned ideas clashing with the advanced training of modern schools. Mother never criticized. She met all situations with a smile or some pleasant remark about the "new ways of the world"; but it was evident that she greatly distrusted the wisdom of spending so much time on boys' studies and so little on flower-arranging, tea-serving,kotomusic, and other womanly accomplishments. And the gymnastic exercises which the children enthusiastically described, where whole classes of girls drilled on the school grounds, marching and singing with vigorous energy, were wholly contrary to her ideas of dignity.
I tried to explain that these exercises were believed to be good for health and growth. I told her it was no longer considered bold and mannish for girls to sit straight and to carry the head upright when they walked; and that even Hanano's habit of chatting happily about school matters while we were eating, which seemed to Mother the manners of a coolie, was in accordance with her training at school.
Chiyo's gentle ways had appealed to Mother at once, but her sister's quick, busy, energetic manner was a constant surprise and puzzle. Hanano was so active, so apt to speak without being spoken to, and so constantly doing what, according to strict etiquette, were abrupt and discourteous things, that I was continually on the alert to watch for and check her unexpected acts. It was not long before I became unhappily conscious that my only hours of freedom from anxiety lay between the time when Hanano tied up her school books and, jumping into her clogs at the door, ran off, gaily waving a good-bye, and the afternoon hour when the door would slide open and a cheery, "I have come back!" come echoing through the hall.
But this did not last. Gradually, I scarcely know when or how, the silent strain lessened. Hanano was growing more quiet in her talk, more gentle in her manners. Frequently I would see her settle herself beside Chiyo at Mother's fire-box to listen to stories or to receive help as she read aloud, and one day I found both children snuggled up close, one on each side, while Mother showed Hanano how to write the characters for "American Grandma."
Chiyo had loved Mother from the beginning. Thechild's affectionate advances were somewhat of a shock at first, but very soon the two were congenial companions. It was odd that religion should be one of the binding cords. The kindergarten was just beyond the temple, so Chiyo was familiar with the road, and as I did not like to have Mother go alone, Chiyo often went with her when Sudzu was busy. The child liked to sit in the great solemn place and listen to the chanting, and she liked to be given rice-cakes by the mild-faced priestess who served tea to Mother after the service. One day Mother said: "Chiyo, you are very kind to come with me to the temple. Next time I will go with you to your church." So Chiyo took her to hear our minister, a good man who preached in Japanese. After that they often went together, sometimes to the temple, where Chiyo stood with bowed head while her grandmother softly rubbed her rosary between her hands and murmured, "Namu Amida Butsu!" and sometimes to the Christian church, where Mother listened attentively to the sermon and bowed in reverence when the Minister prayed. Then hand in hand they would come home together, talking of what they had heard at one place or the other. One day as they entered the gate, I heard Mother say gently: "It may be that he said true things, Chiyo, but I must not go to a better place than where my honourable husband is. Even if he is in the dreadful Hell of Cold, it is my duty to be with him. The Christian faith is for the new generation, like you, little Chiyo, but I must follow the path of my ancestors."
One afternoon, when I was sewing in my room, I heard Chiyo's voice beyond the closed doors.
"Honourable Grandmother," she said, "when are you going to die?"
I pushed back the sliding door. There was Mother with Chiyo snuggled up beside her on the same cushion. Iwas astonished, for in my day no child would have dared to be so familiar with an elder, but there she was, and both were looking down gravely at an array of tiny lacquer boxes spread out on the floor. A large box, into which the smaller ones fitted closely, was near by. How well I remembered that box! All through my childhood it was kept in a drawer of my mother's toilet cabinet, and every once in a while she would take out the little boxes and sprinkle powdered incense into each one. This was what she was doing now.
"I wish I had those pretty boxes for my dolly," said Chiyo.
"Oh, no, little Granddaughter," Mother said, lifting one of the tiny boxes and shaking gently the curved bits that looked like shavings of pale shell. "These are my nail clippings that have been saved all my life."
"Your finger-nails—and your toe-nails!" cried the child. "Oh, my! How funny!"
"Hush, little Granddaughter. I am afraid you have not been trained to respect the traditions of your ancestors. We have to save our nails and cut-off baby hair so that our bodies may be perfect when we start on the long journey. The time cannot be far away," she said, gazing thoughtfully out into the garden.
Chiyo had been peering curiously into the boxes, but now her face suddenly sobered and she drew a little closer to her grandmother.
"My heart is troubled, Honourable Grandmother," she said. "I thought it would be a long, long time. You said you had always, even when you were a little girl, put perfume in the boxes to keep them nice and all ready for your death."
Mother lovingly stroked the little black head with her wrinkled hand.
"Yes, but it will not be long now. I have finished mylife work, and the merciful Buddha is preparing my platform of lotus blossoms, I am very sure."
"Does the merciful Buddha want you to take your old clipped nails with you when you go to the lotus platform?"
"No; he does not care about my body. He cares only for me."
"Then why did you save your nails so carefully?"
Mother glanced toward the closed shrine.
"The holy shrine, little Chiyo, is only a box when it is empty," she said, "and my body is only a borrowed shrine in which I live. But it is proper courtesy to leave a borrowed article in the best condition."
Chiyo's eyes looked very deep and solemn for a moment.
"That's why we have to take a bath every day and always keep our teeth clean. Dear me! I never thought of that as being polite to God."
I had been so anxious over the children's shortcomings in etiquette and so happy over the slow but satisfactory outcome that I had never given a thought to the changes which my years in America must have made in myself. One afternoon, coming back from a hurried errand, I was walking rapidly up the road toward home when I saw Mother standing in the gateway watching me. I knew that she disapproved of my undignified haste, as indeed she should, for nothing is more ungraceful than a hurrying woman in Japanese dress.
She met me with her usual bow, then said with a gentle smile, "Etsu-bo, you are growing to be very like your honourable father."
I laughed, but my cheeks were hot as I walked up the path beside her, accepting silently the needed reproof, for no Japanese woman likes to be told that her walk suggests that of a man. Occasional hints like this kept my manners from marching with my mind on the road to progress; and under the same quiet influence my two active American children gradually changed into two dignified Japanese girls. Within two years' time both spoke Japanese without accent and both wore Japanese dress so well that to strangers they appeared to have lived always in Japan.
"Just to be in the same house with Mother is excellent training for a girl," I thought, congratulating myself that Hanano had adapted herself so well to her grandmother's standards. Selfishly busy with my daily duties, and content that our home was so harmonious, I had forgotten that, when duty lies between the old and the young, Nature's law points direct to youth. I was counting the gain only—but what of the loss?
One day in the cherry-blossom season, Hanano was sitting at her desk near mine when a light breeze touched the branches of a cherry tree near the porch and some pale pink petals drifted across her desk. She picked one up and after holding it a moment, pressed it gently between her fingers, then threw it aside, and sat looking at the damp spot on her finger.
"What are you thinking, Hanano?" I asked.
She looked up startled, then slowly turned away.
"One time in America," she said after a moment, "when many people were at our house—I think it must have been an afternoon tea—I got tired and went out on the lawn. I climbed to my castle, you remember, the seventh limb of the big apple tree. The blossoms were just falling and a petal fell right into my hand. It left a wet spot, just like this cherry petal did. Oh, Mamma, wouldn't you give justeverythingto see Grandma again—and the porch, and the trees, and——"
The little black head went down on the desk, but before I could reach her it was up again, held high.
"It's all right," she said; "I love Japan—now. Butthere used to be times when my breast was just full of red-hot fire, and I had to run fast—fast. And once, when you were all away, I climbed the prickly pine by the porch—just once. But I don't want to any more. It's all right. I love it here."
I remembered, then, how sometimes she had scampered around and around the garden, her sleeves flying in the wind and her clogs clattering over the stepping-stones; and I, ignorant and unsympathetic mother that I was, had taken her to my room and talked to her about being gentle and quiet.
But that was a long time before. Gradually she had learned to talk a little lower, to laugh a little less, to walk a bit more noiselessly on the matting, and to sit silent and attentive with bowed head when her elders were speaking. Only the other day Mother had said: "Granddaughter shows great promise. She is growing gentle and graceful."
As I sat and thought, I wondered if Hanano was ever really happy any more. She never seemed sorrowful, but she had changed. Her eyes were soft, not bright; her mouth drooped slightly and her bright, cheery way of speaking had slowed and softened. Gentle and graceful? Yes. But where was her quick readiness to spring up at my first word? Where her joyous eagerness to see, to learn, to do? My little American girl, so full of vivid interest in life, was gone.
With a feeling of helplessness I looked over at her desk and was comforted; for the touch of homesickness had passed away and she was studying busily.
An hour later, when I went unexpectedly to her room, I saw her kneeling beside an open drawer where her American clothes were kept. She had pulled out her old serge suit, and her face was buried in its folds. I crept away to the garden. I could not see, and I stumbled over a flower pot. It was a dwarf pine. The pushing roots hadburst the pot, and my touch had caused it to fall apart, disclosing the roots cramped together in a twisted knot.
"It is just like poor Hanano!" I moaned. "They will bind it again to-morrow, and neither it, nor she, willeverbe free!"
CHAPTER XXVIII
SISTER'S VISIT
Thatsummer Mother was far from well. Lately her occasional attacks of asthma had become more frequent and trying. Thinking that a visit from my elder sister, who had always lived near our old home, would give Mother the happiness, not only of seeing her daughter, but also of hearing the pleasant gossip of old neighbours and friends, I wrote asking her to come to Tokyo. In a few weeks she was with us and proved a veritable blessing to us all. She was a comfort to Mother, a wise adviser to me, and an encyclopedia of interesting family history to the children; for there was nothing Sister liked better than telling stories of our old home as it was when she was a child.
Almost every day that summer, about the time the sun was sinking behind the tiled roof of our neighbour's tall house and the cool shadows were creeping across our garden, we would gather in the big room opening on the porch. One at a time we came, each fresh from a hot bath and clothed in the coolest of linen. Mother sat on her silk cushion, straight and dignified; but Sister, more informal, usually discarded a cushion, preferring, instead, the cool, clean mats. She was a beautiful woman. I can see her now, slipping quietly into her place, the suggestion of a wave in her shining widow-cut hair, and her sweet face seeming to be only waiting for an excuse to break into, one of her gentle smiles. Between Sister and Mother were the children: Hanano's fingers, always busy, shaping bits ofgay silk into a set of bean-bags or cutting out a paper doll for Chiyo, who, gazing with loving admiration at her sister, sat with her own dear, lazy little hands folded on her lap.
This was our hour to spend in talking of the small happenings of the day: school successes and trials, incidents connected with home affairs and stray items of neighbourhood gossip. But almost inevitably the conversation would eventually drift into a channel that called forth from someone the familiar, "Oh, isn't that interesting! Tell us about it!" or "Yes, I remember. Do tell that to the children."
One afternoon Mother mentioned that the priest had called that day to make arrangements for a certain temple service called "For the Nameless" that was held by our family every year.
"Why is it called 'For the Nameless'?" asked Hanano. "It has such a lonesome sound."
"It is a sad story," replied Mother. "A story that began almost three hundred years ago and has not yet ended."
"How could Kikuno's story have anything to do with the little room at the end of the hall?" I asked abruptly, my mind going back to the half-forgotten memory of a door that was never opened. "It didn't happen in that house."
"No; but the hall room was built right over the haunted spot," replied Sister. "Is it true, Honourable Mother, that after the mansion was burned someone planted chrysanthemums in the garden, and soft, mysterious lights were seen floating among the flowers?"
Hanano had dropped her sewing into her lap, and both children were gazing at Sister with eager, wide-open eyes.
"Your fate until dinner time is decided, Sister," I laughed. "The children scent a story. Now you cantell them why you wouldn't use the cushion decorated with chrysanthemums at the restaurant the other day."
"I must seem foolish-minded to you, Etsu-bo, with your progressive ideas," said Sister, with a half-ashamed smile, "but I have never outgrown the feeling that chrysanthemums are an omen of misfortune to our family."
"I know," I said, sympathetically. "I used to feel so, too. I didn't really get over it until I went to America. The name Mary is as common there as Kiku is here, but I had associated it only with sacredness and dignity; for it is the holiest name for a woman in the world. Some people even pray to it. And when, one time, just after I went to America, I heard a shopwoman call roughly, 'Mary, come here!' and out ran a ragged child with a dirty face, I was astounded. And a neighbour of ours had an ignorant servant girl by that name. It was a shock at first; but I finally learned that association is a narrow thing. When we apply it broadly the original feeling does not fit."
"People learn to forget when they travel," said Sister quietly; "but as far back as I can remember, no chrysanthemum flower was ever brought into our house, no chrysanthemum decoration was ever used on our screens, our dishes, our dresses, or our fans; and, with all the pretty flower names in our family, that of Kiku—chrysanthemum—has never been borne by an Inagaki. Even a servant with that name was never allowed to work for us unless she was willing to be called something else while she lived in our house."