"SEKI SAN, look at the old woman with black teeth! What made them black?
What have the little girls got flowers in their hair for? What are they
ringing the bell for?"
Seki San sitting on her heels at the car window tried to answer all
June's questions at once. The sad parting was over. Mrs. Royston had
left in the night on the steamer they had crossed in, and the Captain
and the Purser and all the passengers were going to take care of her
until she got to Hong Kong, and after that it was only a short way to
Manila, and once she was with Father, June felt that his responsibility
ceased.
When they first boarded the train, June had sat very quiet. If you wink
fast and swallow all the time, you can keep the tears back, but it does
not make you feel any better inside.
"If God has got to take somebody," June said at length gloomily, "I
think He might take one of my grandmothers. I have got four but one of
them is an old maid."
"Oh no," said Seki, "she isn't."
"She _is_," persisted June, "she keeps every thing put away in little
boxes and won't let me play with them. Seki, do you guess God would jes'
as lieve for me to have a horn as a harp when I go to Heaven? I want a
presser horn like they have in the band."
"But you will not go for many long times!" cried Seki, catching his hand
as if he were about to slip away. "Look out of the window. See! They are
giving the cow a bath!"
In a field nearby an old man and woman were scrubbing a patient-looking
cow, and when the creature pulled its head away and cried because it did
not want to get its face washed, June laughed with glee. After all, one
could not be unhappy very long when every minute something funny or
interesting was happening. At every station a crowd of curious faces
gathered about the car window eager to catch a glimpse of the little
foreign boy, and June, always ready to make friends, smiled at them and
bobbed his head, which made the boys and girls look at each other and
laugh.
"We bow with our whole self, so," Seki explained, putting her hands on
her knees and bending her body very low, "and we never shake with the
hands nor kiss together!"
"Don't the mothers ever kiss the children good-night?" asked June
incredulously.
"Oh! no," said Seki, "we bow."
While June was thinking about this strange state of affairs, a man came
close under the window, carrying a tray and calling: "_Bento! Eo
Bento!_"
Seki San took some money from a little purse which she carried in her
long sleeve, and handing it out to the man, received two square wooden
boxes and a fat little tea-pot with a cup over its head like a cap.
[Illustration: The Tea-Party on the train.]
"Are we going to have a tea-party?" asked June, scrambling down from his
perch.
"So," said Seki San, reaching under the seat and pulling out a tiny
chest, in which were other cups and saucers and a jar of tea leaves, "we
will have very nice tea-parties and you shall make the tea."
June, following instructions, put some of the tea in the small pot and
poured the hot water over it, then he helped Seki San spread two paper
napkins on the seat between them.
"Now," he said, "where's the party?"
Seki San handed him one of the boxes and began to untie the string of
the other.
"I have some sticks tied on to mine!" cried June, "two big ones and a
tiny little one wrapped up in paper."
"That is your knife and fork and pick-tooth," said Seki San. "You must
hold the sticks in one hand like this."
But June was too busy exploring the contents of the two trays that
formed his box to stop to take a lesson in the use of chop-sticks. The
lower tray was full of smooth white rice. In the top one, was a bit of
omelet and some fish, and a queer-looking something that puzzled June.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Guess it!" said Seki mysteriously, "guess it with your nose."
"It's pickle!" cried June.
"Pickled sea-weed," said Seki, "and I have also brought you some
Japanese candy that you pour out of a bottle."
There was no bread, no butter, no knife nor fork nor spoon, but June
thought it was the very nicest tea-party he had ever been to. Sitting
with his stocking feet curled up under him as Seki had hers, he
clattered his chop-sticks and spilt the rice all over the seat, while
they both grew weak with laughter over his efforts to feed himself.
"Don't you wish you were a little boy, Seki San?" he asked when most of
the lunch had disappeared.
"Why?" said Seki.
"'Cause," said June, "you'd have such a good time playing with me all
the time!"
"But no," said Seki seriously, "I must be big womans to take care of
you."
"And tell me stories!" added June with policy: "tell me 'bout Tomi
now."
"Tomi?" said Seki San, smiling. "You going see Tomi very soon,
to-morrow, perhaps to-night. Tomi very bad little dog, makes a cross
bark at all big peoples, but loves little children. When Tomi very
little his nose stick out, so--Japanese think it very ugly for little
pug-dog's nose to stick out, so we push it in easy every day. Now Tomi
has nice flat nose, but he sneeze all the time so--kerchoo, kerchoo,
kerchoo."
June laughed at the familiar story, but suddenly he sobered:
"Say, Seki, I don't think it was very nice to push his nose in; I
wouldn't like to have my nose pushed in so I would have to sneeze all
the rest of my life."
"Ah! but he must be beautiful! Tomi would not be happy if his nose stuck
out when other pug-doggies had nice flat nose. Tomi is very happy, he is
grateful."
It was quite dark when they reached their destination; June had been
asleep and when he slipped out on the platform he could not remember at
all where he was; Seki's mother and her sisters and brothers besides all
the relatives far and near had come to welcome her back from America,
and quite a little crowd closed in about her, bowing and bowing and
chattering away in Japanese.
June stood, rather forlornly, to one side. This time last night Mother
had been with him, he could speak to her and touch her, and now--it was
a big, strange world he found himself in, and even Seki seemed his Seki
no longer.
Suddenly he felt something rub against his leg, and then he heard a
queer sound that somehow sounded familiar. Stooping down he discovered a
flat-nosed little pug that was kissing his hand just as if it had been
brought up in America.
"It's Tomi," cried June in delight, and the pug, recognizing his name,
capered more madly still, only stopping long enough to sneeze between
the jumps.
Ten minutes later June was sitting beside Seki San in a broad
jinrikisha, rushing through the soft night air, down long gay streets
full of light and color and laughter, round sharp corners, up steep
hills, over bridges where he could look down and see another world of
paper lanterns and torches, and always the twinkling legs and the big
round hat of the jinrikisha man bobbing steadily along before him.
"Is it like a story-book all the time?" he asked.
Seki San laughed: "Oh, no, June, story-book land is back in America,
where the grown-up houses are, and the rich, fine furnitures, and the
strange ways. This is just home, my very dear home, and I have such glad
feelings to be here!"
June cuddled close and held her hand, and if he felt a wee bit wistful,
and wiped his eyes once in a while on her sleeve, he did it very
carefully, so that Seki would have nothing to spoil the glad feeling in
her heart at being home again.