IT was a long time before June saw Monsieur again, for there were
picnics up the river, with lunches cooked on the bank, there were jolly
little excursions in sampans, and trips to the tea-houses, and flower
shows, and an endless round of good times. Seki San kept June out of
doors all day, and watched with glee the color return to his cheeks, and
the angles of his slender body turn into soft curves.
At night, she and June and Toro, with Tomi frisking and sneezing at
their heels, would join the happy, chattering crowd that thronged the
streets, and would make their way to the flower market where tall
flaming torches lit up the long stalls of flowers, and where merchants
squatting on their heels spread their wares on the ground before
them,--curious toys, old swords, and tea-pots with ridiculous long
noses. And in front of every door was a great shining paper lantern with
queer signs painted on it, and other gay lanterns of all shapes and
sizes and colors went dancing and bobbing up and down the streets like a
host of giant fireflies.
It was no wonder that June hated to go to bed when so much was happening
outside. Only the promise of a story moved him when Seki gave the final
word. But for the sake of a story he would have gone to the moon, I
believe, and stayed there too.
When at last he was bathed and cuddled down in his nest on the floor
with a huge kimono--four times as big as the ones Seki wore--spread over
him, Seki would sit on her heels beside him, sewing with an endless
thread, which she only cut off from the reel when the seam was finished.
And June would watch her pretty, plump little hands, and the shadows of
her moving fingers as he listened to queer tales of the sea-gods and
their palace under the waves. Sometimes she would tell of the old
samurai and their dark deeds of revenge, of attacks on castles, and
fights in the moats, and the imaginary clashing of swords and shouts of
men would get so real to June that he would say:
"I don't want any more scareful ones to-night. Please tell me about the
little mosquito boy."
Then Seki would begin: "Very long times ago, lived very good little boy,
who never want to do anything but reverence his mother and his father,
and his grandfathers and grandmothers. All times he think it over to
himself how he can serve his parents. One night the wind blow up from
the south and bring a thousand hundred _ka_, mosquito you call him, and
they bite very much. So good little boy takes off all his clothes and
lies at the door of his house so mosquitoes bite him and get so full of
boy that they have not room more for father and mother." At which point
June would never fail to laugh with delight, and Seki would look hurt
and puzzled and say, "Not funny, June, very fine, kind, and noble of
good little boy."
After Seki had put out the light and joined the rest of the family in
the garden, June would lie very still and the thoughts that had been
crowded down in the bottom of his heart all day would come creeping up
and whisper to him. "Mother is a long way off; suppose she has gotten
lost and never comes back again. Perhaps I haven't got a father any
more, maybe the soldiers have put him in the ground as they did Teddy's
papa. Suppose I have to live here always and grow up to be a Japanese
man, and never see the ranch in California nor my pony any more?" And a
big sob would rise in his throat and he was glad of the dark, for the
tears would come no matter how hard he tried to keep them back. But he
never called Seki, nor let any one know. Sometimes he got up and got his
little gun and took it back to bed with him; it was so much easier to be
a soldier if you had a gun in your hand.
But one morning when he awoke, two delightful things happened. First he
saw up in the air, apparently swimming about over the house-tops, an
enormous red fish as large as he was, and when he ran to the door there
were others as far as he could see waving and floating about tall poles
that were placed outside nearly every house.
Without waiting to be dressed he rushed into the garden to ask Seki San
what it all meant. When she saw him, she dropped the letter she was
reading and came toward him as fast as her little pigeon toes would
carry her.
"It's from your mother," she cried, her face beaming with joy. "She did
never get losted at all. She is with your father now, and he will have
the strength again, and they will come back so sooner as he can journey.
Oh! I could die for the happiness!"
June jumped up and down, and Seki San giggled, and Tomi barked until the
family came out to see what was the matter.
"And what did she say? Tell me!" demanded June.
"All this, and this, and this," said Seki, spreading out the closely
written sheets. Then with many pauses and much knitting of brows and
pointing of fingers, she read the letter aloud. There was very little
about the sad journey, or the dreadful fever, or the life at the
hospital. It was mostly about June, whether he was well, whether he was
very unhappy, if he coughed at night, if he missed her very much.
"And these at the end I sink I can not read," concluded Seki, pointing
to a long row of circles and dots.
June looked over her shoulder. "Why Seki!" he exclaimed, "that's the
only part I can read! They are kisses and hugs, I showed her how to make
them. That long one is a pink kiss, and this starry one is silver with
golden spangles," he laughed with delight; then his eye catching sight
of the fish overhead, he said:
"Say Seki, why did they put out the fish? Is it because my father is
getting well?"
Seki San smilingly shook her head.
"It's a matsuri, a festival," she explained; "this is the boys' day and
wherever a boy live, they put out a big paper fish with round mouth open
so----, and when the wind flow in, the fish grow big and fat and make
like swim in the air."
[Illustration: "'It's a Matsuri--a festival,' Seki explained."]
"But why do they put out fishes?" persisted June.
"'Tis the carp fish," said Seki San, "because the carp very strong and
brave, he swim against the current, fight his way up the waterfall, not
afraid of the very bad discouragings, like good boy should be."
June was much more interested in the fish than in the moral, and when
Toro brought a big red one for him and a paper cap and banner, he
hastened away to be dressed so that he could be ready for the
festivities.
Taking it all in all, it was about the happiest day he had ever spent in
his life. When he and Toro started forth the streets were already full
of people, men and women in holiday attire, little girls in bright red
petticoats and fancy pins in their hair, every boy with a fish on a
stick, small children with bald-headed babies tied on their backs, all
trotting merrily along to the matsuri.
Everywhere June went a crowd went behind him, for a little foreign boy
with gray eyes and fair hair, and strange foreign clothes was one of the
greatest sights of the day. Sometimes a woman would stop him and look at
his hat or his shoes, and a circle would close in and Toro would be
bombarded with questions. But the people were always so polite, and
their admiration was so evident, that June was rather pleased, and when
he smiled and spoke to them in English, they bowed again and again, and
he bowed back, then they all laughed.
It was a terrible trial to June not to be able to ask questions. He was
brimful of curiosity and everything he saw and heard had a dozen
questions hanging to it. Usually Seki San supplied the answers but
to-day Toro was in command, and while he was a very careful little
guide, keeping tight hold of June's hand, pointing out all the
interesting sights, and trying to explain by sign and gesture, still he
did not know a single word of English.
After passing through many gay streets they came to a tall red gate
which June had come to recognize as the entrance to sacred ground. But
inside it was not in the least like any churchyard he had ever seen. It
was more like the outside of a circus where everything delightful was
happening at once. On one side was a sandman making wonderful pictures
on the ground with colored sand. First he made a background of fine
white sand, then out of papers folded like cornucopias he formed small
streams of black and red sand, skilfully tracing the line of a mountain,
using a feather to make the waves of the sea, and a piece of silver
money to form the great round moon, and before you knew it there was the
very picture you had seen on fans and screens and tea-pots ever since
you could remember, even down to the birds that were flying across the
moon.
Then there were jugglers and tight rope walkers, and sacred pigeons that
lit on your head and shoulders and ate corn out of your hand. June
thought he had never seen such greedy pigeons before. Two or three
perched on his hand at once, and scolded and pushed each other, and even
tried to eat the buttons off his blouse!
Up the mountain side, flanked by rows of stone lanterns, ran a wide
flight of steps and at the top was the gate-way to the temple itself. On
either side were sort of huge cages, and in them the most hideous
figures June had ever seen! They were fierce looking giants with
terrible glass eyes and snarling mouths with all the teeth showing, just
as the Ogre's did in the fairy tale. One was painted all over green, and
the other was red, and they held out clutching fingers as if ready to
pounce upon the passer-by. While June was looking at them and feeling
rather glad that they were inside the cages, he saw two old men dressed
in white, climb slowly up the steps and kneel before the statues. Bowing
their heads to the earth and muttering prayers, they took from their
belts some slips of paper, and after chewing them into wads began
gravely to throw them at the fierce green demon behind the bars.
June giggled with joy, this was something he could quite understand.
Taking advantage of Toro's attention being distracted, he promptly began
to make wads too, and before Toro could stop him he was vigorously
pelting the scowling image. In an instant there was angry remonstrance
and a group of indignant worshipers gathered around. Fortunately Seki
San appeared on the scene in time to prevent trouble.
"But I was only doing what the others did!" explained June indignantly.
"It is no harm done," said Seki, reassuringly after a few words to those
about her, "you not understand our strange ways. These are our Nio or
temple guardians that frighten away the evil, bad spirits."
"What makes the pilgrims throw at them, then?" asked June.
"They throw prayers," answered Seki San very seriously, "they buy paper
prayers from the old man at the gate, and throw them through the
grating. If the prayer sticks, it is answered, if it falls down it is
not answered. Come, I will show you!"
They went very close, and looked through the bars; there on the grating,
on the floor and even on the ceiling above them were masses of tiny
paper wads, the unanswered prayers of departed thousands.
"Well, three of mine stuck!" said June with satisfaction. "Do you
suppose it's too late to make a prayer on them now?"
Seki thought after considering the matter that it was not.
"But I haven't got anything left to pray for!" said June, regretting the
lost opportunity. "Father's getting well, and he and Mother are coming
home, and I have got pretty near everything I want. I believe I'd like
another fish though, and oh! yes, I want a little pug dog, jes' 'zactly
like Tomi."
"It's tiffin time," said Seki San, "and after that will be the
fire-work."
"In the day-time?" asked June.
"Oh yes, very fine nice fire-work," said Seki.
They left the temple grounds, and made their way up the river road,
where everybody was having a tea-party out under the trees. Seki San
secured a tiny table for them and they sat on their heels and ate rice
out of a great white wooden bucket, and fluffy yellow omelet out of a
round bowl, and the sunshine came dancing down through the dainty,
waving bamboo leaves, and everybody was laughing and chattering and from
every side came the click-clack of the wooden shoes, and the tinkle of
samisens and the music of falling water.
Suddenly Toro pulled June's sleeve and motioned excitedly to the
road-way. Coming toward them in a jinrikisha, looking very pale and thin
and with both arms in bandages, sat Monsieur.
June broke away from Seki and raced after the jinrikisha. "Oh! Mister,"
he cried, "Mr. Frenchman."
Monsieur, hearing the English words, stopped his man and turned around.
When he saw a very flushed little boy in blouse suit and a wide brimmed
hat, he smiled.
"Ah!" he cried, "my friend of the garden! My prince who found the
Sleeping Beauty." Then he began to laugh so hard that it started up all
his rheumatic pains, and he had to sink back and rest before he could
speak again. "I am very bad since I saw you last," he said; "these dogs
of Japanese will let me die here. One day in France will make me well. I
may have it yet--I must get back some way--some way!" His eyes looked
excitedly over June's head out into space as if trying to span the miles
that lay between him and his beloved country.
"My papa will take you home when he comes," said June; "he's a soldier."
Monsieur shrugged his shoulders: "Your papa would not care _that_," he
said, snapping his fingers; then seeing June's disappointment he added
kindly, "But you--will you not come to see me? I will make you more
forts, I will show you my goldfish."
"Yes, I'll come," said June. "When?"
But before Monsieur could answer, Seki had called June and the
jinrikisha had started on its way.
Late in the afternoon, as the revelers straggled home tired but happy,
June slipped his hand into Seki's. The merry noises of the day had given
place to the quiet chirp of the crickets and the drowsy croaking of the
frogs, and the little breezes that stirred overhead sounded sleepy and
far away.
"Seki," said June, "I didn't make any prayer on that paper that stuck on
the old giant's nose, do you think it too late?"
"No," said Seki San, willing to humor him.
"Well," said June sleepily, "I pray that the French gentleman will get
back home."