It was in the springtime, when the little leaves upon the trees were of
the most entrancing shade of green and the wild plum and cherry blossoms
blew in clouds of pink and white, making an impressionistic picture
against the deep blue sky so lovely and entrancing that even such a
serious-minded, earnest worker as the Rev. Richard Verley became
unconscious of the sermon he had been writing and smiled out at the
landscape.
Nature oftentimes, from her very beauty, distracts one from the work of
composition, though one would call her lovingly an inspiration. How
could the young missionary continue the writing of his sermon, when the
alluring breezes of the spring softly slipped into his room and
insistently drew the pencil from his hand. And so he sat there smiling
at his desk and dreaming. He was not conscious of his dreams. He only
knew the world seemed very good and fair. His pen trailed over the paper
for a space, then paused, to continue again. Idly, and unconsciously, he
had covered a sheet of foolscap.
The slight noise of the opening of his sliding doors caused him to come
to life with a guilty start. His usually pale face was flooded with
color, as for the first time he saw what he had written on the page. He
turned it over quickly, though he did not lay this last sheet among the
previous pages of his sermon.
A face of prodigious fatness was thrust between the shoji.
“What is it, Natsu?” asked the minister in Japanese.
“The girl Azalea,” she answered. “I have told her Your Excellency is
most busy, but she still stays.”
“That is right,” he said quietly. “I am expecting her.”
The servant pursed her lips and her round cheeks expanded till her
little eyes were almost hidden. She muttered discontentedly: “Again,
Excellency?”
“Yes,” he said, “again. What are you waiting for?”
She shuffled unwillingly from the room, drawing the doors behind her.
Suddenly she opened them again.
“Excellency,” she said, “she is not truly convert—no! That is a lie!”
He smiled. The maid’s jealousy of all his parishioners gave him
amusement. She was envious even of their possible conversion.
“That will do, Natsu,” he said. “Don’t keep our visitor waiting.”
The woman muttered ill-temperedly as she passed along the hall.
The minister waited in pleasing anticipation. He had not expected her at
this hour. She came usually in the afternoon. He remembered with what
fearful shyness she had first entered his house, and the tremulous,
almost breathless, fashion in which she had replied to his questions. He
was of a hopeful, sanguine disposition. Though he knew that his small
congregation consisted of those induced by sen to come to church, those
who came from curiosity and others still—young boys and girls—from
mischief solely, still he believed that his labor would bear eventual
fruit, and lo, at last a convert! She was very young, somewhat fragile
and in her own strange fashion lovely. From the first he had likened her
to a timid wild bird. Even after she had entered his house, she had
turned backward as though to retreat; then as his deep serious eyes met
hers she spoke as if urged by some impulse, and repeated her faltering
words in English.
“Minister, I am convert unto you!”
At first her visits had been irregular and spasmodic. She would come as
far as the hill, then turn back. Again, her courage emboldened, she
would reach his garden gate, there to linger but a moment, the
antagonistic face of the minister’s servant affrighting her. But in the
absence of the maid, Azalea would daringly pass beyond the gate. A few
moments later the minister would meet her in the path and lead her into
his house.
The minister hearing the light glide of her little feet now outside the
doors, hastened to slide back the shoji.
She stood upon the threshold, her eyes widened, her cheeks glowing with
the tremulous excitement that always assailed her upon the occasion of
these visits. He held out his large hand in silence, and she, the color
fluttering wildly now over her face, slowly and timidly lifted her
little one from the folds of her sleeve and put it into his. He drew her
towards his desk. Still holding her hand, he seated himself and looked
up at her, without speaking, but smiling very tenderly. Her eyes turned
from his and her lips trembled. She tried to withdraw her hand, but he
held it firmly and then suddenly enclosed it completely with his other
hand. Fright assailed the girl. She slipped to the floor, her head
dropping on a level with his knees. Then Richard Verley bent and spoke
to her in his strangely tender voice, which somehow always seemed to
penetrate and still her beating little heart.
“Azalea!” He spoke her name so softly. “Lift your face, my little girl,”
he said. “I want to see it, while I tell you something.”
She obeyed him like a child, but the eyes that met his were mutely
appealing.
“What do you think I am going to say to you to-day?” he asked, smiling a
trifle.
“About those honorable commandments?”
He shook his head.
“No—you already have learned them well, have you not?”
“Yes. You like hear me say them, mebbe?”
“Not to-day. I wish to speak to you about another matter.”
She looked at him apprehensively.
“Oh,” she said, “mebbe your august God tell you I also visit at the
temple that other day?”
He looked a trifle startled.
“What temple—what do you mean?”
“You God sees all things?”
“All things,” he said solemnly.
Her eyes expressed momentary fright. She drew her hands forcibly from
his and sat backward a little way from him, her head bent.
“Then,” she said, “you already know about—about my—my lie?”
“Lie?”
He leaned forward in his chair.
“Yaes—yaes—your God told you.”
“Tell me what you mean.”
The face she raised was pitiful.
“Excellency, that was velly wicked lie I tell you wen I say I am convert
unto you.”
He stared at her blankly. She could not bear the expression on his face
and pushed herself nearer to him on her knees. Her hands fluttered above
and then timidly touched his.
“Excellency, I sawry—sawry—” There was a sob in her voice now, and her
eyes were misty. “Pray you be like unto the gods and forgive that lie.”
He stood up mechanically, then sat down again, turning in his seat
toward the desk and resting his clasped hands there. She, from her
kneeling posture, reached up to touch his arm.
“Pray—” she began and broke off, as though she could not finish. He
turned his head and looked at her curiously. Still he did not speak.
“Listen,” she continued in her low, almost sighing, voice, which he no
longer wished to hear. “I tell you only one lie—one liddle bit lie.
Thas not velly much. Also I beseech the gods to pardon that lie—and I
beseech also your mos’ kind God pardon me.” She broke off
distressfully—“Excellency, will you not hear me?”
“I am listening,” he said heavily.
“Your voice so hard,” she said.
His eyes were still stern. He spoke mechanically.
“I was going to say something—something personal to you to-day. You have
shocked me. That is all. But I want to hear what you have to say. There
may be extenuating—well, tell me how it came about that you pretended
conversion.”
“I wanted moaney,” she said.
She saw his hands clinch and shrank before the look upon his face. She
shook her head uncertainly.
“For money!” he repeated.
“Yaes, I needed some velly much. Gonji say you pay big moaney to
convert, and so—and so—I became convert.”
The minister closed his eyes, then covered them spasmodically with his
hand. Sitting back in his seat he remained with his face thus half
shielded while she spoke on.
“But,” she said, “you din not give me moaney; no, not even one half
sen.” She laughed a little, almost joyously.
“Ah, I am so glad you din nod give,” she said. “I doan want that moaney.
After that first day my honorable step-mother doan be unkind no more.
Also she give me plenty to eat, an’ new dress, also Matsuda Isami ask me
marry wis him evelly day in those weeks.”
The minister uncovered his eyes and looked at her. The expression of his
face must have been less forbidding, for she moved confidently nearer to
him.
“What do you think now?” she asked.
His voice was husky.
“You spoke of marrying some one.”
She shook her head.
“No. Some one want marry wiz me. I doan desire. But sinz he want, my
honorable mother-in-law is mos’ kind unto me, and I doan starve no more.
Therefore I doan wan no moaney—be convert now.”
“Ah, why do you keep up the pretense, then?”
“Pretense?” She could not understand the word, as her English vocabulary
was limited to words acquired from the minister’s predecessor, a woman
missionary.
“Why do you still pretend to be a Christian? Why do you continue to come
here if it is no longer necessary for you to obtain money?”
“Because,” said Azalea, smiling up at him, “I want do so. Also, I kinnod
stay away. My august feet bringing me back all those times.”
He sighed. Her face with its quickly changing expressions became
wistful.
“Excellency, I am glad thad honorable God telling you thad about those
moaneys. Perhaps he also tell you that I want be convert an’ doan’ want
no moaney.”
He wavered toward her a moment, and then turned his eyes from her. He
had been beguiled too long.
“Mebbe your God doan’ desire me?—mebbe,” she said.
He did not answer. To recall him to her she touched his knee. His voice
was hoarse.
“Salvation is free to all,” he said dully.
She laughed almost joyfully.
“I make nudder confession,” she said eagerly. “Sometimes I ’fraid of
your God. The priest tell me he is evil spirit and I getting skeered.
Well, wen I come unto your house I know that your God gitting hold of my
heart, for it beating so hard, I doan know wha’s matter wis me. I doan
know whether I lidder bit skeered of your honorable God, or—or—of you
augustness. So that other day wen you take my hand this away.” She tried
to illustrate, but found him unresponsive. Her voice toiled forlornly.
“I so ’fraid of tha’s influence of your God. I run so quick from your
house I kinnod see, and then I came to thad temple and prostrate myself
before Kwannon and beseech her save me from all those powers of evil
spirit. Then I go home, and I know I jusd silly, foolish girl. Thad God
you tell me ’bout is not evil spirit. No—no! You say nod, an’ I jus’
foolish, skeered, because, mebbe jus’ because I am thad happy.”
“Happy! Why were you happy?”
He could not resist the expression of her eyes and almost unconsciously
allowed her hands to slip back into his.
“Because you so kind unto me,” she said; “you touching my hand this
way—so warm—so nize! Tha’s why I coon nod speag. Tha’s stop my heart.”
“I love you!” he said, the words escaping his lips almost without his
volition. “I cannot help it. That was what I wanted to say to you
to-day.”
She clung to his hands. Her lips parted. The color was wild in her face.
“Oh,” she said, “you love me! Tha’s a most beautifulest thought,
Excellency. Mebbe also your God love me—jus’ me—also?”
He drew her into his arms and held her there a moment. He forgot
everything else as he kissed her willing, questioning face and little
hands. Then after an interval:
“What does it matter—what does anything matter now?” he said. “I love
you. I know that you love me. Your eyes do not lie.”
When he released her, her hands fell limply on his knees.
“No one,” she said breathlessly, her eyes shining, “aever clasping me
like thad.”
He laughed as joyously as she could. With his arm about her, as she
knelt before him, he showed her the sheet of paper covered with his
writing of her name.
“That,” he said, almost boyishly, “is how the Rev. Richard Verley wrote
his sermon to-day—‘Azalea, Azalea, Azalea, Azalea—nothing but Azalea.’”
“Tha’s me! I am Azalea!” she said. “Oh, tha’s so nize be your convert.”
He laughed, then sighed.
“You will be that in time, I promise,” he said, “and meanwhile, well,
meanwhile, we will be married.”
She looked up at him with frightened eyes.
“Married! You also marry me?” she asked.
“Why, yes, of course. We will make a little trip to a town where there’s
another minister, or possibly I can have the ceremony here.”
“Oh! Pray you doan make other converts. Please doan.”
“Why?”
“Because perhaps you also marry them—yaes?”
He laughed again and kissed the tip of her little pointed chin. There
was a bewitching dimple in it, and he had always desired to kiss it.
[Illustration:
“‘This is the American way,’ he said, boyishly, and stooping, kissed
her.”
(Page 90)
]
“When you are my wife, you will, in time, become my helper. You, too,
will make converts.”
“You gotter git consent my honorable mother-in-law,” she interrupted.
His face fell.
“Also,” she said, “I gotter git those marriage garments, and you must
buy me lots presents.”
“No, I’ll marry you in the gown you have on.”
“This!” She touched it in dismay. “Why thad would be disgrace upon me.”
“Very well, you shall be disgraced then. Now come—we’ll go to your
step-mother right away. There’s no time to be lost.”
She hesitated as they reached the door.
“Wait,” she said. He paused with the sliding door half open.
“You bedder not come also. Let me speag to her alone. Tha’s bedder. If
she doan consent, then I skeer her and say I marry wiz Matsuda. She doan
wish that. She desire him for Yuri.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Ah-bah!” (Good-bye!) she said, passing through the opening. He drew her
back.
“Is that the way to say ‘good-bye’?” he asked reproachfully.
She was puzzled.
“This is the American way,” he said boyishly, and stooping, kissed her.
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