tight omeshi, and slipped his large sun hat over her face. Then she
laughed out at him, and flung her arms tightly about his neck.
"You wan' me be American girl?"
"You are a witch, Yuki-san," he said.
"I wan' new dress," she returned, promptly, and held a pink little palm
out. He frowned. He almost disliked her when she spoke of money. He
filled her hands, however, with change from his pockets, and when she
broke away from him, which she did as soon as she had obtained the
money, he wanted to take it back. Her pretty laughter sifted out to him
through the shoji at the other side, and he knew she was mocking him
again.
"It is her natural love of dress and finery," he told himself. "It is
the eternal feminine in her, and it is bewitching."
The next day, as she sat opposite to him, eating her infinitesimal bit
of a breakfast--a plum, a small fish, and a tiny cup of tea--all on a
little black lacquer tray, he announced mysteriously that he was going
"on business" to the city.
She desired to accompany him, as became a dutiful wife.
No, he told her, that was impossible. His mission was of a secret
nature, which could not be divulged until his return.
Then she insisted that she would follow behind him after the manner of a
slave; and when he laughed at her, she begged quite humbly and gently
that he would condescend to honorably permit her to go with him, and
then he was for telling her his whole pretty story, and the surprise he
had concocted to please her, when she grew capricious and insisted that
she would not stir one little bit of an inch from the house, and that he
must go all alone to the city and attend to his great, magnificent
business!
He went down to Tokyo, and in his boyish, blundering fashion he
purchased silk and crépe and linen sufficient for fifty gowns for her.
She thanked him extravagantly. She could not imagine what she would do
with so much finery. Her honorable person was augustly insignificant,
and could not accommodate so much merchandise.
"Now," he thought with inward satisfaction, "that ghost of a money
question will be laid. She has everything she wants and shall have. I
want to do for her, and give her things without being wheedled into it.
It is that which irritates me."
But a few days later she came to him breathless and flustered. Lo! some
one had stolen all the beautiful goods he had bought her. It was neither
their man nor maid. No, no! that was altogether impossible. They were
honest, simple folk, who feared the gods. But they were all quite
gone--where she could not say. Who had taken them, she could not guess.
Perhaps she, her unworthy self, and he, his honorable augustness, had
been extremely wicked in their former state, and the gods were now
punishing them in their present life. It would be wicked and unavailing
to attempt to search for the missing goods. It was the will of the gods.
Maybe the gods had been offended at such ruthless extravagance. Ah, yes,
that was a better solution of the theft. Of course the gods were angry.
What gods would not be? It was sinful to buy so many things at once.
She affected great distress over the loss, and her husband, somewhat
bewildered at her elaborate apologies for the thief who had stolen them,
tried to comfort her by saying he would buy her double the quantity
again, whereat she became very solemn.
"No, no," she said. "Bedder give me money to buy. I will purchase jus'
liddle bit each time--to please the gods."
VI
THE ADVENTURESS
The man in the hammock was not asleep, for in spite of the lazy,
lounging attitude, and the hat which hid the gray eyes beneath, he was
very much awake, and keenly interested in a certain small individual who
was sitting on a mat a short distance removed from him. He had invited
her several times to reduce that distance, but up to the present she had
paid no heed to his suggestions. She was amusing herself by blowing and
squeezing between her lower lip and teeth the berry of the winter
cherry, from which she had deftly extracted the pulp at the stem. She
continued this strange occupation in obstinate indifference to the
persuasive voice from the hammock.
"I say, Yuki, there's room for two in this hammock. Had it made on
purpose."
She continued her cherry-blowing without so much as making a reply,
though one of her blue eyes looked at him sideways, and then solemnly
blinked.
"What's the matter, Yuki? Got the dumps again, eh?"
No reply.
"Look here, Mrs. Bigelow, I'll come over and elope forcibly with you if
you don't obey me."
She dimpled scornfully.
"Ah, that's right! Smile, Yuki. You're so pretty, so bewitching, so
irresistible when you smile."
Yuki nodded her head coolly.
"How you lige me smiling forever?" she suggested.
"That wouldn't do," he said, grinning at her from beneath his tipped
hat. "That would be tiresome." "Tha's why I don' smiling to-day."
"Why?"
"All yistidy I giggling."
He shouted with laughter at her.
"Move your mat here, Yuki," indicating a spot close to his hammock. "I
want to talk to you."
"My ears are--"
"Too small to hear from that distance," finished her husband. "Come."
"Thangs," with great dignity, "I am quide comfor'ble. I don' wan' sit so
near you, excellency."
"Why, pray?"
"Why? Hm! I un'erstan'. Tha's because I jus' your liddle bit slave."
"You're my wife, you little bit fraud."
"Wife? Oh, I dunno." She pretended to deliberate.
"Then you've tricked me into a false marriage, madam," declared her
husband, with great wrath.
"Tha's fault nakoda."
"What is?"
"Thad you god me for wife, and," slowly, "servant."
"Fault! Come here, servant, then. Servants must obey."
"Nod so bad master, making such grade big noises," she laughed back
daringly. "Besides, servant must sit long way off from thad same noisy
master."
"And wife?"
"Oh, jus' liddle bit nearer." She edged perhaps half an inch closer to
him. "Wife jus' liddle bit different from servant."
"Look here, Mrs. Bigelow, you're not living up to your end of the
contract. You swore to honor and obey--"
She laughed mockingly.
"Yes, you did, madam!"
"I din nod. Tha's jus' ole Kirishitan marriage."
He sat up amazed.
"What do you know of the Christian marriage service?"
"Liddle bit."
"Come over here, Yuki."
"You like me sing ad you?"
"Come over here."
"How you like me danze?--liddle bit summer danze?"
"Come over here. What's a summer dance, anyhow?"
She ran lightly indoors, and was back so soon that she seemed scarcely
to have left him. She had slipped on a red-and-yellow flimsy kimono, and
had decked her hair and bosom with flaming poppies.
"Tha's summer sunshine," she said, spreading her garment out on each
side with a joyous little twirl. "I am the Sun-goddess, and you?--you
jus' the col', dark earth. I will descend and warm you with my
sunshine." For a moment she stood still, her head thrown back, her face
shining, her lips parted and smiling, showing the straight little white
teeth within. Then she danced softly, ripplingly, back and forth. The
summer winds were sighing and laughing with her. Her face shone out
above her lightly swerving figure, her little hands and bare arms moved
with inimitable grace.
"You are a genius," he said to her, when she had subsided, light as a
feather blown to his feet.
"Tha's sure thing," she agreed, roguishly.
Her assurance in herself always tickled him immensely. He threw his hat
at her with such good aim that it settled upon her head. She approved
his clever shot, laughed at him, and then, pulling it over her eyes, lay
down on the mats and imitated his favorite attitude to a nicety. He
laughed uproariously. He was in fine humor. They had been married over a
month now, and she had not left him save that first time. He was growing
pretty sure of her now.
She perceived his good-humor, and immediately bethought herself to take
advantage. She put the rim of his hat between her teeth, imitated a
monkey, and crawled towards him, pretending to beg for her performance.
He stretched his long arms out and tried to reach her, but she was far
enough off to elude him.
"You godder pay," she said, "for thad nize entertainments I giving you."
He threw her a sen. She made a face. "That all?" she said, in a
dreadfully disappointed voice, but, despite her acting, he saw the
greedy eagerness of her eyes. All the good-humor vanished.
"Look here, Yuki," he said, with a disagreeable glint in his eyes,
"you've had a trifle over fifty dollars this week. I don't begrudge you
money, but I'll be hanged if I'm going to have you dragging it out of me
on every occasion and upon every excuse you can make. You have no
expenses. I can't see what you want with so much money, anyhow."
"I godder save," said Yuki, mysteriously, struck with this brilliant
excuse for her extravagance.
"What for?"
"Why, same's everybody else. Some day I nod have lods money. Whad I
goin' do then? Tha's bedder save, eh?"
"I've married you. I'll never let you want for anything."
"Oh, you jus' marry me for liddle bit while."
"You've a fine opinion of me, Yuki."
"Yes, fine opinion of you," she repeated after him.
"There's enough money deposited in a bank in Tokyo to last you as long
as you live. If it's ever necessary for me to leave you for a time, you
will not want for anything, Yuki."
"But," she said, argumentatively, "when you leaving me I henceforward a
widder. I nod marry with you any longer. Therefore I kin nod take your
money." This last with heroic pride.
"Boo! Your qualms of conscience about using my money are, to say the
least, rather extraordinary."
"When you leaving me--" she commenced again.
"Why do you persist in that? I have no idea of leaving you."
"What!" She was quite frightened. "You goin' stay with me forever!"
There was far more fear than joy in her voice.
"Why not?" he demanded, sharply, watching her with keen, savage eyes.
"My lord," she said, humbly, "I could nod hear of thad. It would be
wrong. Too grade sacrifice for you honorable self."
He was not sure whether she was laughing at him or not.
"You needn't be alarmed," he said, gruffly. "I'm not likely to stay here
forever." He turned his back on her.
Suddenly he felt her light little hand on his face. She was standing
close by the hammock. He was still very angry and sulky with her. He
closed his eyes and frowned. He knew just how she was looking; knew if
he glanced at her he would relent ignominiously. She pried his eyes
gently open with her fingers, and then kissed them, as softly as a tiny
bird might have done. Gradually she crawled into the hammock with him,
regardless of non-assistance.
"Augustness," she said, her arms about his neck now, though she was
sitting up and leaning over him. "Listen ad me."
"I'm listening."
"Look ad me."
He looked, frowned, smiled, and then kissed her. She laughed under her
breath, such a queer, triumphant, mocking small laugh. It made him frown
again, but she kissed the frown into a smile once more. Then she sat up.
"Pray excuse me. I wan' sit ad your feet and talk ad you."
"Can't you talk here?" he demanded, jealously.
"Nod so well. I gittin' dazzled. Permit me," she coaxed. He released her
grudgingly. She sat close to him on the floor. She sighed heavily,
hypocritically.
"What is it now?"
"Well, you know I telling you about those moneys."
"Yes," he said, wearily. "Let's shut up on this money question. I'm sick
of it."
"I lige make confession ad you."
"Well?"
"I god seventeen brudders and sisters!" she said, with slow and solemn
emphasis.
"What!" He almost rolled out of the hammock in his amazement.
"Seventeen!" She nodded with ominous tragedy in her face and voice.
"Where do they live?"
"Alas! in so poor part of Tokyo."
"And your father and mother?"
"Alas! Also thad fadder an' mudder so ole lige this." She illustrated,
bowing herself double and walking feebly across the floor, coughing
weakly.
"Well?" he prompted sharply.
"I god take all thad money thad ole fadder an mudder an' those seventeen
liddle brudders an sisters. Tha's all they god in all the whole worl'."
"But don't any of them work? Aren't any of them married? What's the
matter with them all?"
"Alas! No. All of them too young to worg or marry, excellency."
"_All_ of them too young?"
"Yes. Me--how ole _I_ am? Oldes' of all! I am twenty-eight--no, thirty
years ole," she declared, solemnly.
He nearly collapsed. He knew she was a mere child; knew, moreover, that
she was lying to him. She had done so before.
"Even if you are thirty, I fail to see how you can have seventeen
brothers and sisters younger than yourself."
She lost herself a moment. Then she said, triumphantly, "My fadder have
two wives!"
He surveyed her in studious silence a moment. Her attitude of trouble
and despair did not deceive him in the slightest. Nevertheless, he
wanted to laugh outright at her, she was such a ridiculous fraud.
"Do you know what they'd call you in my country?" he said, gravely.
She shook her head.
"An adventuress!"
"Ah, how _nize_!" She sighed with envious blissfulness. "I wish I live
ad your country--be adventuressesses."
"How much do you want now, Yuki?"
She pretended to calculate on his fingers.
"Twenty-five dollar," she announced.
He gave it to her, and she slipped it into the bosom of her kimono. He
watched her curiously, wondering what she did with all the money she
secured from him.
All of a sudden she put this question to him.
"Sa-ay, how much it taking go ad America?"
"How much? Oh, not much. Depends how you go. Four hundred, or five
hundred dollars, possibly."
She groaned. "How much come ad Japan?"
"The same."
She sighed. "Sa-ay, kind augustness, I wan' go ad America. Pray give me
money go there."
"I'll take you some day, Yuki."
She retreated before this offer.
"Ah, thangs--yes, some day, of course." Then, after a meditative moment:
"Sa--ay, it taking more money than thad three-four hundled dollar
whicheven?"
"Yes; about that much again for incidentals--possibly more."
She sighed hugely this time, and he knew she was not affecting.
A few days later, poking among her pretty belongings, as he so much
liked to do--she was out in the garden gathering flowers for their
dinner-table--he found her little jewel-box. Like everything else she
possessed, it was daintily perfumed. At the top lay the few pieces of
jewelry he had bought for her on different occasions when he had taken
her on trips to the city. He lifted the top tray, and then he saw
something that startled him. It was a roll of bank-bills. He took it out
and counted it. There was not quite one hundred and fifty dollars. He
calculated all he had given her. It amounted to a little over twice this
sum. She had been saving, after all! What was her object?
And, his suspicions awakened by this discovery, he searched uneasily
further through her apartments, and discovered, rolled like a huge piece
of carpet and covered over by a large basket, the crépe and silks she
had protested were stolen.
VII
MY WIFE!
The second time his wife left him, Jack Bigelow was very wretched. He
missed her exceedingly, though he would not have admitted it, for he was
also very angry with her.
When she had gone away that first time, so soon after their marriage, he
had not felt her absence as he did now, for then she had not become a
necessity to him. But she had lived with him now two whole months, and
had become a part of his life. She was not a mere passing fancy, and he
knew it was folly to endeavor so to convince himself, as in his
resentment at her treatment he was trying to do.
The house was desolate without her. Everywhere there were evidences of
his little girl. Here a pair of her tiny sandals, some piece of tawdry
kanzashi for her hair, her koto, samisen, and little drum; in the
zashishi, in her own little room, and all over the house lingered the
faint odor of her favorite perfume, so subtle it made the young man
weak.
He grew to hate the silence of the rooms. Their household had always
been small, with just a man and maid to wait on them; and now only one
presence gone from it, and yet how painfully quiet the place had grown!
He realized what all her little movements had become to him. He stayed
out-doors as much as he could, only to return restlessly to the house,
with a faint hope that perhaps she was hiding somewhere in it, and
playing some prank on him, as she was fond of doing, bursting out from
some unexpected place of hiding. But there was no trace of her anywhere;
and when the second day actually passed, the realization that she was
indeed gone forced itself home to him, leaving him stupid with rage and
despair.
He was bitterly angry with her. She had no right to leave him like this,
without a word of explanation. How was he to know where she had gone or
what might happen to her? And the thought of anything dire really
overtaking her nearly drove him distracted. He hung around the balconies
of the house, wandered down into the garden, and strayed restlessly
about. And all the time he knew he was waiting for her, and in the
waiting doubling his misery.
She came back in four days, slipped into the house noiselessly and ran
up to her room. He heard her, knew she had returned, but checked his
first impulse to go to her, and threw himself back on a couch, where he
assumed a careless attitude, which he relentlessly changed to a stern,
unapproachable, forbidding one.
Suddenly he heard her voice. It came floating down the stairs, every
weird minor note thrilling, mocking, fascinating him. "Toko-ton-yare
ron-ton-ton!" she sang. Then the voice ceased a moment. She was waiting
for him to call her. He did not move. He was certainly very angry with
her. He would not forgive her readily.
She began beating on her drum. He heard her making a great noise in the
little room up-stairs, and understood her object. She was trying to
attract him. Suddenly she whirled down the stairs and burst in on him
with a merry peal of laughter.
He ignored her sternly. She ceased her noise and laughter, and,
approaching him, studied him with her head tilted bewitchingly on one
side.
"You angery ad me, excellency?" she inquired with solicitude.
No reply.
"You very _mad_ ad me, augustness?"
Still no reply.
"You very _cross_ ad me, my lord?"
Jack regarded her in contemptuous silence.
She shouted now, a high, mocking, joyous note in her laughter.
"Hah! You very, very, very, very _affended_, Mister Bigelow?"
"It seems to please you, apparently," said Jack, scathingly, wasting his
sarcasm, and turning his eyes from her.
She laughed wickedly.
"Ah, tha's so nize."
"What is?" he demanded, sharply.
"Thad you loog so angery. My! You loog like grade big--whad you call
thad?--toranadodo." She knew how to pronounce "tornado," but she wanted
to make him laugh. She failed in her purpose, however. She tried another
way.
"_How_ you change!" She sighed with beatific delight.
Jack growled.
"Dear me! I thing you grown more nize-loogin," she said.
Jack got up and walked across to the window, turning his back
deliberately on her, and whistling with forced gayety, his hands in his
pockets. She approached him with feigned timidity and stood at his
elbow.
"You glad see me bag, excellency?"
"No!" shortly.
This emphatic answer frightened her. She was not so sure of herself,
after all.
"You wan' me go 'way?" she asked, in the smallest voice.
"Yes."
She loitered only a moment, and then "Ah-bah" (good-bye) she said
softly.
He felt, for he would not turn around to see, that she was crossing the
room slowly, reluctantly. He heard the shoji pushed aside, and then shut
to. He was alone! He sprang forward and called her name aloud. She came
running back to him and plunged into his arms. He held her close, almost
fiercely. The anger was all gone. His face was white and drawn. The
dread of losing her again had overpowered him. When she tried to
extricate herself from his arms, he would not let her go. He sat down on
one of the chairs, and held her on his knee. She was laughing now,
laughing and pouting at his white face.
"My crashes!" she cried. "You loog lige ole Chinese priest ad the
temple." She pulled a long face, and drew her pretty eyes up high with
her finger tips; then she chanted some solemn words, mocking mirthfully
her ancestors' religion.
But her husband was grave. He had not the heart to find mirth even in
her naughtiness.
"Yuki," he said, "you must be serious for a moment and listen to me."
"I listenin', Mr. Solemn-Angery-Patch!" She meant "Cross-patch." "You
loog lige--"
"Where did you go?"
"Oh, jus' liddle bit visit."
"Where did you go?" he repeated, insistently.
"Sa-ay, I forgitting."
"Answer me."
She pretended to think, and then suddenly to remember, sighing
hypocritically the while.
"I lige forgitting," she said.
"Forgetting what?"
"Where I been."
"Why?"
"Tha's so sad. Alas! I visiting thad ole fadder an' mudder ninety-nine
and one hundled years ole, and those seventeen liddle brudders an'
sisters. You missing me very much?" she changed from the subject of her
whereabouts.
"No!" he said, shortly, stung by her falsity.
"I don' sing so!"
"Where were you, Yuki?"
"Now, whad you wan' know for, sinze you don' like me whicheven?"
"Did I say so?"
"You say you don' miss."
"I lied," he said, bitterly. "Where were you?"
"Jus' over cross street, see my ole friend ad tea-garden."
"I thought you said you were visiting your people?"
She was not at all abashed.
"Sa-ay, firs' you saying you miss me; then thad you lie. Sa-ay, you big
lie, I jus' liddle bit lie."
"Yuki, listen to me. If you leave me like this again, you need never
come back. Do you understand?"
"Never?"
"I mean that."
"Whad you goin' do? Git you nudder wife?"
He pushed her from him in savage disgust. She laughed with infinite
relish.
He sat down a little distance from her, and put his face wearily between
his hands. Yuki regarded him a moment, and then she silently went to
him, pulled his hands down, and kissed his lips.
"I have missed you terribly," he said, hoarsely.
She was all compunction.
"I very sawry. I din know you caring very much for poor liddle me, an
p'raps I bedder nod come bag ad you."
"Why did you come, then?" he asked, gently.
"I coon' help myself," she said, forlornly. "My feet aching run bag ad
you, my eyes ill to see you, my hands gone mad to touch you."
She had grown in a moment serious, but also melancholy.
After a pause she said, more brightly, "I bringin' you
something--something so nize, dear my lord."
"What is it, Yuki, dear?" He was reluctant to let her go even for a
moment.
"Flowers," she said--"summer flowers."
He released her, and she brought them to him, a huge bunch of azaleas.
She buried her delightful little nose in them. "Ah," she said, "flowers
mos' sweetes' thing in all the worl', an' all them same flowers for you,
for you."
"Where did you get them, dear?" he asked, taking her hands instead of the
flowers, and drawing her, flowers and all, into his arms. She faltered a
little, and then said, with the old daring smile flashing back in her
face: "Nize Japanese gents making me present those flowers."
He caught her wrists in a grip of iron. "What do you mean?" he demanded,
fiercely, wild jealousy assailing him.
She pulled herself from him, and regarded the little wrists ruefully.
"Ain' you shamed?" she accused.
"Yes!" He kissed the little wrists with an inward sob. "Tell me all, my
little one. Please do not hide anything from me. I can't bear it."
"Thad Japanese gent wanter marry with me," she informed him, calmly
smiling, and dimpling as if it amused her, and then making a face to
show him her feelings in the matter.
"My! How he _adore_ me!" she added, vividly.
"Marry with you! What do you mean? You are my wife."
"Yes, bud _he_ din know thad," she said, consolingly; "an' see, I bring
his same flowers unto you."
He took them from her arms. They were all crushed now, and it distressed
her. No Japanese can bear to see a flower abused. She fingered some of
the petals sadly; then she sighed, looking up at him with tears in her
eyes.
"Tha's mos' beautiful thing' in all the whole worl'," she said,
indicating the flowers--"so pure, so kind, so sweet."
"I know something more beautiful and sweet, and--and pure."
"Ah, whad?" she said, her face shining, the pupils of the blue eyes so
large as to make them look almost black.
"My wife!" he breathed.
VIII
YUKI'S HOME