SUMMER, with its flowers, carnivals, moonlight fêtes and banquets, is a
season of unalloyed bliss to Japanese children. It seemed as if all
nature took a holiday, and bade the children and the grown folks, too,
come forth from their houses and rejoice at her beauty and happiness.
Never before had the Japanese held so many celebrations. But this year
their festivals were not in honor of the beauty of the flowers or the
glory of the moon. They tossed their fans, their parasols, any article,
above their heads. They marched the streets of the towns at night with
swinging lanterns and torches in their hands, sometimes singing and
always shouting, “Banzai! Banzai!” Impassive faces turned ruddy with
excitement and pride. Even delicate-faced ladies leaned from their
jinrikishas in the public streets and waved the sun flags in their
hands. Never had a flower festival drawn forth such enthusiasm and
excitement. On all sides people spoke the word, breathlessly, with
smiling lips:
“Victory! Always victory for Dai Nippon.”
The Kurukawa family caught the spirit of the country. There was not a
member of the little flock that did not feel a personal pride in Japan’s
achievements. Even Mrs. Kurukawa, after the first shock of the actual
sense of loss had passed, refused to be oppressed by her sorrow. By this
time her husband’s friends in the town were hers. She became a member of
a society which had for its aim the succor of the town’s poor families
whose wage-earners had been given to the war. No Western women’s club or
society ever worked harder than did these little Japanese women when
they took upon themselves the actual support of the poor of the town.
Mrs. Kurukawa found a wonderful comfort in the work. All the little
girls assisted. Immediately after the departure of her husband the
grandmother had come to her with a suggestion that at first she could
not understand.
“Now that the master has gone,” had said the old woman, “shall we not
dismiss all the servants?”
“But why?” she had inquired, astonished. “We can afford to keep them,
can we not?”
Madame Sano could not make her reasons understood. For a time she went
about the house very gloomy and unhappy, shaking her old head as the
servants waited upon their mistress and the children. She herself
refused to be waited upon. Her own meals she cooked herself. It was
shortly after she had become a member of the Aid Society that Mrs.
Kurukawa learned from another member that most of the war families had
dismissed their servants, or kept at most but one scullery maid. The
little Japanese lady told her at the same time that none of them had
bought new clothes since the beginning of the war, and that some of them
had refused fire, food, and luxuries. The reason was this. Their
husbands, sons, fathers, and brothers were suffering hardship and peril.
It would be unseemly for them to live in luxury. Since they could not
share that hardship at the front with their men they would deny
themselves at home.
“But what of the servants?” Mrs. Kurukawa had asked. “They would be
without employment.”
The answer was prompt. “The men-servants belong to the war service. Some
of the women receive reduced wages. The money saved is devoted to
charity. The servants themselves understand that they, too, must make
sacrifices. Some of them are sent by their mistresses to the homes of
the poor and the sick, there to work.”
When she returned home Mrs. Kurukawa called the family together to tell
them of her resolve. They would keep but one maid-servant and Norah, the
nurse. The maid-servant would do the cooking and the scullery work.
Marion, Plum Blossom, and Iris were to do all the chamber work and keep
the second floor clean and sweet. Madame Sano would do the sewing. The
boys must take care of the garden and draw the water. Mrs. Kurukawa
would see to the rest of the house. As the average Japanese family of
similar circumstances kept a great many servants—in fact, any number of
“assistants,” cook’s assistant, scullery assistant, etc.—the Kurukawas
had in all fourteen, including the men who worked in the garden and the
rice-fields. Of these, one old man’s services were retained. The younger
men were advised to enlist if they could. If not, they would receive
reduced wages and be employed in caring for the poor. So the work
previously done by the servants was now done cheerfully and happily by
the members of the Kurukawa family.
No chamber-maid ever cleaned a sleeping-chamber with more pleasure than
did the little girls. Their hair wrapped about in white linen, their
sleeves rolled up, they made the bamboo brooms fly across the floor.
“If one liddle bit of dust be in corner even,” said Plum Blossom, “I
shall die of shame.”
That was the spirit of all.
They who had never known what it was to wash their own bright faces, now
joyfully did all such services for themselves and for one another. They
were always so busy that they found no time for sadness. They arose with
the sun to busy themselves in the house throughout the mornings. The
afternoon was given to more pleasurable work. They would sew and
embroider in the garden, or write letters to their father and Gozo.
Often all of them would go on missions of charity to the town. Japan has
no actual slums in her smaller towns. Asylums and “Refuges” are scarcely
needed. The charity work done is all personal, and perhaps, better.
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