would be their guest for this evening to see the Bon Matsuri, the
beautiful Festival of the Dead. On the thirteenth day of the
seventh month, all the departed spirits take a holiday from Nirvana
or any other seaport they happen to be in and come on a visit to
their former homes to see how it fares with the living. Poor
homesick spirits! Not even Heaven can compensate for the
separation from beloved country and friends. As we passed along,
the streets were alight with burning rushes placed at many doors to
guide the spiritual excursionists. Inside, the people were
praying, shrines were decorated and children in holiday dress
merrily romped. Why, Mate, it was worth being a ghost just to come
back and see how happy everybody was. For on this night of nights,
cares and sorrows are doubly locked in a secret place and the key
put carefully away. You couldn't find a coolie so heartless as to
show a shadow of trouble to his ghostly relatives when they return
for so brief a time to hold happy communion with the living. He
may be hungry, he may be sick, but there is a brave smile of
welcome on his lips for the spirits.
The crazy old temple at the foot of the mountain, glorified by a
thousand lights and fluttering flags, reaped a harvest of _rins_
and _rens_ paid to the priests for paper prayers and bamboo
flower-holders with which to decorate the graves. The cemetery was
on the side of the hill, and every step of the way somebody stopped
at a stone marker to fasten a lantern to a small fishing-pole and
pin a prayer near by. This was to guide the spirit to his own
particular spot.
A breeze as soft as a happy sigh came through the pines and gently
rocked the lanterns. The dim figures of the worshipers moved
swiftly about, as delighted as children in the shadow-pictures made
by the twinkling lights, eagerly seeking out remote spots that no
grave might be without its welcoming gleam. A long line of
white-robed dancing girls came swaying by with clapping hands to
soft-voiced chanting.
I, too, though an alien, was moved with the good-will and kindness
that sung through the very air and fearlessly I would have
decorated any festive ghost that happened along. I looked to see
where I might lay the offering I held in my hand. My hostess
plucked my sleeve and pointed to a tiny tombstone under a camellia
tree. I went closer and read the English inscription, "Dorothy
Dale. Aged 2 years." There was a tradition that once in the long
ago a missionary and his wife lived in the village. Through an
awful epidemic of cholera they stuck to their posts, nursed and
cared for the people. Their only child was the price they paid for
their constancy. To each generation the story had been told, and
through all the years faithful watch had been kept over the little
enclosure. Now it was all a-glimmer with lanterns shaped like
birds and butterflies. I added my small offering and turned
hotelwards reluctantly.
My ancient host and hostess trotted along near by, eager to share
all their pathetic little gaieties with me. Their lives together
had about as much real comradeship as a small brown hen and a big
gray owl, and they had been married sixty years! They had toiled
and grown old together, but that did not mean that wifey was to
walk anywhere but three feet to the rear, nor to speak except when
her lord and ruler stopped talking to take a whiff of his pipe. I
tried to walk behind with the old lady but she threatened to stand
in one spot for the rest of the night. Then I vainly coaxed her to
walk with me at her husband's side. But her face was so full of
genuine horror at such disrespect that I desisted. Think, Mate, of
trying to puzzle out the make-up of a nation which for the sake of
a long-ago kindness will for years keep a strange baby's grave
green and yet whose laws will divorce a woman for disobedience to
her husband's mother and where the ancient custom of "women to
heel" still holds good.
And this is the land where the Seeker came for the truth!
Sada thinks it paradise and I, as before, am sending to Jack
A heart of love for thee
Blown by the summer breezes
Ten thousand miles of sea.
July, 1911.
_Mate_:
There ought to be some kind of capital punishment for the woman who
has nothing to do but kill time. It's an occupation that puts
crimps in the soul and offers the supreme moment in which the devil
may work his rabbit foot. No, I cannot settle down or hustle up to
anything until I hear from Jack or you. Very soon I will be
reduced to doing the one desperate thing lurking in this corner of
the woods, flirting with the solitary male guest, who has a strong
halt in his voice and whose knees are not on speaking terms.
Of course it is raining. If the sun gets gay and tries the bluff
of being friendly, a heavy giant of a cloud rises promptly up from
behind a mountain and puts him out of business. Still, why moan
over the dampness? It makes the hills look like great green plush
sofa-cushions and the avenues like mossy caves.
I have read till my eyes are crossed and I have written to every
human I know. I have watched the giggling little maids patter up
to a two-inch shrine and, flinging a word or two to Buddha, use the
rest of their time to gossip. And the old lady who washes her
vegetables and her clothes in the same baby-lake just outside my
window amuses me for at least ten minutes. Then, Mate, for real
satisfaction, I must turn to you, whose patience is elastic and
enduring. It is one of my big joys that your interest and love are
just the same, as in those other days when you packed me off to
Japan for the good of my country and myself; and then sent Jack
after me. Guess I should have stayed at home, as Jack told me, but
I am glad I did not.
Though it has poured every minute I have been here, there have been
bursts of sunshine inside, if not out. The other day my table boy
brought me the menu and asked for an explanation of _assorted_
fruits. I told him very carefully it meant _mixed, different
kinds_. He is a smart lad. He understands my Japanese! He
grasped my meaning immediately, and wrote it down in a little book.
This morning he came to my room and announced: "Please, Lady, some
assorted guests await you in the audience chamber; one Japanese and
two American persons."
I have had my first letter from Sada too, simply spilling over with
youth and enthusiasm. The girl is stark mad over the
fairy-landness of it all. Says her rooms are in Uncle's private
house, which is in quite a different part of the garden from the
tea-house. (Thank the Lord for small mercies!) She says Uncle has
given her some beautiful clothes and is so good to her. I dare
say. He has taken her to see a lovely old castle and wonderful
temple. The streets are all pictures and the scenery is glorious!
That is true, but the girl cannot live off scenery any more than a
nightingale can thrive on the scent of roses. What is coming when
the glamour of the scenery wears off and Uncle puts on the pressure
of his will?
I have not dared to give her any suggestion of warning. She is
deadly sure of her duty, so enthralled is she with the thought of
service to her mother's people. If I am to help her, the shock of
disillusionment must come from some other direction. The
_disillusioner_ is seldom forgiven. I do not know what plans are
being worked out behind Uncle's lowered eyelids. But I _do_ know
his idea of duty does not include keeping such a valuable asset as
a bright and beautiful niece hid away for his solitary joy. In
fact, he would consider himself a neglectful and altogether unkind
relative if he did not marry Sada off to the very best advantage to
himself. In the name of all the Orient, what else is there to do
with a _girl_, and especially one whose blood is tainted with that
of the West?
Well, Mate, my thoughts grew so thick on the subject I nearly
suffocated. I went for a walk and ran right into a cavalcade of
donkeys, jinrickshas and chairs, headed by the Seeker and Dolly,
who has also annexed the little Maharajah.
They had been up to Chuzenji--and Chuzenji I would have you know is
lovely enough, with its emerald lake and rainbow mists, to start a
man's tongue to love-making whether he will or not. And so surely
as it is raining, something has happened. Dolly was as gay as a
day-old butterfly and smiled as if a curly-headed Cupid had tickled
her with a wing-feather. The Seeker was deadly solemn. Possibly
the aftermath of his impetuosity.
Oh, well! there is no telling what wonders can be worked by
incurable youthfulness and treasures laid up in a trust company.
The little Prince, with every pocket and his handkerchief full of
small images of Buddha which he was collecting, asked at once for
Sada. His heart was in his eyes, but there is no use tampering
with a to-be-incarnation by encouraging worldly thoughts. So I
said I had not seen her since we landed. They were due on board
the _Siberia_ in Yokohama to-night on their way to China. I waved
them good wishes and went on, amused and not a little troubled.
Worried over Sada, hungry for Jack, lonesome for you. I passed one
of the gorgeous blue, green and yellow gates, at the entrance of a
temple. On one side is carved a distorted figure, that looks like
a cross between an elephant and a buzzard. It is called "Baku, the
eater of evil dreams." My word! but I could furnish him a feast
that would give him the fanciest case of indigestion he ever knew!
Mate, you would have to see Nikko, with its majestic cryptomarias,
sheltering the red and gold lacquer temples; you would have to feel
the mystery of the gray-green avenues, and have its holy silences
fall like a benediction upon a restless spirit, to realize what
healing for soul and body is in the very air, to understand why I
joyfully loitered for two hours and came back sane and hungry, but
wet as a fish.
Write me about the only man, the kiddies and your own blessed happy
self.
I agree with Charity. "Ef you want to spile a valuable wife, tu'n
her loose in a patch of idlesomeness."
STILL AT NIKKO, August, 1911.
You beloved girl, I have heard from Jack and my heart is singing a
ragtime tune of joy and thanksgiving. How he laughed at me for
being too foolishly lonesome to stay in America without him. Oh,
these, men! Does he forget he raged once upon a time, when he was
in America without me? As long as I am here though, he wants me to
have as good a time as possible. Do anything I want, and--blessed
trusting man!--buy anything I see that will fit in the little house
at home.
Can you believe it? After a fierce battle the sun won out this
morning, and even the blind would know by the dancing feel of the
air that it was a glorious day. At eight o'clock, when the little
maids went up to the shrine, happy as kittens let out for a romp,
they forgot even to look Buddha-ward and took up their worship time
in playing tag. The old woman who uses the five-foot lake as the
family wash-tub, brought out all her clothes, the grand-baby, and
the snub-nosed poodle that wears a red bib, to celebrate the
sunshine by a carnival of washing.
I could not stand four walls a minute longer. I am down in the
garden writing you, in a tea-house made with three fishing-poles
and a bunch of straw. It is covered with pink morning-glories as
big as coffee cups.
It has been three weeks since my last letter and I know your
interest in Jack and germs is almost as great as mine. Jack has
been in Peking. He thinks the revolution of the Chinese against
the Manchu Government is going to be something far more serious
this time than a flutter of fans and a sputter of
shooting-crackers. The long-suffering worm with the head of a
dragon is going to turn, and when it does, there will not be a
Manchu left to tell the pig tale.
Jack is in Mukden now, where he is about to lose his mind with joy
over the prospect of looking straight in the eye--if it has
one--this wicked old germ with a new label, and telling it what he
thinks. The technical terms he gives are as paralyzing as a
Russian name spelled backwards.
In a day's time this fearful thing wipes out entire families and
villages. It has simply ravaged northern Manchuria and the country
about. Jack says so deadly are the effects of these germs in the
air that if a man walking along the street happens to breathe in
one, he is a corpse on the spot before he is through swallowing.
The remains are gathered up by men wearing shrouds and net masks,
and the peaceful Oriental who was not doing a thing hut attending
strictly to his own business, is soon reduced to ashes. All
because of a pesky microbe with a surplus of energy.
You know perfectly well, Mate, Jack does not speak in this
frivolous manner of his beloved work. The interpretation is wholly
mine. But I dare not be serious over it. I must push any thought
of his danger to the further ends of nowhere.
Jack thinks the native doctors have put up a brave fight, but so
far the laugh has been all on the side of the frisky germ.
It blasts everything it touches and is most fastidious. Nobody can
blame it for choosing as its nesting-place the little soft furred
Siberian marmots, which the Chinese hunt for their skin. If only
the hunters could be given a dip in a sulphur vat before they lay
them down to sleep in the unspeakable inns with their spoils
wrapped around them, the chance for infection would not be so
great. Of course the bare suggestion of a bath might prove more
fatal than the plague, for oftener than not the hunters are used
only as a method of travel by the merry microbe and are immune from
the effects. Of course Jack has all sorts of theories as to why
this is so. But did you ever see a scientist who didn't have a
workable theory for everything from the wrong end of a carpet-tack
to the evolution of a June bug?
From the hunters and their spoils the disease spreads and their
path southwards can be traced by desolated villages and piles of
bones.
Jack tells me he is garbed in a long white robe effect (I hope he
won't grow wings), with a good-sized mosquito net on a frame over
his head and face. He works in heavy gloves. Mouth and nose being
the favorite point of attack, everybody who ventures out wears over
this part of the face a curiously shaped shield, whose firm look
says, "No admittance here." But all the same, that germ from
Siberia is a wily thief and steals lives by the thousands, in spite
of all precautions.
Jack is as enthusiastic over the fight against the scourge as a
college boy over football. His letter has so many big technical
words in it, I had to pay excess postage.
I 've read his letter twice, but to save me I cannot find any
suggestion of the remotest possibility of my coming nearer. Yes, I
know I said Japan only. But way down in the cellar of my heart I
_hoped_ he would say nearer.
What a happy day it has been. Here is your letter, just come. The
priests up at the temple have asked me to see the ceremony of
offering food to the spirits, in the holy of holies.
There is not time for me to add another word to this letter. What
a dear you are, to love while you lecture me. What you say is all
true. A woman's place _is_ in her home. But just now out of the
East, I 've had a call to play silent partner to science and while
it 's a lonesome sport, at least it 's far more entertaining than
caring for a husbandless house. Anyhow I am sending you a hug and
a thousand kisses for the babies.
SHOJI LAKE, August, 1911.
Mate, think of the loveliest landscape picture you ever saw, put me
in it and you will know where I am. With some friends from
Honolulu and a darling old man--observe I say _old_!--from
Colorado, we started two days ago, to walk around the base of Fuji.
Everything went splendidly till a typhoon hit us amidships and sent
us careening, blind, battered and soaked into this red and white
refuge of a hotel, that clings to the side of a mountain like a
woodpecker to a telephone pole. I have seen storms, but the worst
I ever saw was a playful summer breeze compared with the
magnificent fury of this wind that snapped great trees in two as if
they had been young bean-poles, and whipped the usually peaceful
lake into raging waves that swept through a gorge and greedily
licked up a whole village.
Our path was high up, but right over the water. Sometimes we were
crawling on all fours. Mostly we were flying just where the wind
listed. If a tree got in our way as we flew, so much the worse for
us. It is funny now, but it was not at the time! Seriously, I was
in immediate peril of being blown to glory _via_ the fierce green
foam below. My Colorado Irishman is not only a darling, but a
hero. Once I slipped, and stopped rolling only when some faithful
pines were too stubborn to let go.
I wag many feet below the reach of any arm. In a twinkling, my
friend had stripped the kimono off the baggage coolie's back, and
made a lasso with which he pulled me up. Then shocked to a
standstill by the shortcomings of the coolie's birthday suit, he
snatched off his coat and gave it to him, with a dollar. Such a
procession of bedraggled and exhausted pleasure-seekers as we were,
when three men stood behind our hotel door and opened it just wide
enough to haul us in. But hot baths and boiling tea revived us and
soon we were as merry as any people can be who have just escaped
annihilation.
The typhoon passed as suddenly as it came, and now the world--or at
least this part of it--is as glowing and beautiful as if freshly
tinted by the Master Hand.
A moment ago I looked up to see my rescuer gazing out of the
window. I asked, "How do you feel, Mr. Carson?" His voice trembled
when he answered: "Lady, I feel glorified, satisfied and nigh about
petrified. Look at that!"
Below lay Shoji, its shimmering waters rimmed with velvety green.
Every raindrop on the pines was a prism; the mountain a brocade of
blossom. To the right Fuji, the graceful, ever lovely Fuji;
capricious as a coquette and bewitching in her mystery, with a
thumbnail moon over her peak, like a silver tiara on the head of a
proud beauty; at her base the last fleecy clouds of the day,
gathered like worshipers at the feet of some holy saint.
The man's face shone. For forty years he had worked at
harness-making, always with the vision before him that some day he
might take this trip around the world. He has the soul of an
artist, which has been half starved in the narrow environment of
his small town life. Cannot you imagine the mad revel of his soul
in this pictureland?
He is going to Mukden. Of course I told him all about Jack's work.
The old fellow, he must be all of seventy, was thrilled. I am
going to give him a letter to Jack. Also to some friends in
Peking; they will be good to him. If anybody deserves a
merry-go-round sort of a holiday, he does. Think of sewing on
saddles and bridles all these years, when his heart was withering
for beauty!
I am glad of your eager interest in Sada. How like you! Never too
absorbed in your own life to share other people's joys and sorrows
and festivities.
If your wise head evolves a plan of action, send by wireless, for
if I read aright her message received to-day, the time is fast
coming when the red lights of danger will be flashing. I will
quote: "Last night Uncle asked me to sing to some people who were
giving a dinner at the tea-house. I put on my loveliest kimono and
a hair-dresser did my hair in the old Japanese style and stuck a
red rose at the side. For the first time I went into that
beautiful, _beautiful_ place my Uncle calls "the Flower Blooming"
tea-house. It was more like a fairy palace. How the girls, who
live there, laughed at my guitar. They had never seen one before.
How they whispered over the color of my eyes. Said they matched my
kimono, and they tittered over my clumsiness in sitting on the
floor. But I forgot everything when the door slid open and I
looked into the most wonderful dream-garden that ever was, and
people everywhere. I finished singing, there was clapping and loud
_banzais_. I looked up and realized there were only men at this
dinner and I never saw so many bottles in all my life. I felt very
strange and so far away from dear Susan West. After I had sung
once more I started back to my home. Uncle met me. I told him I
was going to bed. For the first time he was cross and ordered me
back to the play place, where I was to stay until he came for me.
There never was anything so lovely as the green and pink garden and
the lily-shaped lights, and the flowers; and such _pretty_ girls
who knew just what to do. But I cannot understand the men who come
here. When dear old Billy"--thank heaven she says _dear_
Billy!--"talks I know just what he means. But these men use so
many words Susan never taught me, and laugh so loud when they say
them.
"There was one man named Hara whose clothes were simply gorgeous.
The girls say he is very rich, and a great friend of Uncle's! He
may have money, but he is not over-burdened with manners. He can
out-stare an owl."
There was more. But that is enough to show me Uncle's hand as
plainly as if I were a palmist. If nothing happens to prevent, the
man promises to do what thousands of his kind have done before:
regardless of obstacles and consequences marry the girl off to the
highest bidder; rid himself of all responsibility and make a profit
at the same time. From his point of view it is the only thing to
do. He would be the most astonished uncle in Mikado-land if
anybody suggested to him that Sada had any rights or feelings in
the matter. He would tell you that as Sada's only male relative,
custom gave him the right to dispose of her as he saw fit, and
custom is law and there is nothing back of _that_!
So far I have played only a thinking part in the drama. But I will
not stand by and see the girl, whose very loneliness is a plea,
sacrificed without some kind of a struggle to help her. At the
present writing I feel about as effective as a February lamb, and
every move calls for tact. Wish I had been born with a needle wit
instead of a Roman nose! For if Uncle has a glimmer of a suspicion
that I would befriend Sada at the cost of his plans, so surely as
the river is lost in the sea, Sada would disappear from my world
until it was too late for me to lend a hand.
Good-by, Mate. At eventide, as of old, look my way and send me
strength from your vast store of calm courage and common sense.
The odds are against me, but the god of luck has never yet failed
to laugh with me.
September, 1911.
I am in a monastery, Mate, but only temporarily, thank you. It is
a blessing to the cause that Fate did not turn me into a monk or a
sister or any of those inconvenient things with a restless
religion, that wakes you up about 3 A.M. on a wintry dawn to pray
shiveringly to a piece of wood, to the tune of a thumping drum.
Some morning when the frost was on the cypress that carven image
would disappear!
For one time at least I would have a nice fire, and my prayers
would not be decorated with icicles.
For two weeks my friends and I have been tramping through
picture-book villages and silk-worm country, and over mountain
winding ways, sleeping on the floor, sitting on our feet and giving
our stomachs surprise parties with hot, cold and lukewarm rice,
seaweed and devil-fish.
It has been one hilarious lark of outdoor life, with nothing to pin
us to earth but the joy of being a part of so beautiful a world.
The road led us through superb forests, over the Bridge of Paradise
to Koyo San, whose peak is so far above the mist-wreathed valleys
that it scrapes the clouds as they float by. But I want to say
right here; Kobo Daishi, who founded this monastery in the distant
ages and built a temple to his own virtues, may have been a saint,
but he was not much of a gentleman! Else he would not have been so
reckless of the legs and necks of the coming generations, as to
blaze the trail to his shrine over mountains so steep that our
pack-mule coming up could easily have bitten off his own tail if he
had so minded.
Later.
This afternoon I must hustle down. I suppose the only way to get
down is to roll. Well; anyway I am in a hurry. My mail beat me up
the trail and a letter from Sada San begs me to come to Kioto to
see her as soon as I can. She only says she needs help and does
not know what to do. And blessed be the telegram that winds up
from Hiroshima; the school is in urgent need of an assistant at the
Kindergarten and they ask me to come. The principal, Miss Look,
has gone to America on business, for three months. Hooray! Here
is my chance to resign from the "Folded Hands' Society" and do
something that is really worth while, as long as I cannot go to my
man. How good it will seem once again to be in that dear old
mission school, where in the long ago I toiled and laughed and
suffered while I waited for Jack.
The prospect of being with the girls and the kiddies again makes me
want to do a Highland Fling, even if I am in a monastery with a
sad-faced young priest serving me tea and mournful sighs between
prayers.
What a flirtatious old world it is after all. It smites you and
bruises you, then binds up the hurts by giving you a desire or so
of your heart. Just now the desire of my heart is to catch that
train for Kioto.