tread the path that drops straight down the mountain, through the
crimson glory of the maples and the blazing yellow of the gingko
tree, to the tiny little station far away that looks like a
decorated hen-coop.
KIOTO, September, 1911.
_Dearest Mate_:
I cannot spend a drop of ink in telling you how I got here. How
the baggage beast ran away and decorated the mountain shrubbery
with my belongings. And how after all my hurry of dropping down
from Koyo San, the brakesman forgot to hook our car to the train
and started off on a picnic while the engine went merrily on and
left us out in the rice-fields. Suffice it to say I landed in a
whirl that spun me down to Uncle's house and back to the hotel.
And by the way my thoughts are going, for all I know I may be
booked to spin on through eternity.
My visit to Sada was so full of things that did not happen. When I
reached the house, I sent in my card to Sada. Uncle came gliding
in like a soft-footed panther. He did it so quietly that I jumped
when I saw him. We took up valuable time repeating polite
greetings, as set down on page ten of the Book of Etiquette, in the
chapter on Calls Made by Inconvenient Foreigners.
When our countless bows were finished, I asked in my coaxingest
voice if I might see Sada. Presently she came in, dressed in
Japanese clothes and beautiful even in her pallor. She was
changed--sad, and a little drooping. The conflict of her ideals of
duty to her mother's people and the real facts in the case, had
marked her face with something far deeper than girlish innocence.
It was inevitable. But above the evidences of struggle there was a
something which said the dead and gone Susan West had left more
than a mere memory. Silently I blessed all her kind.
Sada was unfeignedly glad to see me, and I longed to take her in my
arms and kiss her. But such a display would have marked me in
Uncle's eyes as a dangerous woman with unsuppressed emotions, and
unfit for companionship with Sada. I had hoped his Book of
Etiquette said, "After this, bow and depart." But my hopes had not
a pin-feather to rest on. He stayed right where he was. All
right, old Uncle, thought I, if stay you will, then I shall use all
a woman's power to beguile you and a woman's wit to out-trick you,
so I can make you show your hand. It is going to be a game with
the girl as the prize. It is also going to be like playing
leap-frog with a porcupine. He has cunning and authority to back
him, and I have only my love for Sada.
For a time I talked at random, directing my whole conversation to
him as the law demands. By accident, or luck, I learned that the
weak point in his armor of polite reserve was color prints. Just
talk color prints to a collector and you can pick his pocket with
perfect ease.
My knowledge of color prints could be written on my thumb nail.
But I made a long and dangerous shot, by looking wise and asking if
he thought Matahei compared favorably with Moronobo as painters of
the same era. I choked off a gasp when I said it, for I would have
you know that for all I knew, Matahei might have lived in the time
of Jacob and Rebecca, and Moronobo a thousand years afterwards.
But I guessed right the very first time and Mura San, with a flash
of appreciation at my interest, said that my learning was
remarkable. It was an untruth and he knew that I knew it, but it
was courteous and I looked easy. Then he talked long and
delightfully as only lovers of such things can. At least, it would
have been delightful had I not been so anxious to see Sada alone.
But it was not to be. At least, not then. But mark one for me,
Mate: Uncle was so pleased with my keen and hungry interest in
color prints and my desire to see his collection, that he invited
me to a feast and a dance at the house the next night.
The following evening I could have hugged the person, male or
otherwise, who called my dear host away for a few minutes just
before the feast began.
Sada told me hurriedly that Uncle had insisted on her singing every
night at the tea-house. She had first rebelled, and then flatly
refused, for she did not like the girls. She hated what she saw
and was afraid of the men. Her master was furiously angry; said he
would teach her what obedience meant in this country. He would
marry her off right away and be rid of a girl who thought her
foreign religion gave her a right to disobey her relatives. She
was afraid he would do it, for he had not asked her to go to the
tea-house again. Neither had he permitted her to go out of the
house. Once she was sick with fear, for she knew Uncle had been in
a long consultation with the rich man Hara and he was in such good
humor afterwards. But Hara, she learned, had gone away.
She would _not_ sing at these dinners again, not if Uncle choked
her and what must she do! I saw the man returning but I quickly
whispered, "What about Billy?"
Ah, I knew I was right. The rose in her hair was no pinker than
her cheeks. If Billy could only have seen her then, I would wager
my shoes--and shoes are precious in this country--that her duty to
her mother's people would have to take a back seat.
Before Uncle reached us I whispered, "Keep Billy in your heart,
Sada. Write him. Tell him." And in the same breath I heartily
thanked Uncle for inviting me.
It was a feast, Mate--the most picturesque, uneatable feast I ever
sat on my doubly honorable feet to consume. There were opal-eyed
fish with shaded pink scales, served whole; soft brown eels split
up the back and laid on a bed of green moss; soups, thin and thick;
lotus root and mountain lily, and raw fish. Each course--and their
name was many--was served on a little two-inch-high lacquer table,
with everything to match. Sometimes it was gold lacquer, then
again green, once red and another black. But it was all a dream of
color that shaded in with the little maids who served it; and they,
swift, noiseless and pretty, were trained to graceful perfection.
The few furnishings of the room were priceless. Uncle sat by in
his silken robes, gracious and courteous, surprising me with his
knowledge of current events. In the guise of host, he is charming.
That is, if only he would not always talk with dropped eyelids,
giving the impression that he is half dreaming and is only partly
conscious of the world and its follies. And all the time I know
perfectly well that he sees everything around him and clean on to
the city limits.
Again and again in his talks he referred to his color prints and
the years of patience required to collect them. Right then, Mate,
I made a vow to study the pesky things as they have seldom been
attacked before--even though I never had much use for pictures in
which you cannot tell the top side from the bottom, without a
label. But then, Jack says, my artistic temperament will never
keep me awake at night. Now I decided all at once to make a
collection. Heaven knows what I will do with it. But Uncle grew
so enthusiastic he included his niece in the conversation, and
while his humor was at high tide I coaxed him into a promise that
Sada might come down to Hiroshima very soon, and help me look for
prints.
Yes, indeed there was a dance afterwards, and everything was
deadly, hysterically solemn--so rigidly proper, so stiffly
conventional that it palled. It was the most maleless house of
revelry I ever saw. Why, even the kakemono were pictures of
perfect ladies and the gate-man was a withered old woman.
There was absolutely nothing wrong I could name. It was all
exquisitely, daintily, lawfully Japanese. But I sat by my window
till early morning. There was a very ghost of a summer moon. Out
of the night came the velvety tones of a mighty bell; the sing-song
prayers of many priests; the rippling laugh of a little child and
the tinkling of a samisen. Every sound made for simple joy and
peace. But I thought of the girl somewhere beyond the twinkling
street lights, who, with mixed races in her blood and a strange
religion in her heart, had dreamed dreams of this as a perfect
land, and was now paying the price of disillusionment with bitter
tears.
Eight o 'clock the next morning.
I cabled Jack, "Hiroshima for winter."
He answered, "Thank the Lord you are nailed down at last."
P.S.--I have bought all the books on color prints I could find.
October, 1911.
Hiroshima! Get up and salute, Mate! Is not that name like the
face of an old familiar friend? I have to shake myself to realize
that it is not the long ago, but now. A recent picture of Jack and
one of you and the babies is about the only touch of the present.
Everything is just as it was in the old days, when the difficulties
of teaching in a foreign kindergarten in a _foreigner_ language was
the least of the battle that faced me. Well, I thought I 'd
finished with battles, but there 's a feeling of fight in the air.
Same little room, in the same old mission school. Same wall paper,
so blue it turned green. And, Lord love us, from the music-rooms
still come the sounds like all the harmonies of a baby
organ-factory gone on a strike.
But bless you, honey, there is an eternity of difference in having
to stand a thing and doing it of your own free will. As Black
Charity would remark, "I don't pay 'em no mind," and let them
wheeze out their mournful complaints to the same old hymns.
Had you been here the night my dinky little train pulled into the
station, you would have guessed that it was a big Fourth of July
celebration or the Emperor's birthday. I would not dare guess how
many girls there were to meet me. It seemed like half a mile of
them lined up on the platform, and each carried a round red lantern.
Until they had made the proper bow with deadly precision, there was
not a smile or a sound. That ceremony over, they charged down upon
me in an avalanche of gaiety. They waved their lanterns, they
called _banzai_, they laughed and sung some of the old time foolish
songs we used to sing. They promptly put to rout all legends of
their excessive modesty and shyness. They were just young and
girlish. Plain happy. Eager and sweet in their generous welcome.
It warmed every fiber of my being. When they thinned out a little,
I saw at the other end of the platform a figure flying towards me,
with the sleeves of her kimono out-stretched like the wings of a
gray bird, and a great red rose for a top-knot. It was Miss First
River, a little late, but more than happy, as she sobbed out her
welcome on the front of my clean shirt-waist.
It was she, you remember, who in all those other years was my
faithful secretary and general comforter. The one who slept across
my door when I was ill and who never forgot the hot water bag on a
cold night. For years she has supported a drunken father and a
crazy mother; has sent one brother to America and made a preacher
of another.
Now she is to be married, she told me in a little note she slipped
into my hand as we walked up the Street of the Upper Flowing River
to the school, adding, "Please guess my heart."
And miracle of the East! She has known the man a long time and
they are in love! I am so glad I am going to be here for the
wedding. It comes off in a few weeks.
I started work in the kindergarten this morning. It has been said
that when the Lord ran out of mothers he made kindergartners.
Surely he never did a better job--for the kindergartners. Mate,
when I stepped into that room, it was like going into an enchanted
garden of morning-glories and dahlias. What a greeting the
regiment of young Japlings gave me! I just drank in all the
fragrance of joy in the eager comradeship and sweet friendliness of
the small Mikados and Mikadoesses with a keen delight that made the
hours spin like minutes.
And would you believe it? The first sound that greeted my ears
after their whole duty had been accomplished in the very formal
bow, was--"Oh--it is the _skitten Sensei_ (skipping teacher) A
skit! A skit! We want to skit!" Of course, they were not the same
children by many years. But things die slowly in Hiroshima. Even
good reputations. Everything was pushed aside, and work or no
work, teachers and children celebrated by one mad revel of skipping.
There are many things to do, and getting into the old harness of
steady routine work and living on the tap of a bell, is not so easy
as it sounds, after years of live-as-you-please. But it is good
for the constitution and is satisfying to the soul.
I once asked my friend Carson from Colorado if he could choose but
one gift in all the world, what would it be? "The contintment of
stidy work," answered the wise old philosopher from out of the
West; and my heart echoes his wisdom.
Had a big fat letter from Jack, and the reputation he gives those
germs he is associating with, is simply disgraceful. He gives me
statistics also. Wish he wouldn't. It takes so much time and I
always have to count on my fingers.
He tells me, too, of an English woman who has joined the insect
expedition. Says she is the most brilliant woman he ever met.
Thanks awfully. And he has to sit up nights studying, to keep up
with her. I dare say.
I 'll wager she 's high of color and mighty of muscle and with
equal vehemence says a thing is "strawdn'ry" whether it 's a
dewdrop or a spouting volcano.
I can't help feeling a little bit envious of her--out there with my
Jack! Well! I will not get agitated till I have to.
A note from Sada says Uncle has had another outburst. He still
consents for her to come down here. Her beautiful ideals have been
smashed to smithereens, and the fact that nothing has ever been
invented that will stick them together, adds no comfort to the
situation. Her disappointment is heart-breaking. I cannot make a
move till I get her to myself and have a life-and-death talk with
her. I am playing for time.
I wrote her a cheerfully foolish letter. Told her I was making all
kinds of plans for her visit. I also looked up some doubtful
dates--at least, my textbook on color prints said they were
doubtful--and referred them to Uncle for confirmation, asking that
he give instructions to Sada about a certain dealer in Hiroshima
who has some pictures so violent, positively I would not hang them
in the cow-shed. That is, if I cared for Suky. But it is anything
for conversation now.
I almost forgot to tell you that we have the same _chef_ as when I
was kindergarten teacher here in the school years ago. He 's
prosperous as a pawnbroker. He gave me a radiant greeting. "How
are you, _Tanaka_?" quoth I. "All same like damn monkey,
_Sensei_," he replied. But he is unfailingly cheerful and the
cleverest grafter in the universe, with an artistic temperament
highly developed; he sometimes sends in the unchewable roast
smothered in cherry blossoms.
How wise you were, Mate, to choose home and husband instead of a
career. I love you for it.
HIROSHIMA, October, 1911.
For springing surprises, all full of kindness and delicate
courtesies, Japanese girls would be difficult to equal. Before a
whisper of it reached me, they made arrangements the other day for
a re-union of all my graduates of the kindergarten normal class.
It is hard to imagine when they found the time for the elaborate
decorations they put up in the big kindergarten room, and the
hundred and one little things they had done to show their love and
warmth of welcome. It was a part of their play to blindfold me and
lead me in. When I opened my eyes, there they stood. Twenty-five
happy faces smiling into mine, and twenty babies to match. It was
the kiddies that saved the day. I was not a little bewildered, and
tears stung my eyes. But with one accord the babies set up a howl
at anything so inconceivable as a queer foreign thing with a tan
head appearing in their midst. When peace was restored by natural
methods, the fun began.
The girls fairly bombarded me with questions. Could I come to see
every one of them? Where was Jack? Could they see his picture?
Did he say I could come? How "glad" it was to be together again.
Did I remember how we used to play? Then everybody giggled. One
thought had touched them all. Why not play now!
The baby question was quickly settled. Soon there was a roaring
fire in my study. We raided the classroom for rugs and cushions
and with the collection made down beds in a half ring around the
crackling flames. On each we put a baby, feet fireward. We called
in the _Obasan_ (old woman) to play nurse, and on the table near we
placed a row of bottles marked "First aid to the hungry." As I
closed the door of the emergency nursery, I looked back to see a
semi-circle of pink heels waving hilariously. Surely the fire
goddess never had lovelier devotees than the Oriental cherubs that
lay cooing and kicking before it that day.
How we played! In all the flowery kingdom so many foolish people
could not have been found in one place. What chaff and banter!
What laying aside of cares, responsibilities, and heavy hearts, if
there were any, and just being free and young! For a time at least
the years fell away from us and we relived all the games and
folk-dances we ever knew. True, time had stiffened joints and some
of the movements were about as graceful as a pair of fire tongs and
I may be dismissed for some of the fancy steps I showed the girls,
but they were happy, and far more supple than when we began.
When we were breathless we hauled in our old friend the big
_hibachi_, with a peck of glowing charcoal right in the middle. We
sat on our folded feet and made a big circle all around, with only
the glimmer of the coals for a light. Then we talked.
Each girl had a story to tell, either of herself or some one we had
known together. Over many we laughed. For others the tears
started.
Warmed by companionship and moved by unwonted freedom, how much the
usually reserved women revealed of themselves, their lives, their
trials and desires! But whatever the story, the dominant note was
acceptance of what was, without protest. It may be fatalism, Mate,
but it is indisputable that looking finality in the face had
brought to all of them a quietness of spirit that no longing for
wider fields or personal ambition can disturb.
None of them had known their husbands before marriage. Few had
ever seen them. Many were compelled to live with the difficulties
of an exacting mother-in-law, who had forgotten that she was ever a
young wife.
But above it all there was a cheerful peacefulness; a willingness
of service to the husband and all his demands, a joy in children
and home, that was convincing as to the depth and dignity of
character which can so efface itself for the happiness of others.
One girl, Miss Deserted Lobster Field, was missing. I asked about
her and this is her story. She was quite pretty; when she left
school there was no difficulty in marrying her off. Two months
afterward the young husband left to serve his time in the army.
For some reason the mother-in-law did not "enter into the spirit of
the girl," and without consulting those most concerned, she
divorced her son and sent the girl home. When the soldier-husband
returned, a new wife, whom he had never seen, was waiting for him
at the cottage door.
The sent-home wife was terribly in the way in her father's house,
for by law she belonged neither there nor in any other place. It
is difficult to re-marry these offcasts. Something, however, had
to be done. So dear father took a stroll out into the village, and
being sonless adopted a young boy as the head of his house. A
_yoshi_ this boy is called. Father married the adopted son to the
soldier's wife that was, securely and permanently. A yoshi has no
voice in any family matter and is powerless to get a divorce.
Moral: If in Japan you want to make sure of keeping a husband when
you get him, take a boy to raise, then marry him.
But the wedding of weddings is the one which took place last
summer, by suggestion. The great unseen has lived in America for
two years. The maid makes her home in the school. The groom-to-be
wrote to a friend in Hiroshima: "Find me a wife." The friend wrote
back: "Here she is." Miss Chestnut Tree, the maid, fluttered down
to the court-house, had her name put on the house register of the
far-away groom, did up her hair as a married woman should and went
back to work.
To-morrow she sails for America, and we are all going down to wave
her good-by and good luck.
She is married all right. There will be no further ceremony.
I would not dare tell you all the stories they told me. For I
would never stop writing and you would never stop laughing or
crying.
The end of all things comes sometimes. The beautiful afternoon
ended too soon. But for the rest of time, this day will be crowned
with halos made with the mightiness of the love and the dearness of
the girls who were once my students, always my friends.
It took some time to assort the babies and make sure of tying the
right one on the right mother's back. Not by one shaved head could
I see the slightest difference in any of them, but mothers have the
knack of knowing.
Out of the big gate they went and down the street all aglow with
the early evening lights twinkling in the purple shadows. Their
_geta_ click-clacked against the hard street, to the music of their
voices as they called back to me, "Oyasumi, Oyasumi, Go kigen yoro
shiku" (Honorably rest. Be happy always to yourself).
My gratitude to this little country is great, Mate. It has given
me much. It was here life taught me her sternest lessons. And
here I found the heart's-ease of Jack's love. But for nothing am I
more thankful than for the love and friendship of the young
girl-mothers who were my pupils, but from whom I have learned more
of the sweetness and patience of life than I could ever teach.
November, 1911.
Mate, there is a man in Hiroshima for whom I long and watch as I do
for no other inhabitant. It is the postman. You should see him
grin as he trots around the corner and finds me waiting at the
gate, just as I used to do in the old teaching days. I doubly
blest him this morning. Thank you for your letter. It fairly
sings content. Homeyness is in every pen stroke.
Please say to your small son David that I will give his love to the
"king's little boy" _if_ I see him. My last glimpse of him was in
Nikko. Poor little chap. He was permitted to walk for a moment.
In that moment he spied a bantam hen, the anxious mother of half a
dozen puff-ball chickens. Royalty knew no denial and went in
pursuit. The bantam knew no royalty, pursued also. The four men
and six women attendants were in a panic. The baby was rescued
from a storm of feathers and taken back to the palace with an extra
guard of three policemen.
I have been very busy, at play and at work. We have just had a
wedding tea. My former secretary, Miss First River, as she
expressed it, "married with" Mr. East Village.
The wedding took place at the ugly little mission church, which was
transformed into a beautiful garden, with weeping willows,
chrysanthemums, and mountain ferns. Also we had a wedding-bell.
In a wild moment of enthusiasm I proposed it. It is always a guess
where your enthusiasm will land you out here. I coaxed a cross old
tinner to make the frame for me. He expostulated the while that
the thing was impossible, because it had never been done before in
this part of the country. It was rather a weird shape, but I left
the girls to trim it and went to the church to help decorate. The
bell was to follow upon completion. It failed to follow and after
waiting an hour or so I sent for it. The girls came carrying one
trimmed bell and one half covered. I asked, "Why are you making
two wedding-bells?" My answer was, "Why Sensei! must not the groom
have one for his head too?"
Everybody wanted to do something for the little maid, for she had
so bravely struggled with adversity of fortune and perversity of
family. So there were four flower girls, and the music teacher
played at the wedding march! In spite of her efforts, Lohengrin
seemed suffering as it came from the complaining organ.
Miss First River was a lovely enough picture, in her bridal robes
of crepe, to cause the guests to draw in long breaths of
admiration, till the room sounded like the coming of a young
cyclone. They were not accustomed to such prominence given a
bride, nor to weddings served in Western style.
Oh, yes, the groom was there, a secondary consideration for the
first time in the history of Hiroshima, but so in love he did not
seem to mind the obscurity.