These were the days I kept an eagle eye on Jane Gray. She grew steadily
stronger and her activities resembled a hive of bees. Unless she was
carefully observed and brought to order, her allowance of milk and part
of her food went to some child or stray beggar, waiting outside the
lodge gates.
She talked incessantly and confidently of the hospital she intended to
build in the Quarters. She had not a sen and I had less.
With the grocery bill unpaid, her cheerful assurance sometimes provoked
me. "Goodness, Jane, you haven't enough to buy even one shingle for a
hospital! To hear you talk one would think the National Bank was at your
command."
"But, Miss Jenkins," she said, smiling, "we are not going to use
shingles for the roof, but straw; and I have something stronger than a
national bank. You see, I was just born hoping. I know some of the
sweetest people at home. I've written nearly one thousand letters,
telling them all about my dear friends in the Quarters."
So that's where all the stamps went that she bought with the money I
gave her for winter clothes!
I was taking Jane to task for this when a note arrived from Zura. I had
been almost sure that my invitation would meet the same fate as the
English lessons. My fears disappeared when I opened the missive. It read
as follows:
Dear Miss Jenkins:
Thank you. Never did like to study in vacation, but if it is
plain visiting I'll be delighted, for I'm starving. Have lived
so long on rice and raw fish I feel like an Irish stew. You'll
surely be shocked at what I can do to ham and eggs and hot
biscuit! I'll float in about Thursday.
Hungrily yours,
ZURA WINGATE.
When I told my companion that Zura was coming to make us a little visit,
she was preparing to start for her work. She had just tied a bright
green veil over her hat. Failing in its mission as trimming, the chiffon
dropped forward in reckless folds almost covering her face; it gave her
a dissipated look as she hurried about, gathering up her things, eager
to be gone. But I was seeking information and detained her. "Jane," I
asked, "what do young girls in our country like best?"
"Boys and tolu," was the astonishing reply.
The twinkle in her one visible eye increased to enough for two when I
said with quite a good deal of dignity that, while I had some idea what
boys were, I knew nothing of the other article she mentioned.
"Oh, don't you really know what tolu is? It's a kind of rubber and girls
like to chew it."
"American girls chew! Why, the thing is impossible," I cried, pained to
have an ideal shattered.
"Keep calm, Miss Jenkins, this is a different kind of chew from the one
you are thinking about. It isn't pretty, but it won't hurt them, any
more than a peck of chocolates and, tolu or no tolu, in all the world
there isn't anything dearer than young American girls. They are so
fluffy and bossy and sweet, and they do make the darlingest mamas."
Jane waited for some comment from me. Seeing I had none to make, she
said, "Well, there aren't any boys for Zura to play with, and no tolu
this side of San Francisco." Then, brightening with sudden inspiration,
she exclaimed, "But I tell you what: wait till I take this basket down
to Omoto's home and I'll run right back and make some bear and tiger
cookies and gingerbread Johnnies. Children adore them."
"What is the matter now down at Omoto's house?"
"Oh, nothing much. He's in jail and his wife simply cannot work out in
the field to-day. She has a brand-new pair of the sweetest twins, and a
headache besides."
Even after Jane departed I did some hard thinking how I was to entertain
so youthful a visitor as Zura. Inside our simple home there was nothing
especially beautiful, and my companion had never mentioned that she ever
found me amusing. Outside fore and aft there was a view which brought
rapture to all beholders and peace to many troubled souls. I was not
sure how a wild young maid would thrive on views.
From the moment Zura entered the house and I caught sight of her face as
she looked at my garden through the glassed-in end of the sitting-room,
my fears disappeared like mist before a breeze. A bit of her soul was in
her eyes and, when she asked for a nearer view, I put down my work and
led her through the carved gates into the ancient glory which was not
only the garden of my house, but the garden of my soul. We passed a
moss-grown shrine where a quaint old image looked out across the lake
rimmed with flaming azaleas, and on its waters a family of long-legged
cranes consulted with each other. Our way led over a bridge with a
humped-up back and along a little path for one, then across a bank of
ferns and into the tangle of bamboo all silvery with the sunshine.
At the beginning of our walk my guest's conversation was of the many
happy nothings I suppose most girls indulge in, but as we went farther
she had less to say. Her eyes grew wider and darker as the beauty of the
place pressed in upon her. We found a seat arched over with a blossoming
vine and sat down for rest.
Zura was quiet and, finding she avoided every allusion to home, I
drifted into telling her a bit of the garden's history--its unknown age,
the real princes and princesses who in the long ago had trodden its
crooked paths. Legend said that so great was their love for it their
spirits refused to abide in Nirvana and came to dwell in the depths of
the dim old garden. I told her the spot had been my play place, my haven
of rest for thirty years, and how for want of company I had peopled it
with lords and ladies of my fancy. Armored knights and dark-haired dames
of my imagination had lived and laughed and loved in the shadows of its
soft beauty. Anxious to entertain and pleased to have an audience, I
opened wider the doors to my sentimental self than I really intended. I
went from story to story till the air was filled with the sweetness of
romance and poetry. In the midst of a wondrous love legend a noise,
sudden but suppressed, stopped me short. I looked at the girl. She was
shaking with laughter.