She evaded by saying at last: "Well, some time--maybe. I have too much
on my mind now."
"What, Zura?"
"Oh, my future--and a few other things."
* * * * *
Kishimoto San had never honored me with a visit since his granddaughter
had been an inmate of my house. Whenever a business conference was
necessary, I was requested, by mail, to "assemble" in the audience
chamber of the Normal School.
The man was beginning to look old and broken but he still faithfully
carried out his many duties of office and religion.
He never retreated one inch in his fight against all innovations that
would make the country the less Japanese or his faith less Buddhistic.
More often than not he stood alone and faced the bitter opposition of
the progressives. In no one thing did he so prove his unconquerable
spirit and his great ideals for his country as the patience with which
he endured the ridicule of his opponents. For to a man of the proud and
sensitive East, shot and shell are far easier to face than ridicule.
On a certain afternoon I had gone to meet with a committee to discuss a
question pertaining to a school regulation, by which the girl students
of the city schools would be granted liberty in dress and conduct more
equal with the boys. Of course Kishimoto San stood firm against so
radical a measure. Another member of the committee asked him if he did
not believe in progress. The unbending old man answered sternly:
"Progress--yes. But a progress based on the traditions of our august
ancestors, not a progress founded on Western principle, which, if
adopted by us unmodified, means that we, with our legions of years
behind us, our forefathers descended from the gods, as they were, will
be neither wholly East nor West but a something as distorted as a
dragon's body with the heads and wings of an eagle. Progress! Have not
our misconceptions of progress cost us countless lives and sickening
humiliations? Has not the breaking of traditions threatened the very
foundations of our homes? Small wonder the foreign nations offer
careless insult when we stoop to make monkeys of ourselves and adopt
customs and assume a civilization that can no more be grafted on to our
nation than cabbage can be grown on plum trees. Take what is needful to
strengthen and uplift. Make the highest and best of any land your own
standard and live thereby. But remember, in long years ago the divine
gods created you Japanese, and to the end of eternity, struggle as you
may, as such you cannot escape your destiny!"
As he finished his impassioned speech, a ray of sun fell upon his face,
lifted in stern warning to his opponents. He was like a figure of the
Past demanding reverence and a hearing from the Present.
For the time he won his point and I was glad, for it was Kishimoto San's
last public speech. Soon after he was stricken with a lingering illness.
In previous talks he had neither asked after his granddaughter nor
referred to her. But this afternoon, taking advantage of his look of
half-pleasure caused by the victory he had won single handed, I took
occasion, when offering congratulations, to give him every opportunity
to inquire as to Zura and her progress. I was very proud of what I had
done with the girl, of the change her affection for Jane and me had
accomplished.
Naturally I was anxious to exhibit my handiwork. As well tempt a
mountain lion to inspect a piece of beautiful tapestry in the process of
weaving.
However tactfully I led up to the subject he walked around it without
touching it. To him she was not. Reconciliation was afar off. I said
good-by and left. It was this and the speech I had heard in the
afternoon that occupied my mind as I wended my way home.
Of course the country must go forward; but it was a pity that, even if
progress were not compatible with tradition, it could not be tempered
with beauty. Why must the youth of the land adopt those hideous
imitations of foreign clothes? The flower-like children wear on their
heads the grotesque combinations of muslin and chicken feathers they
called hats? There are miles of ancient moats around the city, filled
with lotus, the great pink-and-white blossoms giving joy to the eye as
its roots gave food for the body. Slowly these stretches of loveliness
were being turned into dreary levels of sand for the roadbed of a
trolley. Even now the quiet of the city was broken by the clang of the
street-car gong. I was taking my first ride that day.
With Kishimoto San's plea for progress of the right kind still ringing
in my ears, my eyes fell upon some of the rules for the conduct of the
passengers, printed in large type, and hung upon the front door of the
car:
"Please do not stick your knees or your elbows out of the windows."
"Fat people must ride on the platform."
"Soiled coolies must take a bath before entering."
An advertisement in English emphasized the talk of the afternoon:
"Invaluable most fragrant and nice pills, especially for sudden illness.
For refreshing drooping minds and regulating disordered spirits,
whooping cough and helping reconvalescents to progress."
The force of Kishimoto's appeal was strong upon me.
I alighted at my street and began the climb that led to my house.
Halfway up a picture-book tea-house offered hospitality; in its
miniature garden I paused to rest and faced the sea in all its evening
beauty. Happily the glory of the skies and the tender loveliness of the
hills still belonged to their Maker, untouched by commercialism.
The golden track of the setting sun streamed across the mountain tops
and turned to fiery red a feathery shock of distant clouds. High and
clear came the note of a wild goose as he called to his mate on their
homeward flight. In the city below a thousand lights danced and beckoned
through the soft velvet shadows of coming night. There fluttered up to
me many sounds--a temple bell, the happy call of children at play,
cheerful echoes of home-like content, the gentle gaiety of simple life.
It was for these, the foundations of the Empire, that Kishimoto San
feared ruin, with the coming of too sudden a transition.
But I forgot the man and his woes. The spell of heavenly peace that
spread upon land and sea fell like a benediction.
It crept into my heart and filled me with thankfulness that I had known
this land and its people and for all the blessings that had fallen to me
in the coming of Zura Wingate. Gratitude for my full understanding of
her was deep. If only the shadows could be cleared away from the boy I
loved, life would be complete.
Exalted by the beauty of the evening, and by my spiritual communings, I
entered my house and faced the door of the study. It was ajar.
Silhouetted against the golden light, which had so filled me with joy
and peace, stood two figures. And the man held the hands of the girl
against his breast, and looked down into her glad eyes as a soul in the
balance must look into Paradise.
It was Page Hanaford and Zura Wingate!
As quietly as possible I went around another way and dropped into the
first handy chair. The truth was as bare as a model. The force of it
came to me like a blow between the eyes. Long ago, because of
chilblains, I had adopted felt shoes. In that second of time I stood at
the door the noiseless footgear cured me of all the egotism I ever
possessed.
Now I knew by what magic the transformation had been wrought in Zura.
And the castle of dreams, built on my supposed understanding of youth
and the way it grew, was swept away by a single breath from the young
god of love. What a silly old jay bird I had been! Was that what Jane
Gray had been smiling to herself about? I felt like shaking her for
seeing it before I did.
* * * * *
At dinner Jane was the only one of the three of us without an impediment
in her silence. I was glad when the meal was over and we went to the
study.
Zura buried herself in a deep windowseat, to watch the lights on the
water, she said. When there was not another glimmer to be seen, from the
shadows came a voice with a soft little tremble in it, or possibly I had
grown suddenly sensitive to trembles: "Ursula, Mr. Hanaford was here
this afternoon."
Now, thought I, it's coming. Steadying myself I asked: "Was he? What did
he have to say?"
"Oh-h!"--indifferently--"nothing much. He brought back an armful of
books."
An armful of books--aye, and his heart full of love! How dared he speak
of it with his life wrapped in the dark shadows of some secret?
Talk to me of progress! That day I could have raced neck-and-neck with a
shooting star!