Morning dawned with a haggard light. Ceaselessly the rain drizzled down.
The torpid heat of the previous day had given place to a clammy
chilliness. The weather oppressed the sick one. Her restlessness was
gone, but passive quiet was more ominous. Her white face seemed to have
shrunken through the night—so white and still it was that she seemed
scarcely to breathe.
Too weak to bear the burden of her child against her, the mother
permitted the little one to be cared for in an interior room lest its
cries might disturb her. All through the day she spoke no word. Wearily,
the heavy lids of her eyes were closed.
As the day began to wane, Aoi, thoroughly alarmed, summoned the village
doctor; a very old and learned man he was considered. He felt the
woman’s hands, listened to her breathing with his ear against her lips.
Very cold her hands were, but her breathing was regular, though faint.
The doctor looked grave, solemn, and wise. He shook his bald head
ominously.
“How long has the honorable one been thus?”
“Since early morn, sir doctor. She awoke from her night sleep only to
fall into this condition.”
“The woman has but a short space of life left to her,” said the doctor,
solemnly.
Aoi trembled.
“Her people—” she began, falteringly. “Oh, good sir doctor, it is very,
very sad. So young! Ah, so beautiful!”
Seeming not to share or understand Aoi’s sympathy, the doctor gathered
up his instruments and simples slowly, meanwhile glancing uneasily
towards the face of the sick woman. He turned suddenly to Aoi.
“Madame,” he said, “the village sympathizes with you at the infliction
placed upon you by this enforced guest, but—”
“You do not finish, sir doctor?”
“The woman became a nuisance at the tavern. The people there were not
Kirishitans (Christians), and were moreover in ignorance of the woman’s
speech. They could only comprehend that she wished to be taken to some
one of her own people—so, madame, you—”
“I, being of her people,” said Aoi, with simple dignity, “she was
brought to me. That was right. I thank my neighbors for their kindness.
I am honored, indeed, with such a guest. She is welcome.”
The doctor moved towards the door.
“And the child? It is well, and will not accompany the mother on her
last journey. What will become of it?”
Aoi did not reply.
“If it is desired by you, Madame Aoi,” said the doctor, endeavoring to
be kind, “I will immediately despatch word to the city to send
notification to the nearest open port. There, surely, must be some
consul, or representative of the woman’s country. To them the child
should go.”
Aoi spoke swiftly.
“The poor one’s people were unkind to her and cruel. How can we tell but
that they might also abuse the child?”
“That is the affair of the child, Madame Aoi. Pray accept my counsel.
Send the child—”
Interrupted by the sudden entrance of little Komazawa, he did not
finish. The boy had evidently heard all, through the thin partition
doors, against which he had leaned, listening intently. He thrust
himself now before the doctor, with eyes purpled by excitement. His
tense little body quivered.
“Sir doctor,” he said, in a voice new even to his mother, it was so
strong and haughty, “you make mistake. The child is already among its
own people. Here, in my father’s house, all people are Engleesh. So! The
child belongs to us, since the mother did present it to us. It is a gift
of the good God!”
Smiling and frowning together the little doctor bowed ironically to the
little fellow facing him.
“And will the august one enlighten me as to whether he will make an
effort to find the child’s legal guardians?”
“That is our affair, sir doctor, but I will answer. We will ask advice
of the good excellency when he returns. He is in Sendai even now. He
will be in our village to-night.”
The doctor bowed himself out, and Koma turned to his mother, a question
in his eyes. Aoi nodded sadly. The poor white woman would die, had said
the sir doctor.
Komazawa approached the bed softly, until he stood by the woman’s side,
looking down fixedly upon her. How white was the still face, how
beautiful the long lashes that swept the cheeks, how wonderful and
sunlike the silken hair enveloping her head like a halo. Could she be
real, this beautiful, still creature? Never had Komazawa seen anything
like her. She seemed a spirit of the lingering twilight.
Suddenly he bent over her and softly touched the small hand that lay
outside the coverlet. But soft as was his touch it acted like an
electric shock upon the woman. She started and quivered, as her heavy
lids lifted. At the little face bending above her she stared. A strange
expression came into her face. Her voice was like that of one murmuring
in a dream.
“A little white boy,” she said. “A little white—”
Her lips were stilled, but a breath, a sigh passed from her as Koma,
with a sudden instinctive motion, put his face down to hers. When Aoi
gently drew the boy up she found the still, white face softly smiling in
the twilight, as though ere she slept she had seen a vision.
But Komazawa knelt by the bedside, weeping passionately.
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V
Near the Temple Zuiganjii there is one huge rock, where the Date lords
in the feudal days were wont to gather yearly, attended by musicians,
and seeking recreation in gay amusements. It is of enormous size, and
when the sun’s rays beat upon its white surface it shines like white,
polished glass. Flat, embedded in the soil, there is, however, a part of
the rock which rises many feet above the level, its out-jutting point
resembling the head of some giant sea-monster. Under this jutting head a
natural cave has been formed.
Here, on a summer day, two children were playing together. Far below
them the Bay of Matsushima spread out its insistent beauty. Moored to
the beach, a few cho below them, was their miniature raft-sampan, an old
weather-beaten boat, in which they had made their pilgrimage from the
village. Behind them were the tombs and the eastern hills. The sunlight
slanting upon them was no less golden than these summer foot-hills of
the mountains beyond.
Bareheaded and barelegged the children were, the sandals upon their feet
wet, showing how they had paddled in the bay. The boy, a lad of possibly
fifteen years, was stretched full length under the shadow of the rock,
only his sandalled feet projecting into the sunlight, which he hoped
would dry them. His elbows were in the sand, his chin resting upon one
arm. He was reading from a very much worn and ragged book, the leaves of
which he turned with the utmost care and tenderness.
The little girl had gradually come from the rock’s shadow, and now
squatted at his feet. The sun fell upon her. She was a diminutive, odd
little mite. Her hair, a dark shining brown, had been carefully knotted
up into a little chignon at the top of her head, but, being wayward by
nature, it had escaped the most persistent brushing and the severe pins
which held it. It clung around her ears and little neck in soft, damp
curls. Her face and hands were russet, sunburned and freckled. Her eyes
were large and gray, shading towards blue. She wore but one garment, a
little red, ragged kimono, very much frayed at the ends and soaked from
her late paddling. Unlike the average Japanese child, the little girl
was restless and lacked all sense of repose, an inherent instinct with
Japanese children.
Though the boy had constituted her his audience and was reading aloud to
her, she apparently had heard no word of what he had been reading.
Having wriggled her way beyond the reach of his hand, she now looked
about her for new means of engaging her active little mind. This she
discovered in some stalks of grass. Having selected the stiffest blade
she could find, she stealthily crept back to the feet of the boy, and
first tickled, then pricked his feet with the grass. The natural result
followed. The boy’s droning, monotonous voice in reading changed to a
sudden, sharp grunt, and he threw up his heels, whereat the little girl
burst into a wild, elfish peal of laughter. At the same time she renewed
her jabs at the boy’s protesting feet.
Komazawa, still agitating his heels, closed the book with care, placed
it in safety in the sleeve of his hakama, and swung upward, drawing his
heels under him beyond the reach of his naughty tormentor.
With assumed gravity he regarded the small rogue before him.
“Something bitten you, yes?” she inquired, keeping her distance from him
and hugging her knees up to her chin.
Koma nodded, silently.
“What?” she inquired. “What was that bitten you, Koma?”
“Gnat!” said the boy, briefly.
“Gnat?” She crept a few paces nearer to him, and peered up into his
face.
“Yes—gnat,” he repeated, “bad devil gnat.”
The expression on the little girl’s face was involved. How was it
possible for any one ever to know just what Komazawa meant when his face
was so grave and smileless. She had an odd little trick of glancing up
at one sideways under her eyelashes. She peeped up at Koma now for some
time in this manner. Her mirth had changed to a matter of speculation.
Did or did not Koma know _what_ had bitten him? He had said it was a
gnat. Her intelligence was not sufficiently developed to include the
possibility that he might have meant her for the gnat. She ventured:
“Did you see that gnat bite you?”
“Yes, twice.”
Her eyes became wide.
“Where is it gone?” she inquired, breathlessly.
“Still there,” was his reply.
“Where?” She started, actually frightened. Koma’s voice and air of
mystery began to work upon her active imagination. What was a gnat,
anyway? And if one had actually bitten Komazawa, might it not also bite
her? By this time she had entirely forgotten her own attacks with the
grass blade. She was close to Koma now, her hands upon his arm, her
upraised eyes searching his face.
“What is a gnat, Komazawa?”
“Bad little insect.”
“Oh! Does it bite?”
“Yes.”
“Did it also bite you?”
“Three times.”
“Oh!” A palpitating pause. Then:
“Will it bite me, too?”
“Maybe.”
She crept completely into his arms, shielding herself with his sleeves.
“Where is it—that bad gnat?”
“Here.” He pointed at her with an index-finger.
“Here!” She gave a little scream. “On my face!”
She was a small bundle of pricked nerves, frightened at a shadow of her
own making. Komazawa relented, and pressed her little, fluttering face
against his own.
“There—foolish one! No; there is nothing on your face. You are the gnat
I meant.”
“Me!” She drew back a pace. “But I am not an insect!”
“Little bit like one,” said Koma, a smile of sunshine replacing his
affected gravity a moment since.
His small companion sat up stiffly, half indignant, half curious.
“How’m I like unto an insect gnat?”
“Gnat jumps—this way, that, every way. So you do so. Can’t sit still,
listen to beautiful stories.”
“I don’t like those kind stories. Like better stories about ghosts and—”
“Oh, you always get afraid of such stories, screaming like sea-gull.”
“Yes, but all same, I like to do that—like to hear such stories—like
also get frightened and scream.”
“Gnat also bites—bites foot, same as you do.”
“That don’t hurt,” she said, her eyes askance. Then, repeating her
words, questioningly, “That don’t hurt?”
“Oh yes, it does, certainly. What do you suppose I got to keep my feet
under me now for?”
Her little bosom heaved.
“Let me see those foots, Komazawa.”
“Too sore.”
“Oh, Komazawa!”
Her eyes were beginning to fill. He thrust his two feet out quickly.
“No, no; they are all right.”
Her face was aglow again in an instant.
“Oh, I love you, my Koma,” she said. “I only pretend hurt your honorable
foots.”
“That’s right. Now, you fix your hands so.” He illustrated, doubling his
own hands into fists, then doubling hers also.
“That’s right. Make hand good and hard. So! Now you hit hard against
those feet. So!”
He brought her little, closed fist down hard with his own hand on his
offending foot. The little girl became pale. Her lips quivered. She
began to sob.
Koma lifted her in his arms, jumped her on his shoulder, and carried her
down to the beach, soothing her as he walked.
“That’s just little punishment for me; punishment for teasing little
sister,” said Koma, laughing quietly. “That don’t hurt. You going to
laugh soon? You just little gnat! That’s so? You bite just little bit. I
am big dog. I bite big.”
He set her in the boat.
“Such a foolish little gnat,” he said, “always cry—always laugh. Like
these waters—sometimes jump—sometimes lie still.”
[Illustration:
“KOMA LIFTED HER IN HIS ARMS”]
Standing in the boat he pushed it out into the bay with the large pole
which served as a sort of paddling oar.
He smiled back over his shoulder at her. “Ah, the wind go blowing us
home so quick. Now you smile once more. Good! Sun come up again!”
He had been speaking to her in English, idiomatic, but clear. Now he
broke into Japanese song. His voice was round and large, full and sweet
for one so young. It seemed to ring out across the bay, and float back
to them from the echoing hills.
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[Illustration]
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