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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12240 ***
+
+The Lady and Sada San
+
+A Sequel to
+
+The Lady of the Decoration
+
+
+
+By
+
+Frances Little
+
+
+
+
+New York
+The Century Co.
+1912
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1912, by
+
+THE CENTURY CO.
+
+Published, October, 1912
+
+
+
+TO
+
+ELLEN CHURCHILL SEMPLE
+
+AND
+
+CHARLOTTE SMITH
+
+MY FELLOW WANDERERS THROUGH THE ORIENT
+
+
+
+
+The Lady and Sada San
+
+ON THE HIGH SEAS.  June, 1911.
+
+_Mate_:
+
+You once told me, before you went to Italy, that after having been
+my intimate relative all these years, you had drawn a red line
+through the word surprise.  Restore the abused thing to its own at
+once.  You will need it when the end of this letter is reached.  I
+have left Kentucky after nine years of stay-at-home happiness, and
+once again I am on my way to Japan--this time in wifely
+disobedience to Jack's wishes.
+
+What do you think that same Jack has "gone and done"!  Of course he
+is right.  That is the provoking part of Jack; it always turns out
+that he is in the right.  Two months ago he went to some place in
+China which, from its ungodly name, should be in the furthermost
+parts of a wilderness.  Perhaps you have snatched enough time from
+guarding the kiddies from a premature end in Como to read a
+headline or so in the home papers.  If by some wonderful chance,
+between baby prattle, bumps and measles, they have given you a
+moment's respite, then you know that the Government has grown
+decidedly restless for fear the energetic and enterprising bubonic
+or pneumonic germ might take passage on some of the ships from the
+Orient.  So it is fortifying against invasion.  The Government,
+knowing Jack's indomitable determination to learn everything
+knowable about the private life and character of a given germ,
+asked him to join several other men it is sending out to get
+information, provided of course the germ doesn't get them first.
+
+Jack read me the official-looking document one night between puffs
+of his after-dinner pipe.
+
+Another surprise awaits you.  For once in my life I had nothing to
+say.  Possibly it is just as well for the good of the cause that
+the honorable writer of the letter could not see how my thoughts
+looked.
+
+I glanced about our little den, aglow with soft lights; everything
+in it seemed to smile.  Well, as you know it, Mate, I do not
+believe even you realize the blissfulness of the hours of quiet
+comradeship we have spent there.  With the great know-it-all old
+world shut out, for joyful years we have dwelt together in a
+home-made paradise.  And yet it seemed just then as if I were
+dwelling in a home-made Other Place.
+
+The difference in the speed of time depends on whether love is your
+guest or not.
+
+The thought of the briefest interruption to my content made me feel
+like cold storage.  A break in happiness is sometimes hard to mend.
+The blossom does not return to the tree after the storm, no matter
+how beautiful the sunshine; and the awful fear of the faintest echo
+of past sorrow made my heart as numb as a snowball.  To the old
+terror of loneliness was added fear for Jack's safety.  But I did
+not do what you naturally would prophesy.  After seeing the look on
+Jack's face I changed my mind, and my protest was the silent kind
+that says so much.  It was lost!  Already Jack had gone into one of
+his trances, as he does whenever there is a possibility of bearding
+a brand-new microbe in its den, whether it is in his own country or
+one beyond the seas.  In body he was in a padded chair with all the
+comforts of home and a charming wife within speaking distance.  In
+spirit he was in dust-laden China, joyfully following the trail of
+the wandering germ.  Later on, when Jack came to, we talked it
+over.  I truly remembered your warnings on the danger of
+impetuosity; for I choked off every hasty word and gave my consent
+for Jack to go.  Then I cried half the night because I had.
+
+We both know that long ago Jack headed for the topmost rung of a
+very tall scientific ladder.  Sometimes my enthusiasm as chief
+booster and encourager has failed, as when it meant absence and
+risk.  Though I have known women who specialized in renunciation,
+till they were the only happy people in the neighborhood, its
+charms have never lured me into any violent sacrifice.  Here was my
+chance and I firmly refused to be the millstone to ornament Jack's
+neck.
+
+You might know, Mate?  I was hoping all the time that he would find
+it quite impossible to leave such a nice biddable wife at home.
+But I learn something new about Jack every day.  After rather
+heated discussion it was decided that I should stay in the little
+home.  That is, the heat and the discussion was all on my side.
+The decision lay in the set of Jack's mouth, despite the tenderness
+in his eyes.  He thought the risks of the journey too great for me;
+the hardships of the rough life too much.  Dear me!  Will men never
+learn that hardship and risk are double cousins to loneliness, and
+not even related to love by marriage?
+
+But just as well paint on water as to argue with a scientist when
+he has reached a conclusion.
+
+Besides, said Jack, the fatherly Government has no intention that
+petticoats, even hobbled ones, should be flitting around while the
+habits and the methods of the busy insect were being examined
+through a microscope or a telescope.  The choice of instrument
+depending, of course, upon the activity of the bug.
+
+Black Charity was to be my chief-of-police and
+comforter-in-general.  Parties--house, card and otherwise--were to
+be my diversion, and I was to make any little trips I cared for.
+Well, that 's just what I am doing.  Of course, there might be a
+difference of opinion as to whether a journey from Kentucky to
+Japan is a _little_ trip.
+
+I am held by a vague uneasiness today.  Possibly it 's because I am
+not certain as to Jack's attitude, when he learns through my
+letter, which is sailing along with me, that I am going to Japan to
+be as near him as possible.  I hope he will appreciate my
+thoughtfulness in saving him all the bother of saying no.  Or it
+might be that my slightly dampened spirits come from the discussion
+I am still having with myself whether it 's the part of a dutiful
+wife to present herself a wiggling sacrifice to science, or whether
+science should attend to its own business and lead not into
+temptation the scientifically inclined heads of peaceful households.
+
+You 'll say the decision of what was best lay with Jack.  Honey,
+there 's the error of your mortal mind!  In a question like that my
+spouse is as one-sided as a Civil War veteran.  Say germ-hunt to
+Jack and it 's like dangling a gaudy fly before a hungry carp.
+
+I saw Jack off at the station, and went hack to the little house.
+Charity had sent the cook home and with her own hands served all
+the beloved dainties of my long-ago childhood, trying to coax me
+into forgetfulness.  As you remember, Mate, dinner has always been
+the happiest hour of the day in our small domain.  Now?  Well,
+everything was just the same.  The only difference was Jack.  And
+the half circle of bare tablecloth opposite me was about as
+cheerful as a snowy afternoon at the North Pole.  I wandered around
+the house for awhile, but every time I turned a corner there was a
+memory waiting to greet me.  Now the merriest of them seemed to be
+covered with a chilly shadow, and every one was pale and ghostly.
+All night I lay awake, playing at the old game of mental solitaire
+and keeping tryst with the wind which seemed to tap with unseen
+fingers at my window and sigh,
+
+  "Then let come what come may
+  .    .    .    .    .    .
+  I shall have had my day."
+
+Is it possible, Mate, that my glorious day, which I thought had
+barely tipped the hour of noon, is already lengthening into the
+still shadows of evening?
+
+It was foolish but, for the small comfort I got out of it, I turned
+on the light and looked inside my wedding-ring.  Time has worn it a
+bit but the letters which spell "My Lady of the Decoration,"
+spelled again the old-time thrill into my heart.
+
+What 's the use of tying your heartstrings around a man, and then
+have ambition slip the knot and leave you all a-quiver?
+
+Far be it from me to stand in Jack's way if germ-stalking is
+necessary to his success.  Just the same, I could have spent
+profitable moments reading the burial service over every microbe,
+home-grown and foreign.
+
+Really, Mate, I 've conscientiously tried every plan Jack proposed
+and a few of my own.  It was no use.  That day-after-Christmas
+feeling promptly suppressed any effort towards contentment.
+
+At first there was a certain exhilaration in catching pace with the
+gay whirl which for so long had been passed by for homier things.
+You will remember there was a time when the pace of that same whirl
+was never swift enough for me; but my taste for it now was gone,
+and it was like trying to do a two-step to a funeral march.  For
+once in my life I knew the real meaning of that poor old
+worn-to-a-frazzle call of the East, for now the' dominant note was
+the call of love.
+
+I heard it above the clink of the teacups.  It was in the swish of
+every silk petticoat.  If I went to the theater, church or concert,
+the call of that germ-ridden spot of the unholy name beat into my
+brain with the persistency of a tom-tom on a Chinese holiday.
+
+Say what you will, Mate, it once took all my courage to leave those
+I loved best and go to far-away Japan.  Now it required more than I
+could dig up to _stay_--with the best on the other side of the
+Pacific.
+
+The struggle was easy and swift.  The tom-tom won and I am on my
+way to be next-door neighbor to Jack.  Those whom it concerned here
+were away from home, so I told no one good-by, thus saving
+everybody so much wasted advice.  If there were a tax on advice the
+necessities of life would not come so high.  Charity followed me to
+the train, protesting to the last that "Marse Jack gwine doubt her
+velocity when she tell him de truf bout her lady going a-gaddin'
+off by herse'f and payin' no mind to her ole mammy's
+prosterations."  I asked her to come with me as maid.  She refused;
+said her church was to have an ice-cream sociable and she had "to
+fry de fish." This letter will find you joyfully busy with the
+babies and the "only man."  Blest woman that you are.
+
+But I know you.  I have a feeling that you have a few remarks to
+make.  So hurry up.  Let us get it off our minds.  Then I can
+better tell you what I am doing.  Something is going to happen.  It
+usually does when I am around.  I have been asked to chaperone a
+young girl whose face and name spell romance.  If I were seeking
+occupation here is the opportunity knocking my door into splinters.
+
+
+
+
+STILL AT SEA.  June, 1911.
+
+Any time you are out of a job and want to overwork all your
+faculties and a few emotions, try chaperoning a young room-mate
+answering to the name of Sada San, who is one-half American dash,
+and the other half the unnamable witchery of a Japanese woman; a
+girl with the notes of a lark in her voice when she sings to the
+soft twang of an old guitar.
+
+If, too, you are seeking to study psychological effect of such a
+combination on people, good, middlin' and otherwise, I would
+suggest a Pacific liner as offering fifty-seven varieties, and then
+some.
+
+The last twinge of conscience I had over coming, died a cheerful
+death.  I 'd do it again.  For not only is romance surcharging the
+air, but fate gives promise of weaving an intricate pattern in the
+story of this maid whose life is just fairly begun and whom the
+luck of the road has given me as traveling mate.  Now, remembering
+a few biffs fate has given me, I have no burning desire to meddle
+with her business.  Neither am I hungering for responsibility.  But
+what are you going to say to yourself, when a young girl with a
+look in her eyes you would wish your daughter to have,
+unhesitatingly gives you a letter addressed at large to some
+"Christian Sister"!  You read it to find it's from her home pastor,
+requesting just a little companionship for "a tender young soul who
+is trying her wings for the first time in the big and beautiful
+world"!  I have a very private opinion about reading my title clear
+to the Christian Sister business, but no woman with a heart as big
+as a pinch of snuff could resist giving her very best and much more
+to the slip of a winsome maid, who confidingly asks it--especially
+if the sister has any knowledge of the shadows lurking in the
+beautiful world.
+
+Mate, these steamers as they sail from shore to shore are like
+giant theaters.  Every trip is an impromptu drama where comedy,
+farce, and often startling tragedy offer large speaking parts.  The
+revelation of human nature in the original package is funny and
+pathetic.  Amusement is always on tap and life stories are just
+hanging out of the port-hole waiting to attack your sympathy or
+tickle your funny bone.  But you 'd have to travel far to find the
+beginning of a story so heaped up with romantic interest as that of
+Sada San as she told it to me, one long, lazy afternoon as I lay on
+the couch in my cabin, thanking my stars I was getting the best of
+the bare tablecloth and the empty house at home.
+
+Some twenty years ago Sada's father, an American, grew tired of the
+slow life in a slow town and lent ear to the fairy stories told of
+the Far East, where fortunes were made by looking wise for a few
+moments every morning and devoting the rest of the day to samisens
+and flutes.  He found the glorious country of Japan.  The beguiling
+tea-houses, and softly swinging sampans were all too distracting.
+They sang ambition to sleep and the fortune escaped.
+
+He drifted, and at last sought a mean existence as teacher of
+English in a school of a remote seaside village.  His spirit broke
+when the message came of the death of the girl in America who was
+waiting for him.  Isolation from his kind and bitter hours left for
+thought made life alone too ghastly.  He tried to make it more
+endurable by taking the pretty daughter of the head man of the
+village as his wife.
+
+My temperature took a tumble when I saw proofs of a hard and fast
+marriage ceremony, signed and counter-signed by a missionary
+brother who meant business.
+
+You say it is a sordid tale?  Mate, I know a certain spot in this
+Land of Blossoms, where only foreigners are laid to rest, which
+bears testimony to a hundred of its kind--strange and pitiful
+destinies begun with high and brilliant hopes in their native land;
+and when illusions have faded, the end has borne the stamp of
+tragedy, because suicide proved the open door out of a life of
+failure and exile.
+
+Sada's father was saved suicide and long unhappiness by a timely
+tidal-wave, which swept the village nearly bare, and carried the
+man and his wife out to sea and to eternity.
+
+The child was found by Susan West who came from a neighboring town
+to care for the sick and hungry.  Susan was a teacher-missionary.
+Not much to look at, if her picture told the truth, but from bits
+of her history that I 've picked up her life was a brighter jewel
+than most of us will ever find in a heavenly crown.  Instead of
+holding the unbeliever by the nape of the neck and thrusting a
+not-understood doctrine down his unwilling throat, she lived the
+simple creed of loving her neighbor better than herself.  And the
+old pair of goggles she wore made little halos around the least
+speck of good she found in any transgressor, no matter how warped
+with evil.
+
+When she was n't helping some helpless sinner to see the rainbow of
+promise at the end of the straight and narrow way, Susan spent her
+time and all her salary, giving sick babies a fighting chance for
+life.  She took the half-drowned little Sada home with her, and
+searched for any kinsman left the child.  There was only one, her
+mother's brother.  He was very poor and gladly gave his consent
+that Miss West should keep the child--as long as it was a girl!
+Susan had taught the man English once in the long ago and this was
+his chance to repay her.
+
+Later on when the teacher found her health failing and headed for
+home in America, Uncle Mura was still more generous and raised no
+objections to her taking the baby with her.
+
+Together they lived in a small Western town.  The missionary reared
+the child by rule of love only and went on short rations to educate
+her.  Sada's eager mind absorbed everything offered her like a
+young sponge, and when a few months ago Susanna folded her hands
+and joined her foremothers, there was let loose on the world this
+exquisite girl with her solitary legacy of untried ideals and a
+blind enthusiasm for her mother's people.
+
+Right here, Mate, was when I had a prolonged attack of cold
+shivers.  Just before Miss West passed along, knowing that the
+Valley was near, she wrote to Uncle in Japan and told him that his
+niece would soon he alone.  Can't you imagine the picture she drew
+of her foster child who had satisfied every craving of her big
+mother heart?  Fascinating and charming and so weighted with
+possibilities, that Mura, who had prospered, leaped for his chance
+and sent Sada San money for the passage over.
+
+Not a mite of anxiety shadowed her eyes when she told me that Uncle
+kept a wonderful tea-house in Kioto.  He must be very rich, she
+thought, because he wrote her of the beautiful things she was to
+have.  About this time the room seemed suffocating.  I got up and
+turned on the electric fan.  The only thing required of her, she
+continued, was to use her voice to entertain Uncle's friends.  But
+she hoped to do much more.  Through Miss West she knew how many of
+her mother's dear people needed help.  How glorious that she was
+young and strong and could give so much.  Susan had also talked to
+her of the flowers, the lovely scenery, the poetry of the people
+and their splendid spirit--making a dreamland where even man was
+perfect.  How she loved it!  How proud she was to feel that in part
+it was her country.  Faithfully would she serve it.  Oh, Susanna
+West!  I 'd like to shake you till your harp snapped a string.  It
+'s like sending a baby to pick flowers on the edge of a bottomless
+pit.
+
+What could I say!  The missionary-teacher had told the truth.  She
+simply failed to mention that in the fairy-land there are
+cherry-blossom lanes down which no human can wander without being
+torn by the brier patches.
+
+The path usually starts from a wonderful tea-house where Uncles
+have grown rich.  Miss West didn't mean to shirk her duty.  In most
+things the begoggled lady was a visionary with a theory that if you
+don't talk about a thing it does not exist; and like most of her
+kind she swept the disagreeables into a dust heap and made for the
+high places where all was lovely.  And yet she had toiled with the
+girl through all the difficulties of the Japanese language; and, to
+give her a musical education, had pinched to the point of buying
+one hat in eight years!
+
+Now it is all done and Sada is launched on the high seas of life
+with a pleasure-house for a home and an unscrupulous Uncle with
+unlimited authority for a chaperon.  Shades of Susan! but I am
+hoping guardian angels are "really truly," even if invisible.
+
+Good night, Mate.  This game of playing tag with jarring thoughts,
+new and old, has made six extra wrinkles.  I am glad I came and you
+and Jack will have to be, for to quote Charity, "I 'se done
+resoluted on my word of honah" to keep my hands, if possible, on
+Sada whose eyes are as blue as her hair is black.
+
+
+
+
+PACIFIC OCEAN.
+
+Since morning the sea has been a sheet of blue, streaked with the
+silver of flying fish.  That is all the scenery there is; not a
+sail nor a bird nor an insect.  Either the unchanging view or
+something in the air has stimulated everybody into being their
+nicest.  It is surprising how quickly graciousness possesses some
+people when there is a witching girl around.  Vivacious young men
+and benevolent officers have suddenly appeared out of nowhere,
+spick and span in white duck and their winningest smiles.
+Entertainments dovetail till there is barely time for change of
+costume between acts.
+
+But let me tell you, Mate, living up to being a mother is no idle
+pastime, particularly if it means reviving the lost art of managing
+love-smitten youths and elderly male coquettes.  There is a
+specimen of each opposite Sada and me at table who are so generous
+with their company on deck, before and after meals, I have almost
+run out of excuses and am short on plans to avoid the heavy
+obligations of their eager attentions.
+
+The youth is a To-Be-Ruler of many people, a Maharajah of India.
+But the name is bigger than the man.  Two years ago his father
+started the boy around the world with a sack full of rubles and a
+head full of ancient Indian lore.  With these assets he paused at
+Oxford that he might skim through the classics.  He had been told
+this was where all the going-to-be-great men stopped to acquire
+just the proper tone of superiority so necessary in ruling a
+country.  Of course he picked up a bit on electricity, mechanics,
+etc.  This accomplished to his satisfaction he ran over to America
+to view the barbarians' god of money and take a glance at their
+houses which touched the sky.  But his whole purpose in living, he
+told me, was to yield himself to certain meditations, so that in
+his final reincarnation, which was only a few centuries off, he
+would return to the real thing in Buddha.  In the meantime he was
+to be a lion, a tiger and a little white bird.  At present he is
+plain human, with the world-old malady gnawing at his heart, a pain
+which threatens to send his cogitations whooping down a thornier
+and rosier lane than any Buddha ever knew.  Besides I am thinking a
+few worldly vanities have crept in and set him hack an eon or so.
+He wears purple socks, pink ties and a dainty watch strapped around
+his childish wrist.
+
+When I asked him what impressed him most in America, he promptly
+answered with his eyes on Sada, "Them girls.  They are rapturous!"
+
+Farewell Nirvana!  With a camp stool in one hand and a rosary in
+the other, he follows Sada San like the shadow on a sun dial.
+Wherever she is seated, there is the stool and the royal youth, his
+mournful eyes feasting on the curves and dimples of her face, her
+lightest jest far sweeter than any prayer, the beads in his hand
+forgotten.
+
+The other would-be swain calls himself a Seeker of Truth.
+Incidentally he is hunting a wife.  His general attitude is a
+constant reminder of the uncertainty of life.  His presence makes
+you glad that nothing lasts.  He says his days are heavy with the
+problems of the universe, but you can see for yourself that this
+very commercial traveler carries a light side line in an assortment
+of flirtations that surely must be like dancing little sunbeams on
+a life of gloom.
+
+Goodness knows how much of a nuisance he would be if it were not
+for a little lady named Dolly, who sits beside him, gray in color,
+dress and experience.  At no uncertain age she has found a belated
+youthfulness and is starting on the first pleasure trip of her life.
+
+Coming across the country to San Francisco, her train was wrecked.
+In the smash-up a rude chair struck her just south of the belt line
+and she fears brain fever from the blow.  The alarm is not general,
+for though just freed by kind death from an unhappy life sentence
+of matrimony she is ready to try another jailer.
+
+Whether he spied Dolly first and hoped that the gleam from her many
+jewels would light up the path in his search for Truth and a few
+other things, or whether the Seeker was sought, I do not know.
+However the flirtation which seems to have no age limit has
+flourished like a bamboo tree.  For once the man was too earnest.
+Dolly gave heed and promptly attached herself with the persistency
+of a barnacle to a weather-beaten junk.  By devices worthy a
+finished fisher of men, she holds him to his job of suitor, and if
+in a moment of abstraction his would-be ardor for Sada grows too
+perceptible, the little lady reels in a yard or so of line to make
+sure her prize is still dangling on the hook.
+
+To-day at tiffin the griefless widow unconsciously scored at the
+expense of the Seeker, to the delight of the whole table.  For
+Sada's benefit this man quoted a long passage from some German
+philosopher.  At least it sounded like that.  It was far above the
+little gray head he was trying to ignore and so weighty I feared
+for her mentality.  But I did not know Dolly.  She rose like a
+doughnut.  Looking like a child who delights in the rhythm of
+meaningless sounds, she heard him through, then exclaimed with
+breathless delight, "Oh, ain't he fluid!"
+
+The man fled, but not before he had asked Sada for two dances at
+night.
+
+It is like a funny little curtain-raiser, with jealousy as a
+gray-haired Cupid.  So far as Sada is concerned, it is admiration
+gone to waste.  Even if she were not gaily indifferent, she is too
+absorbed in the happy days she thinks are awaiting her.  Poor
+child!  Little she knows of the limited possibilities of a Japanese
+girl's life; and what the effect of the painful restrictions will
+be on one of her rearing, I dare not think.
+
+Once she is under the authority of Uncle, the Prince, the Seeker,
+and all mankind will be swept into oblivion; and, until such time
+as she can be married profitably and to her master's liking, she
+will know no man.  The cruelest awakening she will face is the
+attitude of the Orient toward the innocent offspring in whose veins
+runs the blood of two races, separated by differences which never
+have been and never will be overcome.
+
+In America the girl's way would not have been so hard because her
+novel charm would have carried her far.  But _hear me_: in Japan,
+the very wave in her hair and the color of her eyes will prove a
+barrier to the highest and best in the land.  Even with youth and
+beauty and intelligence, unqualified recognition for the Eurasian
+is as rare as a square egg.
+
+Another thought hits me in the face as if suddenly meeting a cross
+bumblebee.  Will the teachings of the woman, who lived with her
+head in the clouds, hold hard and fast when Uncle puts on the
+screws?
+
+The Seeker says it is the fellow who thinks first that wins.  He
+speaks feelingly on the subject.  Right now I am going to begin
+cultivating first thought, and try to be near if danger, whose name
+is Uncle, threatens the girl who has walked into my affections and
+made herself at home.
+
+
+
+
+Later.
+
+All the very good people are in bed.  The very worldly minded and
+the young are on deck reluctantly finishing the last dance under a
+canopy of make-believe cherry blossoms and wistaria.  I am on the
+deck between, closing this letter to you which I will mail in
+Yokohama in a few hours.
+
+In a way I shall be glad to see a quiet room in a hotel and hie me
+back to simple living, free from the responsibilities of a
+temporary parent.  I am not promising myself any gay thrills in the
+meantime.  What 's the use, with Jack on the borderland of a
+sulphurous country and you in the Garden of Eden?  His letters and
+yours will be my greatest excitement.  So write and keep on writing
+and never fear that I will not do the same.  You are the
+safety-valve for my speaking emotions, Mate; so let that help you
+bear it.
+
+Please mark with red ink one small detail of Sada's story.  When I
+was fastening her simple white gown for the dance her chatter was
+like that of a sunny-hearted child.  Indeed, she liked to dance.
+Susan did not think it harmful.  She said if your heart was right
+your feet would follow.  When Miss West could spare her she always
+went to parties with _Billy_, and oh, how he could dance if he was
+so big and had red hair.
+
+So! there was a Billy?  I looked in her face for signs.  The way
+was clear but there was a soft little quiver in her voice that
+caused me carefully to label the unknown William, and lay him on a
+shelf for future reference.  Whatever the coming days hold for her,
+mine has been the privilege of giving the girl three weeks of
+unclouded happiness.
+
+Outside I hear the little Prince pacing up and down, yielding up
+his soul to holy meditations.  I 'd be willing to wager my best
+piece of jade his contemplations are something like a cycle from
+Nirvana, and closer far to a pair of heavily fringed eyes.  Poor
+little imitation Buddha!  He is grasping at the moon's reflection
+on the water.  Somewhere near I hear Dolly's soft coo and
+deep-voiced replies.  But unfinished packing, a bath and coffee are
+awaiting me.
+
+Dawn is coming, and already through the port hole I see a dot of
+earth curled against the horizon.  Above floats Fuji, the base
+wrapped in mists, the peak eternally white, a giant snowdrop
+swinging in a dome of perfect blue.  The vision is a call to
+prayer, a wooing of the soul to the heights of undimmed splendor.
+
+After all, Mate, I may give you and Jack a glad surprise and
+justify Sada handing me that letter addressed to a Christian Sister.
+
+
+
+
+YOKOHAMA, July, 1911.
+
+Now that I am here, I am trying to decide what to do with myself.
+At home each day was so full of happy things and the happiest of
+all was listening for Jack's merry whistle as he opened the street
+door every night.  At home there are always demands, big and
+little, popping in on me which I sometimes resent and yet being
+free from makes me feel as dismal as a long vacant house with the
+For Rent sign up, looks.  In this Lotus land there is no _must_ of
+any kind for the alien, and the only whistles I hear belong to the
+fierce little tugs that buzz around in the harbor, in and out among
+the white sails of the fishing fleet like big black beetles in a
+field of lilies.  But you must not think life dull for me.  Fate
+and I have cried a truce, and she is showing me a few hands she is
+dealing other people.  But first listen to the tale I have to tell
+of the bruise she gave my pride this morning, that will show black
+for many a day.
+
+I joined a crowd on the water 's edge in front of the hotel to
+watch a funeral procession in boats.  Recently a hundred and eighty
+fishermen were sent to the bottom by a big typhoon, and the wives
+and the sweethearts were being towed out to sea to pay a last
+tribute to them, by strewing the fatal spot with flowers and paper
+prayers.  White-robed priests stood up in the front of the boats
+and chanted some mournful ritual, keeping time to the dull thumping
+of a drum.  The air was heavy with incense.  A dreamy melancholy
+filled the air and I thought how hallowed and beautiful a thing is
+memory.  From out that silent watching crowd came a voice that sent
+my thoughts flying to starry nights of long ago and my first trip
+across the Pacific; soft south winds; vows of eternal devotion that
+kept time with the distant throbbing of a ship's engine.  I fumed.
+I was facing little Germany and five littler Germanys strung out
+behind.  You surely remember him? and how when I could n't see
+things his way he swore to a wrecked heart and a
+never-to-be-forgotten constancy.  Mate!  There was no more of a
+flicker of memory in the stare of his round blue eyes than there
+would have been in a newly baked pretzel.  I stood still, waiting
+for some glimmer of recognition.  Instead, he turned to the
+pincushion on his arm, whom I took to be Ma O., and I heard him say
+"Herzallorliebsten."  I went straight to the hotel and had it
+translated.  Thought it had a familiar sound.  Would n't it be
+interesting to know how many "only ones" any man's life history
+records?  To think of my imagining him eating his heart out with
+hopeless longing in some far away Tibetan Monastery.  And here he
+was, pudgy and content, with his fat little brood waddling along
+behind him.  If our vision could penetrate the future, verily
+Romance would have to close up shop.  Oh, no!  I did n't want him
+to pine entirely away, but he needn't have been in such an
+everlasting hurry to get fat and prosperous over it.  Would n't
+Jack howl?
+
+I took good care to see that he was not stopping at this hotel.
+Then I went back to my own thoughts of the happy years that had
+been mine since Little Germany bade me a tearful good-by.
+
+And, too, I wanted to think out some plan whereby I can keep in
+touch with Sada and be friendly with her relative.
+
+Before I left the steamer, I had a surprise in the way of Uncles.
+Next time I will pause before I prophesy.  But if Uncle was a blow
+to my preconceived ideas, I will venture Sada startled a few of his
+traditions as to nieces.  Quarantine inspection was short, and when
+at last we cast anchor, the harbor was as blue as if a patch of the
+summer sky had dropped into it.  The thatched roofs shone russet
+brown against the dark foliage of the hills.  The temple roofs
+curved gracefully above the pink mist of the crepe myrtle.
+
+Sada was standing by me on the upper deck, fascinated by the
+picture.  As she realized the long dreamed-of fairy-land was
+unfolding before her, tears of joy filled her eyes and tears of
+another kind filled mine.
+
+Sampans, launches and lighters clustered around the steamer as
+birds of prey gather to a feast: captains in gilt braid; coolies in
+blue and white, with their calling-cards stamped in large letters
+on their backs, and the story of their trade written around the
+tail of their coats in fantastic Japanese characters.  Gentlemen in
+divided skirts and ladies in kimono and clogs swarmed up the
+gangway.  In the smiling, pushing crowd I looked for the low-browed
+relative I expected to see.  Imagine the shock, Mate, when a man
+with manners as beautiful as his silk kimono presented his card and
+announced that he was Uncle Mura.  I had been pointed out as Sada's
+friend.  A week afterwards I could have thought of something
+brilliant to say.  Taken unawares, I stammered out a hope that his
+honorable teeth were well and his health poor.  You see I am all
+right in Japanese if I do the talking.  For I know what I want to
+say and what they ought to say.  But when they come at me with a
+flank movement, as it were, I am lost.  Uncle passed over my
+blunder without a smile and went on to say many remarkable things,
+if sound means anything.  However, trust even a deaf woman to prick
+up her ears when a compliment is headed her way, whether it is in
+Sanskrit or Polynesian.  In acknowledgment I stuck to my flag, and
+the man's command of quaint but correct English convinced me that I
+would have to specialize in something more than first thought if I
+was to cope with this tea-house proprietor whose armor is the
+subtle manners of the courtier.
+
+Blessed Sada!  Only the cocksureness of youth made her blind to the
+check her enthusiasm was meant to receive in the first encounter of
+the new life.  She had always met people on equal terms, most men
+falling easy victims.  She was blissfully ignorant that Mura, by
+directing his conversation to me, meant to convey to her that
+well-bred girls in this enchanted land lowered their eyes and
+folded their hands when they talked in the presence of a MAN, if
+they dared to talk at all.
+
+Not so this half-child of the West.  She fairly palpitated with joy
+and babbled away with the freedom of a sunny brook in the shadow of
+a grim forest.  From the man's standpoint, he was not unkind;
+unrestraint was to him an incomprehensible factor in a young girl's
+make-up; and whatever was to follow, the first characters he meant
+her to learn must spell reverence and repression.
+
+They hurried ashore to catch a train to Kioto.  I must look
+harmless, for I was invited to call.  I shall accept, for I have a
+feeling in spite of manners and silken robes that the day is not
+distant when the distress signals will be flying.
+
+I waved good-by to the girl as the little launch made its way to
+land.  She made a trumpet of her hands and called a merry
+"sayonara."  The master of her future folded his arms and looked
+out to sea.
+
+The next day I had a lonely lunch at the hotel.  When I saw two
+lovery young things at the table where Jack and I had our wedding
+breakfast, so long ago, I made for the other end of the room and
+persistently turned my back.  But I saw out of the corner of my eye
+they were far away above food, and, Mate, believe me, they did n't
+even know it was hot, though a rain barrel couldn't have measured
+the humidity.
+
+Of course Jack and I were much more sensible, but that whole
+blessed time is wrapped in rosy mists with streaks of moonlight to
+the tune of heavenly music, so it 's futile to try to recall just
+what did happen.  I ought to have gone to another hotel, but the
+chain of memory was too strong for me.
+
+I was hesitating between the luxury of a sentimental spell and a
+fit of loneliness, when a happy interruption came in a message from
+Countess Otani, naming the next day at two for luncheon with her at
+the Arsenal Gardens at Tokio.  How I wished for you, Mate!  It was
+a fairy-story come true, dragons and all.  The Arsenal Garden means
+just what it says.  Only when the dove of peace is on duty are its
+gates opened, and then to but a few, high in command.  For across
+the white-blossomed hedge that encloses the grounds, armies of men
+toil ceaselessly molding black bullets for pale people and they
+work so silently that the birds keep house in the long fringed
+willows and the goldfish splash in the sunned spots of the tiny
+lake.
+
+After passing the dragons in the shape of sentries and soldiers, to
+each of whom I gave a brief life-history, I wisely followed my nose
+and a guard down the devious path.
+
+The Countess received her guests in a banquet-hall all ebony and
+gold, and was not seated permanently on a throne with a diamond
+crown screwed into her head as we used so fondly to imagine.
+
+The simplicity of her hospitality was charming.  She and most of
+her ladies-in-waiting had been educated abroad.  But despite the
+lure of the Western freedom, they had returned to their country
+with their heads level and their traditions intact.  But you guess
+wrong, honey, if you imagine custom and formality of official life
+have so overcome these high-born ladies as to make them lay figures
+who dare not raise their eyes except by rule.  There were three
+American guests, and only by being as nimble as grasshoppers did we
+hold our own in the table talk which was as exhilarating as a game
+of snowball on a frosty day.
+
+We scampered all around war and settled a few important political
+questions.  Poetry, books and the new Cabinet vied with the
+merriment over comparisons in styles of dress.  One delightful
+woman told how gloves and shoes had choked her when she first wore
+them in America.  Another gave her experience in getting fatally
+twisted in her court train when she was making her bow before the
+German Empress.
+
+A soft-voiced matron made us laugh over her story of how, when she
+was a young girl at a mission school, she unintentionally joined in
+a Christian prayer, and nearly took the skin off her tongue
+afterwards scrubbing it with strong soap and water to wash away the
+stain.  There wasn't even a smile as she quietly spoke of the many
+times later when with that same prayer she had tried to make less
+hard the after-horrors of war.
+
+The possibilities of Japanese women are amazing even to one who
+thinks he knows them.  They look as if made for decoration only,
+and with a flirt of their sleeves they bring out a surprise that
+turns your ideas a double somersault.  Here they were, laughing and
+chatting like a bunch of fresh schoolgirls for whom life was one
+long holiday.  Yet ten out of the number had recently packed away
+their gorgeous clothes, and laid on a high shelf all royal ranks
+and rights, for a nurse's dress and kit.  Apparently delicate and
+shy they can be, if emergency demands, as grim as war or as tender
+as heaven.
+
+It was a blithesome day and if it had n't been for that "all gone"
+sort of a feeling, that possesses me when evening draws near and
+Jack is far away, content might have marked me as her own.  As it
+was I put off playing a single at dinner as long as possible by
+calling on a month-old bride whom I had known as a girl.  With glee
+I accepted the offer of an automobile to take me for the visit, and
+repented later.  Two small chauffeurs and a diminutive footman
+raced me through the narrow, crowded streets, scattering the
+populace to any shelter it could find.  The only reason we didn't
+take the fronts out of the shops is that Japanese shops are
+frontless.  I looked back to see the countless victims of our
+speed.  I saw only a crowd coming from cover, smiling with
+curiosity and interest.  We hit the top of the hill with a
+flourish, and when I asked what was the hurry my attendants looked
+hurt and reproachfully asked if that wasn't the way Americans liked
+to ride.
+
+Mate, this is a land of contrasts and contradictions.  At the
+garden all had been life and color.  At this home, where the
+wrinkled old servitor opened the heavily carved gates for me, it
+was as if I had stepped into a bit of ancient Japan, jealously
+guarded from any encroachment of new conditions or change of custom.
+
+Like a curious package, contents unknown, I was passed from one
+automatic servant to another till I finally reached the
+_Torishihimari_ or mistress of ceremonies.  By clock-work she
+offered me a seat on the floor, a fan and congratulations.  This
+last simply because I was me.  The house was ancient and beautiful.
+The room in which I sat had nothing in it but matting as fine as
+silk, a rare old vase with two flowers and a leaf in formal
+arrangement, and an atmosphere of aloofness that lulled mind and
+body to restful revery.  After my capacity for tea and sugared
+dough was tested, the little serving maid fanning me, bowing every
+time I blinked, the paper doors near by divided noiselessly and,
+framed by the dim light, sat the young bride, quaint and oriental
+as if she had stepped out of some century-old kakemono.  In
+contrast to my recent hostesses it was like coming from a garden of
+brilliant flowers into the soft, quiet shadows of a bamboo grove.
+No modern touch about this lady.  She had been reduced by rule from
+a romping girl to a selfless creature fit for a Japanese
+gentleman's wife and no questions asked.  Her hair, her dress, and
+even her speech were strictly by the laws laid down in a book for
+the thirty-first day of the first month after marriage.  But I
+would like to see the convention with a crust thick enough to
+entirely obliterate one woman's interest in another whose clothes
+and life belong to a distant land.  When I told her I had come to
+Japan against Jack's wishes and was going to follow him to China if
+I could, she paled at my rashness.  How could a woman dare disobey?
+Would not my husband send me home, take my name off the house
+register and put somebody in my place?
+
+Well now, wouldn't you like to see the scientist play any such
+tricks with me--that blessed old Jack who smiles at my follies,
+asks my advice, and does as he pleases, and for whom there has
+never been but the one woman in the world!  I struggled to make
+plain to her the attitude of American men and women and the
+semi-independence of the latter.  As well explain theology to a
+child.  To her mind the undeviating path of absolute obedience was
+the only possible way.  Anything outside of a complete renunciation
+of self-interest and thought meant ruin and was not even to be
+whispered about.  I gave it up and came back to her sphere of
+poetry and mothers-in-law.
+
+When I said good-by there was a gentle pity in her eyes, for she
+was certain her long-time friend was headed for the highroad of
+destruction.  But instead I turned into the dim solitude of Shiba
+Park.  I had something to think about.  To-day's experiences had
+painted anew in naming colors the difference in husbands.  How
+prone a woman is, who is free and dearly beloved, to fall into the
+habit of taking things for granted, forgetting how one drop of the
+full measure of happiness, that a good husband gives her, would
+turn to rosy tints the gray lives of hundreds of her kind who are
+wives in name only.  Her appreciation may be abundant but it is the
+silent kind.  Her bugaboo is fear of sentiment and when it is too
+late, she remembers with a heart-break.
+
+I can think of a thousand things right now I want to say to Jack
+and while storing them away for some future happy hour, I walked
+further into the deep shadows of twilight.
+
+Instantly the spell of the East was over me.  Real life was not.
+In the soft green silences of mystery and fancy, I found a seat by
+an ancient moss-covered tomb.  Dreamily I watched a great red
+dragon-fly frivol with the fairy blue wreaths of incense-smoke that
+hovered above the leaf shadows trembling on the sand.  The deep
+melody of a bell, sifted through a cloud of blossom, caught up my
+willing soul and floated out to sea and Jack far from this lovely
+land, where stalks unrestrained the ugly skeleton of easy divorce
+for men.  The subject always irritates me like prickly heat.
+
+
+
+
+NIKKO, July, 1911.
+
+Summer in Japan is no joke, especially if you are waiting for
+letters.  I know perfectly well I can't hear from you and Jack for
+an age, and yet I watch for the postman three times a day, as a
+hungry man waits for the dinner-bell.
+
+The days in Yokohama were too much like a continuous Turkish bath,
+and I fled to Nikko, the ever moist and mossy.  Two things you can
+always expect in this village of "roaring, wind-swept
+mountains,"--rain and courtesy.  One is as inevitable as the other,
+and both are served in quantities.
+
+I am staying in a semi-foreign hotel which is tucked away in a
+pocket in the side of a mountain as comfy as a fat old lady in a
+big rocker who glories in dispensing hospitality with both hands.
+Just let me put my head out of my room door and the hall fairly
+blossoms with little maids eager to serve.  A step toward the
+entrance brings to life a small army of attendants bending as they
+come like animated jack-knives on a live wire.  One struggles with
+the mystery of my overshoes, while the Master stands by and begs me
+to take care of my honorable spirit.  As it is the only spirit I
+possess I heed his advice and bring it back to the hotel to find
+the entire force standing at attention, ready to receive me.  I
+pass on to my room with a procession of bearers and bearesses
+strung out behind me like the tail of a kite, anything from a
+tea-tray to the sugar tongs being sufficient excuse for joining the
+parade.
+
+When dressing for dinner, if I press the button, no less than six
+little, picture maids flutter to my door, each begging for the
+honor of fastening me up the back.  How delighted Jack would be to
+assign them this particular honor for life.  Such whispers over the
+wonders of a foreign-made dress as they struggle with the curious
+fastenings!  (They should hear my lord's fierce language!)  Each
+one takes a turn till some sort of connection is made between hook
+and eye.  All is so earnestly done I dare not laugh or wiggle with
+impatience.  I may sail into dinner with the upper hook in the
+lower eye and the middle all askew, but the service is so
+graciously given, I would rather have my dress upside down than to
+grumble.  Certainly I pay for it.  I tip everything from the
+proprietor to the water-pitcher.  But the sum is so
+disproportionate to the pleasure and the comfort returned that I
+smile to think of the triple price I have paid elsewhere and the
+high-nosed condescension I got in return for my money.  Japanese
+courtesy may be on the surface, but the polish does not easily wear
+off and it soothes the nerves just as the rain cools the air.  It
+goes without saying that I did not arrive in Nikko without a
+variety of experiences along the way.
+
+Two hours out from Yokohama, the train boy came into the coach, and
+with a smile as cheerful as if he were saying, "Happy New Year,"
+announced that there was a washout in front of us and a landslide
+at the back of us.  Would everybody please rest their honorable
+bones in the village while a bridge was built and a river filled
+in.  The passengers trailed into a settlement of straw roofs,
+bamboo poles and acres of white and yellow lilies.  I went to a
+quaint little inn--that was mostly out!--built over a fussy brook;
+and a pine tree grew right out of the side of the house.  My room
+was furnished with four mats and a poem hung on the wall.  When the
+policeman came in to apologize for the rudeness of the storm in
+delaying me, the boy who brought my bags had to step outside so
+that the official would have room to bow properly.  I ate my supper
+of fish-omelet and turnip pickle served in red lacquer bowls, and
+drank tea out of cups as big as thimbles.  Jack says Japanese
+teacups ought to be forbidden; in a moment of forgetfulness they
+could so easily slip down with the tea.
+
+It had been many a year since I was so separated from my kind and
+each hour of isolation makes clearer a thing I 've never doubted,
+but sometimes forget, that the happiest woman is she whose every
+moment is taken up in being necessary to somebody; and to such,
+unoccupied minutes are like so many drops of lead.  That, with a
+telegram I read telling of the increasing dangers of the plague in
+Manchuria, threatened to send me headlong into a spell of anxiety
+and the old terrible loneliness.
+
+Happily the proprietor and his wife headed it off by asking me if I
+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.
+
+So here goes a prayer, pinned to a shrine, for a body intact as I
+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.
+
+The ceremony over, the newly-wed seated themselves on a bench
+facing the guests.  An elder of the church arose and with a
+solemnity befitting a burial, read a sermon on domestic happiness
+and some forty or fifty congratulatory telegrams.  After an hour or
+so of this and several speeches, cake was passed around, and it was
+over.  At the maid's request I gave her an "American watch with a
+good engine in it" and my blessing with much love in it, and went
+back to work.  Do not for a minute imagine that because I am not a
+regularly ordained missionary-sister, that I am not working.  The
+fact is, Mate, the missionaries are still afflicted with the work
+habit, and so subtle is its cheerful influence, it weaves a spell
+over all who come near.  No matter what your private belief is, you
+roll up your sleeves and pitch right in when you see them at it,
+and you put all your heart in it and thank the Lord for the
+opportunity to help.
+
+The fun begins at 5:30 in the morning, to the merry clang of a
+brazen bell, and it keeps right on till 6 P.M.  For fear of getting
+rusty before sunrise, some of the teachers have classes at night.
+I would rather have rest.  I am too tired, then, to think.
+
+I have put away all my vanity clothes.  No need for them in
+Hiroshima and in an icy room on a winter's morning, I do not stop
+to think whether my dress has an in-curve or an out-sweep.  I fall
+into the first thing I find and finish buttoning it when the family
+fire in the dining-room is reached.  A solitary warming-spot to a
+big house is one of the luxuries of missionary life.
+
+In between times I 've been cheering up the home sickest young
+Swede that ever got loose from his native heath.  So firmly did he
+believe that Japan was a land where necessity for work doth not
+corrupt nor the thief of pleasure break through and steal, he gave
+up a good position at home and signed a three-years' contract with
+an oil firm.  Now he is so sorry, all the pink has gone out of his
+cheeks.  Until he grows used to the thought that living where the
+Sun flag floats is not a continuous holiday, the teachers here at
+school take turns in making life livable for him.
+
+His entertainment means tramps of miles into the country, sails on
+the lovely Ujina Bay and climbs over the mountains.  In the
+afternoon the boy is so in evidence, we almost fall over him if we
+step.  Yesterday in desperation I tied an apron on him and let him
+help me make a cake.  Even at that, with a dab of chocolate on his
+cheek and flour on his nose, his summer sky eyes were weepy
+whenever he spoke of his "Mutter."  I have done everything for him
+except lend him my shoulder to weep on.  It may come to that.
+There is hope, however.  One of our teachers is young and pretty.
+
+Jack, in a much delayed epistle, tells me thrilling and awful
+things about the plague; says he walks through what was once a
+prosperous village, and now there is not a live dog to wag a
+friendly tail.  Every house and hovel tenantless.  Often unfinished
+meals on the table and beds just as the occupants left them.  A
+great pit near by full of ashes and bones tells the story of the
+plague come to town, leaving silent, empty houses, and the
+dust-laden winds as the only mourners.
+
+The native doctors gave a splendid banquet the other night.  With
+the visiting doctors in full array of evening dress and
+decorations.  Jack says it looked like a big international flag
+draped around the table.  Everybody made a speech and Jack has not
+stopped yet shooting off fireworks in honor of that Englishwoman.
+
+Well, maybe _I_ should have studied science.  It is too late now.
+Besides, I have Uncle on my hands, and I have to commit to memory
+pages on color printing that run like this: "Fine as a single hair
+or swelling imperceptibly till it becomes a broken play of light
+and shade or a mass of solid black, it still flows, unworried and
+without hesitation on its appointed course."
+
+Sada San is coining down nest week.  I am looking forward to it
+with great delight and hunting for a plan whereby I can help her.
+
+Suppose Uncle should give me a glad surprise and come too!
+
+
+
+
+HIROSHIMA.
+
+_My dear Best Girl_:
+
+If ever a sailor needed a compass, I need the level head that tops
+your loving heart.  I am worried hollow-eyed and as useless as a
+brass turtle.
+
+It has been days since I heard from Jack.  When he last wrote, he
+was going to some remote district out from Mukden.  I dare not
+think what might happen to him.  Says he must travel to the very
+source of the trouble.
+
+If Jack really wanted trouble he could find it nearer home.  Is n't
+it like him, though, with his German education, to hunt a thing to
+its lair?  I suppose when next I hear from him, he will have
+disappeared into some marmot hole at the foot of a tree in a
+Siberian forest.
+
+Sada is here.  A pale shadow of her former radiant self.  She is in
+deadly fear of what Uncle has written he expects of her when she
+returns.
+
+For the first few days of her visit, she was like an escaped
+prisoner.  She played and sang with the girls.  The joy of her
+laughter was contagious.  Everybody fell a victim to her gaiety.
+We have been on picnics up the river in a sampan where we waded and
+fished, then landed on an island of bamboo and fern and cooked our
+dinner over a _hibachi_.  We have had concerts, tableaux and
+charades, here at the school, with a big table for the stage and a
+silver moon and a green mosquito-net for the scenery.
+
+In every pastime or pleasure, Sada San has been the moving spirit.
+Adorably girlish and winning in her innocent joy, I grow faint to
+think of the rude awakening.
+
+She has talked much of Miss West and their life together; their
+work and simple pleasures.
+
+To the older woman she poured out unmeasured affection, fresh and
+sweet.  Susan made a flower garden of the girl's heart, where, if
+even a tiny weed sprouted it was coaxed into a blossom.  But she
+gave no warning of the savage storms that might come and lay the
+garden waste.
+
+Well, I 'm holding a prayer-meeting a minute that the rosy ideals
+of the visionary teacher will hold fast when the wind begins to
+blow.
+
+I found Sada one day on the bed, a crumpled heap of woe; white and
+shaking with tearless sobs.  Anxious to shield her from the
+persistent friendliness of the girls, I persuaded her to come with
+me to the old Prince's garden, just back of the school.
+
+She had heard from Uncle.  For the first time he definitely stated
+his plans.  Hara, the rich man, had sent to him a proposal of
+marriage for Sada!  Of course, said Uncle, such an offer from so
+prosperous and prominent a man must be accepted without hesitation.
+It was wonderful luck for any girl, said dear Mura, especially one
+of her birth.  Nothing further would be done until she returned,
+and he wished that to be at once.
+
+Not a suggestion of feeling or sentiment; not a word as to Sada's
+wishes or rights.  If these were mentioned to him, he would
+undoubtedly reply that the rights in the matter were all his.  As
+to feelings, a young girl had no business with such things.  His
+voice would be courteous, his manner of saying it would fairly
+puncture the air.
+
+His letter was simply a cold business statement for the sale of the
+girl.  When I looked at the misery in her young eyes, I could
+joyfully have throttled him and stamped upon him.  I wished for a
+dentist's grinding machine and the chance to bore a nice big hole
+into each one of his white, even teeth.
+
+She knows nothing of the man Hara except that he is coarse and
+drinks heavily.  The girls in the tea-house always seemed afraid
+when he came.  Vague whispers of his awful life had come to her.
+What was she to do?  She had no money, no place to go, and Uncle
+was the only relative she had in the world.
+
+Mate, I heard a missionary speak a profound truth, when he said
+that no Japanese would ever be worth while till all his relatives
+were dead.  Their power is a chain forged around individual freedom.
+
+She had such loving thoughts of Uncle, Sada sobbed, before she
+came.  She longed to make his home happy and be one of his people.
+She loved the beautiful country of her mother and craved its
+friendship.
+
+Miss West had drilled it into her conscience that marriage was
+holy, and impossible without love.  (Bless you, Susan!)  She wanted
+to do her duty, but she _could not_ marry this man whom she had
+never seen but once, and had never spoken to.
+
+She knew the absolute power the law of the land gave Uncle over
+her.  She knew the uselessness of a Japanese girl struggling
+against the rigid rules laid down by her elders.  She knew
+resistance might bring punishment.  Well, Mate, I do not care ever
+to see again such a look as was in Sada's eyes as she turned her
+set face to me and forced through her stiff lips a stony, "I
+won't!"  But I thanked God for all the Susan Wests and their
+teachings.
+
+In spite of the girl's unhappiness, there was a thrill in the
+region of my heart.  Of her own free will Sada San had decided.
+Now there was something definite to work upon.  In the back of my
+brain a plan was beginning to form.  Hope glimmered like a
+Jack-o'-lantern.
+
+It was late evening.  A flaming sunset flushed the sky and bathed
+the ancient garden of arched bridges and twisted trees in a pinkish
+haze.  The very shadows spelled romance and poetry.  It was wise to
+use the charm of the hour for the beginning of my plan.
+
+I drew Sada down beside me, as we sat in a queer little play-house
+by the garden lake.
+
+In olden times it had been the rest place of the Prince Asano, when
+he was specially moved to write poetry to the moon as it floated
+up, a silver ball in a navy-blue sky over "Three Umbrella
+Mountain."  Had his ghost been strolling along then, it would have
+found deeper things than, "in the sadness of the moon night beholds
+the fading blossom of the heart," to fill his thoughts.
+
+I led the girl to tell me much of her life in Nebraska; of her
+friends and their amusements.  Hers had been the usual story of any
+fresh wholesome girl.  The social life in a small town had limited
+her experiences, but had kept her deliciously naive and sweet.
+
+For the first time in our talks, she avoided Billy's name.  I
+hailed it as a beautiful sign.  I mentioned William myself and
+delighted in her red-cheeked confusion.  I gently asked her to tell
+me of him.
+
+She and Billy had gone to school together, played together and he
+always seemed like a big brother to her.  Once a boy had called her
+a half-breed and Billy promptly knocked him down and sat on his
+head while he manipulated a shingle.
+
+Another time when they were quite small, the desire of her heart
+was to ride on the tricycle of a rich little boy who lived across
+the street.  But the pampered youth jeered at her pleadings and
+exultingly rode up and down before her.  Billy saw and bided his
+time till the small Croesus was alone.  He nabbed him, chucked him
+in a chicken-coop and stood guard for an hour while Sada rode
+gloriously.
+
+Through college they were comrades and rivals.  Billy had to work
+his way, for he was the poor son of an invalid mother.  From
+college he had gone straight to a firm of rich manufacturers and
+was now one of the big buyers.
+
+He had pleaded with her not to come to Japan.  He loved her.  He
+wanted her.  When she had persisted, he was furious and they had
+quarreled.  But she had thought she was right, then; she did not
+know how dear Billy was, how big and splendid.  She had written to
+him but seldom, nothing of her disappointment.  Maybe he had
+married.  She could not write now.  It would be too much like
+begging, when she was at bay, for the love she had refused when all
+was well.  No, she _could not_ tell him.
+
+We talked long and earnestly in that old garden, and the wind that
+sifted through the pine-needles and the waxy leaves was as gentle
+as if the spirit of Susan West had come to watch and to bless.
+
+I gained a half promise from her that she would write to Billy at
+once, but I didn't stop there.
+
+Unsuspected by Sada I learned his full address, and Mate, I wrote a
+letter to the auburn-haired lover in Nebraska, in which I painted a
+picture that is going to cause something to happen, else I am
+mistaken in my estimate of the spirit of the West in general and
+William Weston Milton in particular.
+
+I told him if he loved the girl to come as fast as steam would
+bring him; that I would help him at the risk of anything, though I
+have no idea how.  I have just returned from a solitary promenade
+to the post-office through the dark and lonely streets, so that
+letter will catch to-morrow's American mail.
+
+Sada told me that for some reason she had never mentioned Billy's
+name to Uncle.  Now isn't that a full hand nestling up my
+half-sleeve?  Uncle thinks the way clear as an empty race-track,
+and all he has to do is to saunter down the home stretch and gather
+in the prize-money.
+
+Any scruple on the girl's part will be relentlessly and carelessly
+brushed aside as a bothersome insect.  If she persists, there is
+always force.  He fears nothing from me.  I am a foreigner--from
+his standpoint too crudely frank to be clever.
+
+He doubtless argues, if he gives it any thought, that if I could I
+would not dare interfere.  And then I am so absorbed in
+color-prints!  So I am, and, I pray Heaven, in some way to his
+undoing.  The child has no other friend.  Shrinkingly she told me
+of her one attempt to make friends with some high-class people, and
+the uncompromising rebuff she had received upon their discovering
+she was an Eurasian.  The pure aristocrats seldom lower the social
+bars to those of mixed blood.  I wonder, Mate, if the ghost of
+failure, who was her father, could see the inheritance of
+inevitable suffering he has left his child, what his message would
+be to those who would recklessly dare a like marriage?
+
+Sada goes to Kioto in the morning.  She promises not to show
+resistance, but to keep quiet and alert, writing me at every
+opportunity.
+
+I am sure Uncle's delight in securing so rich a prize as Hara will
+burst forth in a big wedding-feast and many rich clothes for the
+trousseau.  I hope so.  Preparation will take time.  I would rather
+gain time than treasure.
+
+I put Sada to bed.  Tucked her in and cuddled her to sleep as if
+she had been my own daughter.
+
+There she lies now.  Her face startlingly white against the mass of
+black hair.  The only sign of her troubled day is a frequent
+half-sob and the sadness of her mouth, which is constantly reading
+the riot act to her laughing eyes in the waking hours.
+
+Poor girl!  She is only one of many whose hopes wither like
+rose-leaves in a hot sun when met by authority in the form of
+tyrannical relatives.
+
+The arched sky over the mountain of "Two Leaves" is all a-shimmer
+with the coming day.  Thatched roof and bamboo grove are daintily
+etched against the amber dawn.  Lights begin to twinkle and thrifty
+tradesmen cheerfully call their wares.
+
+It is a land of peace, a country and people of wondrous charm, but
+incomprehensible is the spirit of some of the laws that rule its
+daughters.
+
+
+
+_Mate dear_:
+
+One of my girls, when attached with the blues, invariably says in
+her written apology for a poor lesson, "Please excuse my frivolous
+with your imagination, for my heart is warmly." So say I.
+
+I am sending you the crepes and the kimono you asked for.  Write
+for something else.  I want an excuse to spend another afternoon in
+the two-by-four shop, with a play-garden attached, that should be
+under a glass case in a jewelry store.  The proprietor gives me a
+tea-party and tells me a few of his troubles every time I go to his
+store.  Formerly he kept two shops exclusively for hair ornaments
+and ribbons.
+
+He did a thriving trade with schoolgirls.  Recently an order went
+out from the mighty maker of school laws to the effect that
+lassies, high and low, must not indulge in such foolish
+extravagances as head ornaments.  The ribbon market went to smash.
+The old man could not give his stock away.  He stored his goods and
+went to selling high-priced crepes, which everybody was permitted
+to wear.  Make another request quickly.  I would rather shop than
+think.
+
+Also, if you need any information as to how to run a
+cooking-school, I will enclose it with the next package.
+
+Since the war, scores of Japanese women are wild to learn foreign
+cooking.  On inquiry as to the reason of such enthusiasm, we found
+it was because their husbands, while away from home, had acquired a
+taste for Occidental dainties.  Now their wives want to know all
+about them so they can set up opposition in their homes to the many
+tea-houses which offer European food as an extra attraction.  And
+depend upon it, if the women start to learn, they stick to it till
+there is nothing more to know on the subject.
+
+I was to furnish the knowledge and the ladies the necessary
+utensils, but I guess I forgot to mention everything we might need.
+
+The first thing we tried was biscuit.  All went well until the time
+came for baking.  I asked for a pan.  A pan?  What kind of a pan?
+Would a wash pan do?  No, if it was all the same I would rather
+have a flat pan with a rim.  Certainly!  Here it was with a rim and
+a handle!  A shiny dust-pan greeted my eyes.  Well, there was not
+very much difference in the taste of the biscuit.
+
+The prize accomplishment so far has been pies.  Our skill has not
+only brought us fame, but the city is in the throes of a pie
+epidemic.  A few days ago when the old Prince of the Ken came to
+visit his Hiroshima home, the cooking-ladies, after a few days'
+consultation, decided that in no better way could royalty be
+welcomed than by sending him a lemon pie.  They sent two creamy
+affairs elaborately decorated with meringued Fujis.  They were the
+hit of the season.  The old gentleman wrote a poem about them
+saying he ate one and was keeping the other to take back to his
+country home when he returned a month hence.  Then he sent us all a
+present.
+
+We have had only one catastrophe.  In a moment of reckless
+adventure my pupils tried a pound cake without a recipe.  A pound
+cake can be nothing else but what it says.  That meant a pound of
+everything and Japanese soda is doubly strong.  That was a week ago
+and we have not been able to stay in the room since.
+
+Good-by!  The tailless pink cat and the purple fish with the pale
+blue eyes are for the kiddies.
+
+I am inclosing an original recipe sent in by Miss Turtle Swamp of
+Clear Water Village:
+
+  Cake.
+
+  1 cup of _Desecrated_ coconut
+  5 cup flowers
+  1 small spoon and barmilla [vanilla]
+  3 eggs skinned and whipped
+  1 cup sugar
+  Stir and pat in pan to cook.
+
+
+
+
+HIROSHIMA, December, 1911.
+
+_Mate_:
+
+I would be ashamed to tell you how long it is between Jack's
+letters.  He says the activity of the revolutionists in China is
+seriously interfering with traffic of every kind.  All right, let
+it go at that!  Now he has gone way up north of Harbin.  In the
+name of anything why cannot he be satisfied?  England is with him.
+I do not know who also is in the party.  Neither do I care.  I do
+not like it a little bit.  Jealous?  The idea.  Just plain furious.
+I am no more afraid of Jack falling in love with another woman than
+I am of Saturn making Venus a birthday present of one of his rings.
+The trouble is she may fall in love with him, and it is altogether
+unnecessary for any other woman to get her feelings disturbed over
+Jack.
+
+I fail to see the force of his argument that it is not safe nor
+wise for any woman in that country, and yet for him to show wild
+enthusiasm over the presence of the Britisher.  No, Jack has lost
+his head over intellect.  It may take a good sharp blow for him to
+realize that intellect, pure and simple, is an icy substitute for
+love.  Like most men he is so deadly sure of one, he is taking a
+holiday with the other.
+
+Of course you are laughing at me.  So would Jack.  And both would
+say it is unworthy.  That's just it.  It is the measly little
+unworthies that nag one to desperation.  Besides, Mate, I shrink
+from any more trouble, any more heart-aches as I would from names.
+The terror of the by-gone years creeps over me and covers the
+present like a pall.
+
+There is only one thing left to do.  Work.  Work and dig, till
+there is not an ounce of strength left for worry.  I stay in the
+kindergarten every available minute.  The unstinted friendship of
+the kiddies over there, is the heart's-ease for so many of life's
+hurts.
+
+There are always the long walks, when healing and uplift of spirit
+can be found in the beauty of the country.  I tramp away all alone.
+The little Swede begs often to go.  At first I rather enjoyed him.
+But he is growing far too affectionate.  I am not equal to caring
+for two young things; a broken-hearted girl and a homesick fat boy
+are too much for me.  He is improving so rapidly I think it better
+for him to talk love stories and poetry to some one more
+appreciative.  I am not in a very poetical mood.  He might just as
+well talk to the pretty young teacher as to talk about her all the
+time.
+
+I have scores of friends up and down the many country roads I
+travel.  The boatmen on the silvery river, who always wave their
+head rags in salute, the women hoeing in the fields with babies on
+their backs, stop long enough to say good day and good luck.  The
+laughing red-cheeked coolie girls pause in their work of driving
+piles for the new bridge to have a little talk about the wonders of
+a foreigner's head.  With bated breath they watch while I give them
+proof that my long hatpins do not go straight through my skull.
+
+The sunny greetings of multitudes of children lift the shadows from
+the darkest day, and always there is the glorious scenery; the
+shadowed mystery of the mountains, a turquoise sky, the blossoms
+and bamboo.  The brooding spirit of serenity soon envelops me, and
+in its irresistible charm is found a tender peace.
+
+On my way home, in the river close to shore, is a crazy little
+tea-house.  It is furnished with three mats and a paper lantern.
+The pretty hostess, fresh and sweet from her out-of-door life,
+brings me rice, tea and fresh eel.  She serves it with such
+gracious hospitality it makes my heart warm.  While I eat, she
+tells me stories of the river life.  I am learning about the social
+life of families of fish and their numerous relatives that sport in
+the "Thing of Substance River"; the habits of the red-headed wild
+ducks which nest near; of the god and goddesses who rule the river
+life, the pranks they play, the revenge they take.  And, too, I am
+learning a lesson in patience through the lives of the humble
+fishermen.  In season seven cents a day is the total of their
+earnings.  At other times, two cents is the limit.  On this they
+manage to live and laugh and raise a family.  It is all so simple
+and childlike, so free from pretension, hurry and rush.  Sometimes
+I wonder if it is not we, with our myriad interests, who have
+strayed from the real things of life.
+
+On my road homeward, too, there is a crudely carved Buddha.  He is
+so altogether hideous, they have put him in a cage of wooden slats.
+On certain days it is quite possible to try your fortune, by buying
+a paper prayer from the priest at the temple, chewing it up and
+throwing it through the cage at the image.  If it sticks you will
+be lucky.
+
+My aim was not straight or luck was against me to-day.  My prayers
+are all on the floor at the feet of the grinning Buddha.
+
+Jack is in Siberia and Uncle has Sada.  I have not heard from her
+since she left.  I am growing truly anxious.
+
+
+
+
+January, 1912.
+
+_Dearest Mate_:
+
+At last I have a letter from Jack.  Strange to say I am about as
+full of enthusiasm over the news he gives me as a thorn-tree is of
+pond-lilies.
+
+He says he has something like a ton of notes and things on the
+various stunts of the bubonic germ in Manchuria when it is feeling
+fit and spry.  But he is seized with a conviction that he must go
+somewhere in northwest China where he thinks there is happy
+hunting-ground of evidence which will verify his report to the
+Government.  Suppose the next thing I hear he will be chasing
+around the outer rim of the old world hunting for somebody to
+verify the Government.
+
+There is absolutely no use of my trying to say the name of the
+place he has started for.  Even when written it looks too wicked to
+pronounce.  It is near the Pass that leads into the Gobi Desert.
+
+Jack wrote me to go to Shanghai and he would join me later.  I am
+writing him that I can't start till the fate of Sada San is settled
+for better or for worse.
+
+
+
+
+NANKOW, CHINA.  February, 1912.
+
+_Mate_:
+
+News of Jack's desperate illness came to me ten days ago and has
+laid waste my heart as the desert wind blasts life.  I have been
+flying to him as fast as boat and train and cart will take me.
+
+The second wire reached me in Peking last night.  Jack has typhus
+fever and the disease is nearing the crisis.  I have read the
+message over and over, trying to read between the lines some faint
+glimmer of hope; but I can get no comfort from the noncommittal
+words except the fact that Jack is still alive.  I am on my way to
+the terminus of the railroad, from where the message was sent.  I
+came this far by train, only to find all regular traffic stopped by
+order of the Government.  The line may be needed for the escape of
+the Imperial Family from Peking if the Palace is threatened by the
+revolutionists.
+
+Orders had been given that no foreigner should leave the Legation
+enclosure.  I bribed the room boy to slip me through the side
+streets and dark alleys to an outside station.  I must go the rest
+of the distance by cart when the road is possible, by camel or
+donkey when not.  Nothing seems possible now.  Everything within
+sight looks as if it had been dead for centuries, and the people
+walking around have just forgotten to be buried.
+
+I am wild with impatience to be gone but neither bribes nor threats
+will hurry the coolies who take their time harnessing the donkeys
+and the camels.
+
+A ring of ossified men, women and children have formed about me,
+staring with unblinking eyes, till I feel as if I was full of peep
+holes.  It is not life, for neither youth nor love nor sorrow has
+ever passed this way.  The tiniest emotion would shrivel if it
+dared begin to live.  Maybe they are better so.  But then, they
+have never known Jack.
+
+How true it is that one big heart-ache withers up all the little
+ones and the joy of years as well.  With this terror upon me, even
+Sada's desperate trouble has faded and grown pale as the memory of
+a dream.  Jack is ill and I must get to him, though my body is
+racked with the rough travel, and the ancient road holds the end of
+love and life for me.
+
+Around the sad old world I am stretching out my arms to you, Mate,
+for the courage to face whatever comes, and your love which has
+never failed me.
+
+
+
+
+KALGAN.
+
+Such wild unbelievable things have happened!
+
+After twenty miles of intolerable shaking on the back of a camel,
+my battered body fell off at the last stopping-place, which
+happened to be here.  There is no hotel.  But three blessed
+European hoys living at this place--agents for a big tobacco
+firm--took me into their little home.  From that time--ten days
+ago--till now, they have served and cared for me as only sons who
+have not forgotten their mothers could do.
+
+On that awful night I came, while forcing food on me, they said
+that Jack had stopped with them on his way out to the desert, where
+he was to complete his work for the Government.  He was to go part
+of the distance with the English woman, who, with her camels and
+her guides, was traveling to the Siberian railroad.  The next day
+they heard the whole caravan had returned.  Four days out Jack had
+been taken ill.  The only available shelter was an old monastery
+about a mile from the village.  To this he had been moved.  My
+hosts opened a window and pointed to a far-away, high-up light.  It
+was like the flicker of a match in a vast cave of darkness.  They
+told me wonderful things of the rooms in the monastery, which were
+cut in the solid rock of the mountain-side, and the strange dwarf
+priest who kept it.
+
+They lied beautifully and cheerfully as to Jack's condition, and
+all the time in their hearts they knew that he had the barest
+chance to live through the night.
+
+The woman doctor had nursed him straight through, permitting no one
+else near.  The dwarf priest brought her supplies.
+
+Her last message for the day had been, "The crisis will soon be
+passed."
+
+Even now something grips my throat when I remember how those dear
+boys worked to divert me, until my strength revived.  They rigged
+up a battered steamer-chair with furs and bath robes, put me in it,
+promising that as soon as I was rested they would see what could be
+done to get me up to the monastery.  But I was not to worry.  All
+of them set about seeing I had no time to think.  Each took his
+turn in telling me marvelous tales of the life in that wild
+country.  One boy brought in the new litter of puppies, begging me
+to carefully choose a name for each.  The two ponies were trotted
+out and put through their pranks before the door in the half light
+of a dim lantern.
+
+They showed me the treasures of their bachelor life, the family
+photographs and the various little nothings which link isolated
+lives to home and love.  They even assured me they had had _the_
+table-cloth and napkins washed for my coming.  Household interests
+exhausted, they began to talk of boyhood days.  Their quiet voices
+soothed me.  Prom exhaustion I slept.  When I woke, my watch said
+one o'clock.  The house was heavy with sleeping-stillness.
+
+Through my window, far away the dim light wavered.  It seemed to be
+signaling me.  My decision was quick.  I would go, and alone.  If I
+called, my hosts would try to dissuade me, and I would not listen.
+For life or for death, I was going to Jack.  The very thought lent
+me strength and gave my feet cunning stealthiness.  A high wall was
+around the house but, thank Heaven, they had forgotten to lock the
+gate.
+
+Soon I was in the deserted, deep-rutted street shut in on either
+side by mud hovels, low and crouching close together in their
+pitiful poverty.  There was nothing to guide me, save that distant
+speck of flame.  Further on, I heard the rush of water and made out
+the dim line of an ancient bridge.  Half way across I stumbled.
+From the heap of rags my foot had struck, came moans, and, by the
+sound of it, awful curses.  It was a handless leper.  I saw the
+stumps as they flew at me.  Sick with horror, I fled and found an
+open place.
+
+The light still beckoned.  The way was heavy with high, drifted
+sand.  The courage of despair goaded me to the utmost effort.
+Forced to pause for breath, I found and leaned against a post.  It
+was a telegraph pole.  In all the blackness and immeasurable
+loneliness, it was the solitary sign of an inhabited world.  And
+the only sound was the wind, as it sang through the taut wires in
+the unspeakable sadness of minor chords.  A camel caravan came by,
+soft-footed, silent and inscrutable.  I waited till it passed out
+to the mysteries of the desert beyond the range of hills.
+
+I began again to climb the path.  It was lighter when I crept
+through a broken wall and found myself in a stone courtyard, with
+gilded shrines and grinning Buddhas.  One image more hideous than
+the rest, with eyes like glow-worms, untangled its legs and came
+towards me.  I shook with fright.  But it was only the dwarf
+priest--a monstrosity of flesh and blood, who kept the temple.  I
+pointed to the light which seemed to be hanging to the side of the
+rocks above.  He slowly shook his head, then rested it on his hands
+and closed his eyes.  I pushed him aside and painfully crawled up
+the shallow stone stairs, and found a door at the top.  I opened
+it.  Lying on a stone bed was Jack, white and still.  A woman
+leaned over him with her hand on his wrist.  Her face was heavily
+lined with a long life of sorrow.  On her head was a crown of
+snow-white hair.  She raised her hand for silence.  I fell at her
+feet a shaking lump of misery.
+
+I could not live through it again, Mate--those  remaining  hours
+of agony, when every second seemed the last for Jack.  But morning
+dawned, and with the miracle of a new-born day came the magic gift
+of life.  When Jack opened his eyes and feebly stretched out his
+hand to me, my singing heart gave thanks to God.
+
+And so the crisis was safely passed.  And the hateful science I
+believed was taking Jack from me, in the skilful hands of a good
+woman, gave him back to me.
+
+The one comfort left me in the humiliation of my petty, unreasoning
+jealousy--yes, I had been jealous--was to tell her.
+
+And she, whose name was Edith Bowden, opened to me the door of her
+secret garden, wherein lay the sweet and holy memories of her
+lover, dead in the long ago.
+
+For forty long and lonesome years she had unfalteringly held before
+her the vision of her young sweetheart and his work, and through
+them she had toiled to make real his ideals.
+
+I take it all back, Mate.  A career that makes such women as this
+is a beautiful and awesome thing.
+
+In spite of all my pleadings to come with us, Miss Bowden started
+once again on her lonely way across the wind-swept plains, back to
+Europe and her work, leaving me with a never-to-be-forgotten
+humility of spirit and an homage in my heart that never before have
+I paid a woman.
+
+I am too polite to say it, but I have had a taste of the place you
+spell with four letters.  Also of Heaven.  Just now, with Jack's
+thin hand safely in mine, I am hovering around the doors of
+Paradise in the house of the boys in Kalgan.  If you could see the
+dusty little Chinese-Mongolian village, hanging on the upper lip of
+the mouth of the Gobi Desert, you would think it a strange place to
+find bliss.  But joy can beautify sand and Sodom.
+
+Yesterday my hosts made me take a ride out into the Desert.  Oh,
+Mate, in spots these glittering golden sands are sublime.  My heart
+was so light and the air so rare, it was like flying through sunlit
+space on a legless horse.
+
+Life, or what answers to it, has been going on in the same way
+since thousands of years before Pharaoh went on that wild lark to
+the Red Sea.  Every minute I expected to see Abraham and Sarah
+trailing along with their flocks and their families, hunting a
+place to stake out a claim, and Noah somewhere on a near-by
+sand-hill, taking in tickets for the Ark Museum, while the "two by
+two's" fed below.  I never heard of these friends being in this
+part of the country, but you can never tell what a wandering spirit
+will do.
+
+Jack is getting fat laughing at me.  But Jack never was a lady and
+does not know what havoc imagination and the spell of the East can
+play with a loving but lonesome wife.  And take it from me,
+beloved, he never will.  Nothing gained in exposing all your
+follies.  He sends love to you.  So do I--from the joyful heart of
+a woman whose most terrible troubles never happened.
+
+
+
+
+PEKING, February, 1912.
+
+_Mate_:
+
+I do not know whether I can write you sanely or not.  But write you
+I must.  It is my one outlet in these days of anxious waiting.  I
+have just cabled Billy Milton, in Nebraska, to come by the first
+steamer.  I have not an idea what he will do when he gets to Japan,
+or how I will help him; but he is my one hope.
+
+Yesterday, on our arrival here, I found a desperate letter from
+Sada San, written hurriedly and sent secretly.  She finds that the
+man Hara, whom her uncle has promised she shall marry, has a wife
+and three children!
+
+The man, on the flimsiest pretest, has sent the woman home to clear
+his establishment for the new wife.  And, Mate, can you believe it,
+he has kept the children--the youngest a nursing baby, just three
+months old!
+
+One of the geisha girls in the tea-house slipped in one night and
+told Sada.  She went at once to Uncle and asked him if it was true.
+He said that it was, and that Sada should consider herself very
+lucky to be wanted by such a man.  Upon Sada telling him she would
+die before she would marry the man, he laughed at her.  Since then
+she has not been permitted to leave her room.
+
+The lucky day for marriage has been found and set.  Thank goodness,
+it is seventeen days from now, and if Billy races across by
+Vancouver he can make it.  In the meantime Nebraska seems a million
+miles away.  I know the heartbeats of the fellow who is riding to
+the place of execution, with a reprieve.  But seventeen days is a
+deadly slow nag.
+
+I had already told Jack of my anxiety for Sada San and of the fate
+that was hanging over her, but now that the blow has suddenly
+fallen I dare not tell him.  In a situation like this I know what
+Jack would want to do; and in his present weakened condition it
+might be fatal.
+
+It is useless for me to appeal to anybody out here.  Those in Japan
+who would help are powerless.  Those who could help would smile
+serenely and tell me it was the law.  And law and custom supersede
+any lesser question of right or wrong.  By it the smallest act of
+every inhabitant is regulated, from the quantity of air he breathes
+to the proper official place for him to die.  But, imagine the
+_majesty_ of any law which makes it a ghastly immorality to mildly
+sass your mother-in-law, and a right, lawful and moral act for a
+man, with any trumped-up excuse, to throw his legal wife out of the
+house, that room may be made for another woman who has appealed to
+his fancy.
+
+Japan may not need missionaries, but, by all the Mikados that ever
+were or will be, her divorce laws need a few revisions more than
+the nation needs battleships.  You might run a country without
+gunboats, but never without women.
+
+This case of Hara is neither extreme nor unusual.  I have been face
+to face in this flowery kingdom with tragedies of this kind when a
+woman was the blameless victim of a man's caprice, and he was
+upheld by a law that would shame any country the sun shines on.  By
+a single stroke of a pen through her name, on the records at the
+courthouse, the woman is divorced--sometimes before she knows it.
+Then she goes away to hide her disgrace and her broken heart--not
+broken because of her love for the man who has cast her off, but
+because, from the time she is invited to go home on a visit and her
+clothes are sent after her, on through life, she is marked.  If she
+has children, the chances are that the husband retains possession
+of them, and she is seldom, if ever, permitted to see them.
+
+I know your words of caution would be, Mate, not to be rash in my
+condemnations, to remember the defects of my own land.  I am
+neither forgetful nor rash.  I do not expect to reform the country,
+neither am I arguing.  I am simply telling you facts.
+
+I know, too, that some Fountain Head of knowledge will rise from
+the back seat and beg to state that the new civil code contains
+many revisions and regulates divorce.  The only trouble with the
+new civil code is that it keeps on containing the revisions and
+only in theory do they get beyond the books in which they are
+written.
+
+Next to my own, in my affections, stands this sunlit,
+flower-covered land which has given the world men and women
+unselfishly brave and noble.  But there are a few deformities in
+the country's law system that need the knife of a skilled surgeon,
+amputating right up to the last joint; among these the divorce laws
+made in ancient times by the gone-to-dust but still sacred and
+revered ancestors.  Who would give a hang for any old ancestor so
+cut on the bias?
+
+I cannot write any more.  I am too agitated to be entertaining.
+
+I wrote Sada a revised version of Blue Beard that would turn that
+venerable gentleman gray, could he read it.  Uncle will be sure to.
+I dare him to solve the puzzle of my fancy writing.  But I made
+Sada San know the Prince Red Head was coming to her rescue, if the
+engine did not break down.
+
+Now there is nothing to do but wait and pray there are no weak
+spots in Billy's backbone.
+
+Cable just received.  William is on the wing!
+
+
+
+
+PEKING, CHINA, February, 1912.
+
+Well, here we still are, my convalescent Jack and I, bottled up in
+the middle of a revolution, and poor, helpless little Sada San
+calling to me across the waters.  Verily, these are strenuous days
+for this perplexed woman.
+
+It is a tremendous sight to look out upon the incomprehensible
+saffron-hued masses that crowd the streets.  I no longer wonder at
+the color of the Yellow Sea.
+
+But, Oh, Mate, if I could only make you see the gilded walled city,
+in which history of the ages is being laid in dust and ashes, while
+the power that made it is hastening down the back alley to a
+mountain nunnery for safety!  Peking is like a beautiful golden
+witch clothed in priceless garments of dusty yellow, girded with
+ropes of pearls.  Her eyes are of jade, and so fine is the powdered
+sand she sifts from her tapering fingers it turns the air to an
+amber haze; so potent its magic spell, it fascinates and enthralls,
+while it repels.
+
+For all the centuries the witch has held the silken threads, which
+bound her millions of subjects, she has been deaf--deaf to the
+cries of starvation, injustice and cruelty; heedless to devastation
+of life by her servants; smiling at piles of headless men; gloating
+over torture when it filled her treasure-house.
+
+Ever cruel and heartless, now she is all a-tremble and sick with
+fear of the increasing power of the mighty young giant--Revolution.
+She sees from afar her numbered days.  She is crying for the mercy
+she never showed, begging for time she never granted.  She is a
+tottering despot, a dying tyrant, but still a beautiful golden
+witch.
+
+We have not been here long but my soul has been sickened by the
+sights of the pitiless consequences of even the rumors of war all
+over the country and particularly in Peking.  If only the
+responsible ones could suffer.  But it is the poor, the innocent
+and the old who pay the price for the greed of the others.  In
+this, how akin the East is to the West!  The night we came there
+was a run on the banks caused by the report that Peking was to be
+looted and burned.  Crowds of men, women and even children,
+hollow-eyed and haggard, jammed the streets before the doors of the
+banks, pleading for their little all.  Some of them had as much as
+two dollars stored away!  But it was the twenty dimes that deferred
+slow starvation.  Banks kept open through the night.  Officials and
+clerks worked to exhaustion, satisfying demands, hoping to placate
+the mob and avert the unthinkable results of a riot.  Countless
+soldiers swarmed the streets with fixed bayonets.  But the
+bloodless witch has no claim to one single heart-beat of loyalty
+from the unpaid wretches who wear the Imperial uniform; and when by
+simply tying a white handkerchief on their arms they go over in
+groups of hundreds to the Revolutionists, they are only repaying
+treachery in its own foul coin.
+
+Though I hate to leave Jack even for an hour, I have to get out
+each day for some fresh air.  To-day it seemed to me, as I walked
+among the crowds, fantastic in the flickering flames of bonfires
+and incandescent light, that life had done its cruel worst to these
+people--had written her bitterest tokens of suffering and woe in
+the deeply furrowed faces and sullenly hopeless eyes.
+
+Earlier in the year thousands of farmers and small tradesmen had
+come in from the country to escape floods, famine and robber-bands.
+Hundreds had sold their children for a dollar or so and for days
+lived on barks and leaves, as they staggered toward Peking for
+relief.
+
+Now thousands more are rushing from the city to the hills or to the
+desert, fleeing from riot and war, the strong carrying the sick,
+the young the old--each with a little bundle of household goods,
+all camping near the towering gates in the great city wall, ready
+to dash through when the keeper flings them open in the early
+morning.
+
+And through it all the merciless execution of any suspect or
+undesirable goes merrily on.  Close by my carriage a cart passed.
+In it were four wretched creatures with hands and feet bound and
+pigtails tied together.  They were on their way to a plot of
+crimson ground where hundreds part with their heads.  By the side
+of the cart ran a ten-year-old boy, his uplifted face distorted
+with agony of grief.  One of the prisoners was his father.
+
+I watched the terrified masses till a man and woman of the
+respectable farmer class came by, with not enough rags on to hide
+their half-starved bodies.  Between them they carried on their
+shoulders a bamboo pole, from which was swung a square of matting.
+On this, in rags, but clean, lay a mere skeleton of a baby with
+beseeching eyes turned to its mother; and from its lips came
+piteous little whines like a hunger-tortured kitten.  Tears
+streamed down the woman's cheeks as she crooned and babbled to the
+child in a language only a tender mother knows, but in her eyes was
+the look of a soul crucified with helpless suffering.
+
+I slipped all the money I had into the straw cradle and fled to our
+room.  Jack was asleep.  I got into my bed and covered up my head
+to shut out the horrors of the multitude that are hurting my own
+heart like an eternal toothache.
+
+But, honey, bury me deep when there isn't a smile lurking around
+the darkest corner.  Neither war nor famine can wholly eliminate
+the comical.  Yesterday afternoon some audacious youngsters asked
+me to chaperon a tea-party up the river.  We went in a gaily
+decorated house-boat, made tea on a Chinese stove of impossible
+shape, and ate cakes and sandwiches innumerable.  Aglow with youth
+and its joys, reckless of danger, courting adventure, the promoters
+of the enterprise failed to remember that we were outside the city
+walls, that the gates were closed at sunset and nothing but a
+written order from an official could open them.  We had no such
+order.  When it was quite dark, we faced entrances doubly locked
+and barred.  The guardian inside might have been dead for all he
+heeded our importunities and bribes.  At night outside the huge
+pile of brick and stone, inclosing and guarding the city from
+lawless bandits, life is not worth a whistle.  A dismayed little
+giggle went round the crowd of late tea revelers as we looked up
+the twenty-five feet of smooth wall topped by heavy battlements.
+Just when we had about decided that our only chance was to stand on
+each other's shoulders and try to hack out footholds with a bread
+knife, some one suggested that we try the effect of college yells
+on the gentlemen within.  Imagine the absurdity of a dozen
+terrified Americans standing there in the heart of China yelling in
+unison for Old Eli, and Nassau, and the Harvard Blue!
+
+The effect was magical.  Curiosity is one of the strongest of
+Oriental traits, and before long the gates creaked on their hinges
+and a crowd of slant-eyed, pig-tailed heads peered wonderingly out.
+The rest was easy, and I heard a great sigh of relief as I
+marshaled my little group into safety.
+
+Jack's many friends here in Peking are determined that I shall have
+as good a time as possible.  Worried by disorganized business,
+harassed with care, they always find opportunity not only to plan
+for my pleasure but see that I have it, properly attended--for of
+course Jack is not yet able to leave his room.
+
+Beyond the power of any man is the prophecy of what may happen to
+official-ridden Peking.  The air is surcharged with mutterings.
+The brutally oppressed people may turn at last, rise, and, in their
+fury, rend to bits all flesh their skeleton fingers grasp.
+
+The Legations grouped around the hotel are triply guarded.  The
+shift, shift, shift of soldiers' feet as they march the streets
+rubs my nerves like sandpaper.
+
+Rest and sleep are impossible.  We seem constantly on the edge of a
+precipice, over which, were we to go, the fate awaiting us would
+reduce the tortures of Hades to pin-pricks.  The Revolutionists
+have the railroads, the bandits the rivers.  Yet, if I don't reach
+Japan in twelve days now, I will be too late.  Poor Sada San!
+
+Please say to your small son David that his request to send him an
+Emperor's crown to wear when he plays king, is not difficult to
+grant.  At the present writing crowns in the Orient are not
+fashionable.  As I look out of my window, the salmon-pink walls of
+the Forbidden City rise in the dusty distance.  Under the flaming
+yellow roof of the Palace is a frail and frightened little
+six-year-old boy--the ruler of millions--who, if he knew and could,
+would gladly exchange his priceless crown for freedom and a bag of
+marbles.
+
+Good night.
+
+
+
+
+PEKING, Next day.
+
+It is Sunday afternoon and pouring rain.  Outside it is so drearily
+mournful, I keep my back turned.  At least, the dripping wet will
+secure me a quiet hour or so.
+
+My Chinese room-boy reasons that only a sure-enough somebody would
+have so many callers and attend so many functions--not knowing that
+it is only because Jack's wife will never lack where he has
+friends.  Hence the boy haunts my door ready to serve and reap his
+reward.  But I am sure it was only kindness that prompted him on
+this dreary day to set the fire in the grate to blazing and arrange
+the tea-table, the steaming kettle close by, and turn on all the
+lights.  How cozy it is!  How homelike!
+
+Jack grows stronger each day, and crosser, which is a good sign.
+At last I have told him of Sada San's plight; and he is for
+starting for Kioto to-morrow to "wipe the floor with Uncle Mura,"
+as he elegantly expresses it.  But of course he 's still too weak
+to even think of such a journey.
+
+He makes me join in the gaieties that still go on despite the
+turmoil and unrest.  I must tell you of one dinner which, of the
+many brilliant functions, was certainly unique.
+
+It was a sumptuous affair given by one of the Legation officials.
+I wore my glory dress--the color Jack loves best.  I went in a
+carriage guarded on the outside by soldiers.  Beside me sat a
+strapping European with his pockets bulging suspiciously.  I was
+not in the least afraid of the threatening mob which stopped us
+twice.
+
+I could almost have welcomed an attack, just to get behind my big
+escort and see him clear the way.
+
+Merciful powers!  Hate is a sweet and friendly word for what the
+masses feel for the foreigners, whom most believe to be in league
+with the Government.
+
+Happily, nothing more serious happened than breaking all the
+carriage windows; and, in the surprise that awaited me in the
+drawing-room of the gorgeously appointed mansion, I quite forgot
+that.
+
+Who should be almost the first to greet me but Dolly and Mr. Dolly,
+otherwise the Seeker, married and on their honeymoon!  She was
+radiant.  And oh, Mate, if you could only see the change in him!
+As revolutions seem to be in order, Dolly has worked a prize one on
+him, I think.  He was positively gentle and showed signs of the
+making of a near gentleman.  I was glad to see them, and more than
+glad to see Dolly's unfeigned happiness.  The mournful little
+prince has gone on his way to lonely, isolated Sikkam to take up
+his task of endless reincarnation.
+
+Very soon I found another surprise--my friend Mr. Carson of the
+Rockies.  It seemed a little incongruous that the simple,
+unlettered Irishman should have found his way into the brilliant,
+many-countried company, where were men who made history and held
+the fate of nations in their hands and built or crumbled empires,
+and women to match, regally gowned, keen of wit and wisdom.
+
+But, bless you, he was neither troubled nor out of place.  He was
+the essence of democracy and mixed with the guests with the same
+innocent simplicity that he would have shown at his village church
+social.
+
+He greeted me cordially, asked after Jack and spoke
+enthusiastically of his work.
+
+I smiled when I saw that in the curious shuffling of cards he had
+been chosen as the dinner escort of a tall and stately Russian
+beauty.  I watched them walk across the waxen floor and heard him
+say to her, "Sure if I had time I would telegraph for me roller
+skates to guide ye safely over the slickness of the boards."  Her
+answering laugh, sweet and friendly, was reassuring.
+
+For a while it was a deadly solemn feast.  The difficulty was to
+find topics of common interest without stumbling upon forbidden
+subjects.  You see, Mate, times are critical; and the only way to
+keep out of trouble is not to get in by being too wordy.  By my
+side sat a stern-visaged leader of the Revolution.  Across the way,
+a Manchu Prince.
+
+Mr. Carson and the beauty were just opposite.  I became absorbed in
+watching her exquisite tact in guiding the awkward hands of her
+partner through the silver puzzle on each side of his plate to the
+right eating utensils at the proper time.  I saw her pleased
+interest in all his talk, whether it was crops, cider or pigtails.
+And for her gentle courtesy and kindness to my old friend I blessed
+her and wiped out a big score I had against her country.  How glad
+Russia will be!
+
+But the Irishman was not happy.  Course after course had been
+served.  With every rich course came a rare wine.  Colorado shook a
+shaggy gray head at every bottle, though he was choking with
+thirst.  He was a teetotaler.  Whenever boy No. 1, who served the
+wine, approached, he whispered, "Water."  It got to be "Water,
+please, _water_!"  Then threateningly, "Water, blame ye!  Fetch me
+water." It was vain pleading.  At best a Chinaman is no friend to
+water; and when the word is flung at him with an Emerald accent it
+fails to arrive.  But ten courses without moisture bred
+desperation; and all at once, down the length of that banquet
+board, went a hoarsely whispered plea, in the richest imaginable
+brogue,
+
+"Hostess, _where 's_ the pump?"
+
+It was like a sky-rocket scattering showers of sparks on a lowering
+cloud.  In a twinkling the heaviness of the feast was dispersed by
+shouts of laughter.  Everybody found something delightful to tell
+that was not dangerous.
+
+We wound up by going to a Chinese theater.  When we left, after two
+hours of death and devastation, the demands of the drama for gore
+were still so great, assistants had to be called from out the
+audience to change the scenery and dead men brought to life to go
+on with the play.
+
+When I got back Jack was, of course, asleep; but he had been busy
+in my absence.  I found a note on my pin-cushion saying he had sent
+a wire to meet Billy's steamer on its arrival at Yokohama and that
+I 'm to start alone for Japan in a day or two--as soon as it seems
+safe to travel.
+
+
+
+
+Next day.
+
+Honey, there is a thrill a minute.  I may not live to see the
+finish, for the soldiers have mutinied and joined the mob, maddened
+with lust for blood and loot.  I must tell you about it while I
+can; for it is not every day one has the chance of seeing a fresh
+and daring young Republic sally up to an all-powerful dynasty,
+centuries old with tyranny and treasure, and say, "Now, you vamoose
+the Golden Throne.  It matters not where you go, but hustle; and I
+don't want any back talk while you are doing it."
+
+If I was n't so excited I might be nervous.  But, Mate, when you
+see a cruelly oppressed people winning their freedom with almost
+nothing to back them hut plain grit, you want to sing, dance, pray
+and shout all at the same time, and there is no mistake about young
+China having a mortgage on all the surplus nerve of the country.
+Of course, the mob, awful as it is, is simply an unavoidable
+attachment of war.
+
+All day there has been terrible fighting, and I am told the streets
+are blocked with headless bodies and plunder that could not be
+carried off.
+
+The way the mob and the soldier-bandits got into the city is a
+story that makes any tale of the Arabian Nights fade away into dull
+myth.
+
+Some years ago a Manchu official, high in command, espied a
+beautiful flower-girl on the street and forthwith attached her as
+his private property.  So great was her fascination, the tables
+were turned and he became the slave--till he grew tired.  He not
+only scorned her, but he deserted her.  Though a Manchu maid, the
+Revolution played into her tapering fingers the opportunity for the
+sweetest revenge that ever tempted an almond-eyed beauty.  It had
+been the proud boast of her officer master that he could resist any
+attacking party and hold the City Royal for the Manchus.  Alas! he
+reckoned without a woman.  She knew a man outside the city walls--a
+leader of an organization--half soldiery, half bandits--who
+thirsted for the chance to pay off countless scores against
+officers and private citizens inside.  After a vain effort to win
+back her lover, the flower-girl communicated with the captain of
+the rebel band, who had only been deterred from entering the city
+by a high wall twenty feet thick.  She told him to be ready to come
+in on a certain night--the gates would be open.  The night came.
+She slipped from doorway to doorway through the guarded streets
+till she reached the appointed place.  Even the sentries
+unconsciously lent a hand to her plan, in leaving their posts and
+seeking a tea-house fire by which to warm their half-frozen bodies.
+The one-time jewel of the harem, who had seldom lifted her own
+teacup, tugged at the mighty gates with her small hands till the
+bars were raised and in rushed the mob.  She raced to her home,
+decked herself in all the splendid jewels he had given her, stuck
+red roses in her black hair, and stood on a high roof and jeered
+her lover as he fled for his life through the narrow streets.
+
+
+The city is bright with the fires started by the rabble.  The
+yellow roofs, the pink walls and the towering marble pagodas catch
+the reflection of the flames, making a scene of barbaric splendor
+that would reduce the burning of Rome to a feeble little bonfire.
+
+The pitiful, the awful and the very funny are so intermixed, my
+face is fatally twisted trying to laugh and cry at the same time.
+Right across from my window, on the street curbing, a Chinaman is
+getting a hair-cut.  In the midst of all the turmoil, hissing
+bullets and roaring mobs, he sits with folded hands and closed eyes
+as calm as a Joss, while a strolling barber manipulates a pair of
+foreign shears.  For him blessed freedom lies not in the change of
+Monarchy to Republic, but in the shearing close to the scalp the
+hated badge of bondage--his pigtail.
+
+And, Mate, the first thing the looters do when they enter a house
+is to snatch down the telephones and take them out to burn; for, as
+one rakish bandit explained, they were the talking-machines of the
+foreign devils and, if left, might reveal the names of the looters!
+
+High-born ladies with two-inch feet stumble by, their calcimined
+faces streaked with tears and fright.  Gray-haired old men shiver
+with terror and try to hide in any small corner.  Lost children and
+deserted ones, frantic with fear, cling to any passer-by, only to
+be shoved into the street and often trampled underfoot.  And
+through it all, the mob runs and pitilessly mows down with sword
+and knife as it goes, and plunders and sacks till there is nothing
+left.
+
+As I stood watching only a part of this horror, I heard a
+long-haired brother near me say, as he kept well under cover,
+"Inscrutable Providence!"  But (my word!) I don't think it fair to
+lay it all on Providence.
+
+So far the foreign Legations have been well guarded.  But there is
+no telling how long the overworked soldiers can hold out.  When
+they cannot, the Lord help the least one of us.
+
+Jack's friends are working day and night, guarding their property.
+
+I guess the Seeker found more of the plain unvarnished Truth in the
+East than he bargained for.  He and Dolly have disappeared from
+Peking.
+
+Nobody undresses these nights and few go to bed.  Our bodyguard is
+the room-boy.  I asked him which side he was on, and without a
+change of feature he answered, "Manchu Chinaman.  Allee samee
+bimeby, Missy, I make you tea."  I have a suspicion that he sleeps
+across our door, for his own or our protection, I am not sure
+which; but sometimes, when the terrible howls of fighters reach me,
+as I doze in a chair, I turn on the light and sit by my fire to
+shake off a few shivers, trying to make believe I 'm home in
+Kentucky, while Jack sleeps the sleep of the convalescent.  Then a
+soft tap comes at my door and a very gentle voice says, "Missy, I
+make you tea."  Shades of Pekoe!  I 'll drown if this keeps up much
+longer.  He comes in, brews the leaves, then drops on his haunches
+and looks into the fire.  Not by the quiver of an eyelash does he
+give any sign, no matter how close the shots and shouts.
+Inscrutable and immovable, he seems a thing utterly apart from the
+tremendous upheaval of his country.  And yet, for all anybody
+knows, he may be chief plotter of the whole movement.  His unmoved
+serenity is about the most soothing thing in all this Hades.  I am
+not really and truly afraid.  Jack is with me, and just over there,
+above the crimson glare of the burning city, gently but surely
+float the Stars and Stripes.
+
+Good night, beloved Mate.  I will not believe we are dead till it
+happens.  Besides, I simply could not die till Jack and I have
+saved Sada San.
+
+By the way, I start for Japan tomorrow.  The prayers of the
+congregation are requested!
+
+
+
+
+KIOTO HOTEL, KIOTO, March, 1912.
+
+_Beloved Mate_:
+
+Rejoice with me!  Sing psalms and give thanks.  Something has
+happened.  I do not know just what it is, but little thrills of
+happiness are playing hop-scotch up and down my back, and my bead
+is lighter than usual.
+
+Be calm and I will tell you about it.
+
+In the first place, I got here this morning, more dead than alive,
+after days of travel that are now a mere blur of yelling crowds,
+rattling trains and heaving seas.  A wire from Yokohama was
+waiting.  Billy had beat me here by a few hours.  At noon, to-day,
+a big broad-shouldered youth met me, whom I made no mistake in
+greeting as Mr. Milton.  Billy's eyes are beautifully brown.
+William's chin looks as if it was modeled for the purpose of
+dealing with tea-house Uncles.
+
+Not far from the station is a black-and-tan temple--ancient and
+restful.  To that we strolled and sat on the edge of the Fountain
+of Purification, which faces the quiet monastery garden, while we
+talked things over.  That is, Billy did the questioning; I did the
+talking to the mystic chanting of the priests.
+
+I quickly related all that I knew of what had happened to Sada, and
+what was about to happen.  There was no reason for me to adorn the
+story with any fringes for it to be effective.  Billy's face was
+grim.  He said little; put a few more questions, then left me
+saying he would join me at dinner in the hotel.
+
+I passed an impatient, tedious afternoon.  Went shopping, bought
+things I can never use, wondering all the time what was going to be
+the outcome.  Got a reassuring cable from Jack in answer to mine,
+saying all was well with him.
+
+Mr. Milton returned promptly this evening.  He ordered dinner, then
+forgot to eat.  He did not refer to the afternoon; and long
+intimacy with science has taught me when not to ask questions.
+There was only a fragment of a plan in my mind; I had no further
+communication from Sada, and knew nothing more than that the
+wedding was only a day off.
+
+We decided to go to Uncle's house together.  I was to get in the
+house and see Sada if possible, taking, as the excuse for calling,
+a print on which, in an absent-minded moment, I had squandered
+thirty yen.
+
+Billy was to stay outside, and, if I could find the faintest reason
+for so doing, I was to call him in.  This was his suggestion.
+
+I found Uncle scintillating with good humor and hospitality.
+Evidently his plans were going smoothly; but not once did he refer
+to them.  I asked for Sada.  Uncle smiled sweetly and said she was
+not in.  Ananias died for less!  He was quite capable of locking
+her up in some very quiet spot.  I was externally indifferent and
+internally dismayed.  I showed him my print.  At once he was the
+eager, interested artist and he went into a long history of the
+picture.
+
+Though I looked at him and knew he was talking, his words conveyed
+no meaning.  I was faint with despair.  It was my last chance.  I
+could have wagered Uncle's best picture that Billy was tearing up
+gravel outside.  I had been in the house an hour, and had
+accomplished nothing.  Surely if I stayed long enough something had
+to happen.
+
+Suddenly out of my hopelessness came a blessed thought.  Uncle had.
+once promised to show me a priceless original of Hokusai.  I asked
+if I might see it then.  He was so elated that without calling a
+servant to do it for him he disappeared into a deep cupboard to
+find his treasure.
+
+For a moment, helpless and desperate, I was swayed with a mad
+impulse to lock him up in the cupboard; but there was no lock.
+
+It was so deadly still it hurt.  Then, coming from the outside, I
+heard a low whistle with an unmistakable American twist to it,
+followed by a soft scraping sound.  My heart missed two beats.  I
+did not know what was happening; nor was I sure that Sada was
+within the house; but something told me that my cue was to keep
+Uncle busy.  I obeyed with a heavy accent.  When he appeared with
+his print, I began to talk.  I recklessly repeated pages of
+text-books, whether they fitted or not; I fired technical terms at
+him till he was dizzy with mental gymnastics.
+
+He smoothed out his precious picture.  I fell upon it.  I raved
+over the straight-front mountains and the marceled waves in that
+foolish old woodcut as I had never gushed over any piece of paper
+before, and I hope I never will again.  Not once did he relinquish
+his hold of that faded deformity in art, and neither did I.
+
+Surely I surprised myself with the new joys I constantly found in
+the pigeon-toed ladies and slant-eyed warriors.  Uncle needed
+absorption, concentration and occupation.  Mine was the privilege
+to give him what he required.
+
+No further sound from the garden and the silence drilled holes into
+my nerves.  I was so fearful that the man would see my trembling
+excitement, I soon made my adieux.
+
+Uncle seemed a little surprised and graciously mentioned that tea
+was being prepared for me.  I never wanted tea less and solitude
+more.  I said I must take the night train for Hiroshima.  It was a
+sudden decision; but to stay would be useless.
+
+I said, "Sayonara," and smiled my sweetest.  I had a feeling I
+would never see dear Uncle Mura on earth again and doubtless our
+environment will differ in the Beyond.
+
+I went to the gate.  It faced two streets.  Both were empty.  Not a
+sign of Billy nor the jinrickshas in which we had come.  I trod on
+air as I tramped back to the hotel.
+
+
+
+
+HIROSHIMA, Five Days Later, 1912.
+
+_Mate dear_:
+
+I am back in my old quarters--safe.  Why should n't I be!  A
+detective has been my constant companion since I left Kioto,
+sitting by my berth all night on the train, and following me to the
+gates of the School!
+
+I had planned to start back to Peking as soon as Sada and Billy
+were clear and away.  But this detective business has made me very
+wary--not to say weary--and I 've had to postpone my return to Jack
+to await the Emperor's pleasure and lest I bring more trouble on
+Sada's head, by following too closely on her heels; for I suspect
+the blessed elopers are themselves on the way to China.
+
+When I took my walk into the country the afternoon after I got
+here, I saw the detective out of the back of my head, and a merry
+chase I led him--up the steepest paths I knew, down the rocky
+sides, across the ferry, and into the remote village, where I let
+him rest his body in the stinging cold while I made an unexpected
+call.  For once he earned his salary and his supper.
+
+That night I was in the sitting-room alone.  A glass door leads out
+to an open porch.  Conscious of a presence, I looked up to find two
+penetrating eyes fixed on me.  It made me creepy and cold, yet I
+was amused.  I sat long and late, but a quiet shadow near the door
+told me I was not alone.  Even when in bed I could hear soft steps
+under my window.
+
+I have just come from an interview that was deliciously
+illuminating.
+
+Sada San has disappeared; and, so goes their acute reasoning, as I
+was the last person in Uncle's house, before her absence was
+discovered, the logical conclusion is that I have kidnapped her.
+
+Two hours ago the scared housemaid came to announce that "two Mr.
+Soldiers with swords wanted to speak to me."
+
+I went at once, to find my guardian angel and the Chief of Police
+for this district in the waiting-room.  We wasted precious minutes
+making inquiries about one another's health, accentuating every
+other word with a bow and a loud indrawn breath.  We were tuning up
+for the business in hand.
+
+The chief began by assuring me that I was a teacher of great
+learning.  I had not heard it but bowed.  It was poison to his
+spirit to question so honorable, august, and altogether wise a
+person, but I was suspected of a grave offense, and I must answer
+his questions.
+
+Where was my home?
+
+Easy.
+
+How did I live?
+
+Easier.
+
+Who was my grandfather?
+
+Fortunately I remembered.
+
+Was I married?
+
+Muchly.
+
+Where was my master?
+
+Did not have any.  My husband was in China.
+
+Was I in Japan by his permission?
+
+I was.
+
+Had I been sent home for disobedience?  Please explain.
+
+No explanation.  I was just here.
+
+Did I know the penalty for kidnaping?
+
+No, color-prints interested me more.
+
+Had any of my people ever been in the penitentiary?
+
+No, only the Legislature.
+
+At this both men looked puzzled.  Then the Chief made a discovery.
+
+"Ah-h," he sighed, "American word for crazysylum!"
+
+Would Madame positively state that she knew nothing of the girl's
+whereabouts.  Madame positively and truthfully so stated.  I did
+not know.  I only knew what I thought; but, Mate, you cannot arrest
+a man for thinking.  After a grilling of an hour or so they left
+me, looking worried and perplexed.  They had never heard of Billy,
+and I saw no use adding to their troubles.  Nobody seems to have
+noticed him at dinner with me; and now that I think of it, he had
+men strange to the hotel pulling the jinrickshas.
+
+It was dear of Billy not to implicate me.  I am ignorant of what
+really happened, but wherever they are I am sure Sada is in the
+keeping of an honorable man.
+
+Last night, after I closed this letter, I had a cable.  It said:
+
+  "Married in heaven,
+    "BILLY AND SADA."
+
+But the cables must have been crossed, for it was dated Shanghai;
+or else the operator was so excited over repeating such a message
+he forgot to put in the period.
+
+
+
+
+March 15.
+
+Just received a letter from Billy and Sada.  It is a gladsome tale
+they tell.  Young Lochinvar, though pale with envy, would how to
+Billy's direct method.  I can see you, blessed Mate that you are,
+smiling delightedly at the grand finale of the true love story I
+have been writing you these months.  Billy says on the night it all
+happened he tramped up and down, waiting for me to call him, till
+he wore "gullies in the measly little old cow-path they call a
+street."
+
+The passing moments only made him more furious.  Finally he decided
+to walk right into the house, unannounced, and find Sada if he had
+to knock Uncle down and make kindling wood of the bamboo
+doll-house.  But as he came into the side garden he saw in the
+second story a picture silhouetted on the white paper doors.  It
+was Sada and her face was buried in her hands.  That settled Billy.
+He would save Uncle all the worry of an argument by simply removing
+the cause.  There in the dusk, he whistled the old college call,
+then swung himself up on a fat stone lantern, and in a few minutes
+he swung down a suitcase and Sada in American clothes.  They caught
+a train to Kobe, which is only a short distance, and sailed out to
+the same steamer he had left in Yokohama and which arrived in Kobe
+that day.
+
+Billy says, for a quick and safe wedding ceremony commend him to an
+enthusiastic, newly-arrived young missionary; and for rapid
+handling of red tape connected with a license, pin your faith to a
+fat and jolly American consul.  So that was what the blessed rascal
+was doing all that afternoon he left me in Kioto to myself.  Cannot
+you see success in life branded on William's freckled brow right
+now?
+
+The story soon spread over the ship.  Passengers and crew packed
+the music-room to witness the ceremony, and joyously drank the
+health of the lovers at the supper the Captain hastily ordered.
+Without hindrance, but half delirious with joy, they headed for
+Shanghai.
+
+Billy found that he could transact a little business in China for
+the firm at home and with Western enterprise decided to make his
+honeymoon pay for itself.
+
+And now that my task is finished I shall follow them as fast as the
+next steamer can carry me.
+
+
+
+
+PEKING, APRIL, 1912.
+
+Back once again, Mate, in the City of Golden Dusts.  Glorious
+spring sunshine, and the whole world wrapped in a tender haze.
+Everything has little rainbows around it and the very air is
+studded with jewels.
+
+Soldiers are still marching; flags are flying; drums are thumping
+and it is all to the tune of Victory for the Revolutionists.  But
+best of all Jack is well!  To me Peking is like that first morning
+of Eve's in the Garden of Eden.
+
+What crowded, happy weeks these last have been.  Waiting for Jack;
+amusing him when time hangs heavy--even unto reading pages of
+scientific books with words so big the spine of my tongue is
+threatened with fracture.
+
+And in between times?  Well, I am thanking my stars for the chance
+to doubly make up for any little tenderness I may have passed by.
+Put it in your daily thought book, honey, forevermore I am going to
+remember that if at the time we'd use the strength in doing, that
+we consume afterwards being sorry we didn't do, life would run on
+an easy trolley.
+
+Billy and Sada are with us, still with the first glow of the
+enchanted garden over them.  Bless their happy hearts!  I am going
+to give them my collection of color prints to start housekeeping
+with.  How I'd _love_ to see Uncle--through a telescope.
+
+To-night we are having our last dinner here.  To-morrow the four of
+us turn our faces toward the most beautiful spot this side of
+Heaven, home.  The happy runaways to Nebraska, Jack and I to the
+little roost we left behind in Kentucky.
+
+
+There goes the music for dinner.  It 's something about "dreamy
+love." Love is n't a dream, Mate--not the kind I know; it's all of
+life and beyond.
+
+I know what they are playing!
+
+  Breathe but one breath
+  Rose beauty above
+  And all that was death
+  Grows life, grows love,
+  Grows love!
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lady and Sada San
+by Frances Little
+(pseudonym of Fannie Caldwell Macaulay)
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12240 ***
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #12240 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12240)
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lady and Sada San
+by Frances Little
+(pseudonym of Fannie Caldwell Macaulay)
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Lady and Sada San
+       A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration
+
+Author: Frances Little
+(pseudonym of Fannie Caldwell Macaulay)
+
+Release Date: May 3, 2004 [EBook #12240]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LADY AND SADA SAN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Lady and Sada San
+
+A Sequel to
+
+The Lady of the Decoration
+
+
+
+By
+
+Frances Little
+
+
+
+
+New York
+The Century Co.
+1912
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1912, by
+
+THE CENTURY CO.
+
+Published, October, 1912
+
+
+
+TO
+
+ELLEN CHURCHILL SEMPLE
+
+AND
+
+CHARLOTTE SMITH
+
+MY FELLOW WANDERERS THROUGH THE ORIENT
+
+
+
+
+The Lady and Sada San
+
+ON THE HIGH SEAS.  June, 1911.
+
+_Mate_:
+
+You once told me, before you went to Italy, that after having been
+my intimate relative all these years, you had drawn a red line
+through the word surprise.  Restore the abused thing to its own at
+once.  You will need it when the end of this letter is reached.  I
+have left Kentucky after nine years of stay-at-home happiness, and
+once again I am on my way to Japan--this time in wifely
+disobedience to Jack's wishes.
+
+What do you think that same Jack has "gone and done"!  Of course he
+is right.  That is the provoking part of Jack; it always turns out
+that he is in the right.  Two months ago he went to some place in
+China which, from its ungodly name, should be in the furthermost
+parts of a wilderness.  Perhaps you have snatched enough time from
+guarding the kiddies from a premature end in Como to read a
+headline or so in the home papers.  If by some wonderful chance,
+between baby prattle, bumps and measles, they have given you a
+moment's respite, then you know that the Government has grown
+decidedly restless for fear the energetic and enterprising bubonic
+or pneumonic germ might take passage on some of the ships from the
+Orient.  So it is fortifying against invasion.  The Government,
+knowing Jack's indomitable determination to learn everything
+knowable about the private life and character of a given germ,
+asked him to join several other men it is sending out to get
+information, provided of course the germ doesn't get them first.
+
+Jack read me the official-looking document one night between puffs
+of his after-dinner pipe.
+
+Another surprise awaits you.  For once in my life I had nothing to
+say.  Possibly it is just as well for the good of the cause that
+the honorable writer of the letter could not see how my thoughts
+looked.
+
+I glanced about our little den, aglow with soft lights; everything
+in it seemed to smile.  Well, as you know it, Mate, I do not
+believe even you realize the blissfulness of the hours of quiet
+comradeship we have spent there.  With the great know-it-all old
+world shut out, for joyful years we have dwelt together in a
+home-made paradise.  And yet it seemed just then as if I were
+dwelling in a home-made Other Place.
+
+The difference in the speed of time depends on whether love is your
+guest or not.
+
+The thought of the briefest interruption to my content made me feel
+like cold storage.  A break in happiness is sometimes hard to mend.
+The blossom does not return to the tree after the storm, no matter
+how beautiful the sunshine; and the awful fear of the faintest echo
+of past sorrow made my heart as numb as a snowball.  To the old
+terror of loneliness was added fear for Jack's safety.  But I did
+not do what you naturally would prophesy.  After seeing the look on
+Jack's face I changed my mind, and my protest was the silent kind
+that says so much.  It was lost!  Already Jack had gone into one of
+his trances, as he does whenever there is a possibility of bearding
+a brand-new microbe in its den, whether it is in his own country or
+one beyond the seas.  In body he was in a padded chair with all the
+comforts of home and a charming wife within speaking distance.  In
+spirit he was in dust-laden China, joyfully following the trail of
+the wandering germ.  Later on, when Jack came to, we talked it
+over.  I truly remembered your warnings on the danger of
+impetuosity; for I choked off every hasty word and gave my consent
+for Jack to go.  Then I cried half the night because I had.
+
+We both know that long ago Jack headed for the topmost rung of a
+very tall scientific ladder.  Sometimes my enthusiasm as chief
+booster and encourager has failed, as when it meant absence and
+risk.  Though I have known women who specialized in renunciation,
+till they were the only happy people in the neighborhood, its
+charms have never lured me into any violent sacrifice.  Here was my
+chance and I firmly refused to be the millstone to ornament Jack's
+neck.
+
+You might know, Mate?  I was hoping all the time that he would find
+it quite impossible to leave such a nice biddable wife at home.
+But I learn something new about Jack every day.  After rather
+heated discussion it was decided that I should stay in the little
+home.  That is, the heat and the discussion was all on my side.
+The decision lay in the set of Jack's mouth, despite the tenderness
+in his eyes.  He thought the risks of the journey too great for me;
+the hardships of the rough life too much.  Dear me!  Will men never
+learn that hardship and risk are double cousins to loneliness, and
+not even related to love by marriage?
+
+But just as well paint on water as to argue with a scientist when
+he has reached a conclusion.
+
+Besides, said Jack, the fatherly Government has no intention that
+petticoats, even hobbled ones, should be flitting around while the
+habits and the methods of the busy insect were being examined
+through a microscope or a telescope.  The choice of instrument
+depending, of course, upon the activity of the bug.
+
+Black Charity was to be my chief-of-police and
+comforter-in-general.  Parties--house, card and otherwise--were to
+be my diversion, and I was to make any little trips I cared for.
+Well, that 's just what I am doing.  Of course, there might be a
+difference of opinion as to whether a journey from Kentucky to
+Japan is a _little_ trip.
+
+I am held by a vague uneasiness today.  Possibly it 's because I am
+not certain as to Jack's attitude, when he learns through my
+letter, which is sailing along with me, that I am going to Japan to
+be as near him as possible.  I hope he will appreciate my
+thoughtfulness in saving him all the bother of saying no.  Or it
+might be that my slightly dampened spirits come from the discussion
+I am still having with myself whether it 's the part of a dutiful
+wife to present herself a wiggling sacrifice to science, or whether
+science should attend to its own business and lead not into
+temptation the scientifically inclined heads of peaceful households.
+
+You 'll say the decision of what was best lay with Jack.  Honey,
+there 's the error of your mortal mind!  In a question like that my
+spouse is as one-sided as a Civil War veteran.  Say germ-hunt to
+Jack and it 's like dangling a gaudy fly before a hungry carp.
+
+I saw Jack off at the station, and went hack to the little house.
+Charity had sent the cook home and with her own hands served all
+the beloved dainties of my long-ago childhood, trying to coax me
+into forgetfulness.  As you remember, Mate, dinner has always been
+the happiest hour of the day in our small domain.  Now?  Well,
+everything was just the same.  The only difference was Jack.  And
+the half circle of bare tablecloth opposite me was about as
+cheerful as a snowy afternoon at the North Pole.  I wandered around
+the house for awhile, but every time I turned a corner there was a
+memory waiting to greet me.  Now the merriest of them seemed to be
+covered with a chilly shadow, and every one was pale and ghostly.
+All night I lay awake, playing at the old game of mental solitaire
+and keeping tryst with the wind which seemed to tap with unseen
+fingers at my window and sigh,
+
+  "Then let come what come may
+  .    .    .    .    .    .
+  I shall have had my day."
+
+Is it possible, Mate, that my glorious day, which I thought had
+barely tipped the hour of noon, is already lengthening into the
+still shadows of evening?
+
+It was foolish but, for the small comfort I got out of it, I turned
+on the light and looked inside my wedding-ring.  Time has worn it a
+bit but the letters which spell "My Lady of the Decoration,"
+spelled again the old-time thrill into my heart.
+
+What 's the use of tying your heartstrings around a man, and then
+have ambition slip the knot and leave you all a-quiver?
+
+Far be it from me to stand in Jack's way if germ-stalking is
+necessary to his success.  Just the same, I could have spent
+profitable moments reading the burial service over every microbe,
+home-grown and foreign.
+
+Really, Mate, I 've conscientiously tried every plan Jack proposed
+and a few of my own.  It was no use.  That day-after-Christmas
+feeling promptly suppressed any effort towards contentment.
+
+At first there was a certain exhilaration in catching pace with the
+gay whirl which for so long had been passed by for homier things.
+You will remember there was a time when the pace of that same whirl
+was never swift enough for me; but my taste for it now was gone,
+and it was like trying to do a two-step to a funeral march.  For
+once in my life I knew the real meaning of that poor old
+worn-to-a-frazzle call of the East, for now the' dominant note was
+the call of love.
+
+I heard it above the clink of the teacups.  It was in the swish of
+every silk petticoat.  If I went to the theater, church or concert,
+the call of that germ-ridden spot of the unholy name beat into my
+brain with the persistency of a tom-tom on a Chinese holiday.
+
+Say what you will, Mate, it once took all my courage to leave those
+I loved best and go to far-away Japan.  Now it required more than I
+could dig up to _stay_--with the best on the other side of the
+Pacific.
+
+The struggle was easy and swift.  The tom-tom won and I am on my
+way to be next-door neighbor to Jack.  Those whom it concerned here
+were away from home, so I told no one good-by, thus saving
+everybody so much wasted advice.  If there were a tax on advice the
+necessities of life would not come so high.  Charity followed me to
+the train, protesting to the last that "Marse Jack gwine doubt her
+velocity when she tell him de truf bout her lady going a-gaddin'
+off by herse'f and payin' no mind to her ole mammy's
+prosterations."  I asked her to come with me as maid.  She refused;
+said her church was to have an ice-cream sociable and she had "to
+fry de fish." This letter will find you joyfully busy with the
+babies and the "only man."  Blest woman that you are.
+
+But I know you.  I have a feeling that you have a few remarks to
+make.  So hurry up.  Let us get it off our minds.  Then I can
+better tell you what I am doing.  Something is going to happen.  It
+usually does when I am around.  I have been asked to chaperone a
+young girl whose face and name spell romance.  If I were seeking
+occupation here is the opportunity knocking my door into splinters.
+
+
+
+
+STILL AT SEA.  June, 1911.
+
+Any time you are out of a job and want to overwork all your
+faculties and a few emotions, try chaperoning a young room-mate
+answering to the name of Sada San, who is one-half American dash,
+and the other half the unnamable witchery of a Japanese woman; a
+girl with the notes of a lark in her voice when she sings to the
+soft twang of an old guitar.
+
+If, too, you are seeking to study psychological effect of such a
+combination on people, good, middlin' and otherwise, I would
+suggest a Pacific liner as offering fifty-seven varieties, and then
+some.
+
+The last twinge of conscience I had over coming, died a cheerful
+death.  I 'd do it again.  For not only is romance surcharging the
+air, but fate gives promise of weaving an intricate pattern in the
+story of this maid whose life is just fairly begun and whom the
+luck of the road has given me as traveling mate.  Now, remembering
+a few biffs fate has given me, I have no burning desire to meddle
+with her business.  Neither am I hungering for responsibility.  But
+what are you going to say to yourself, when a young girl with a
+look in her eyes you would wish your daughter to have,
+unhesitatingly gives you a letter addressed at large to some
+"Christian Sister"!  You read it to find it's from her home pastor,
+requesting just a little companionship for "a tender young soul who
+is trying her wings for the first time in the big and beautiful
+world"!  I have a very private opinion about reading my title clear
+to the Christian Sister business, but no woman with a heart as big
+as a pinch of snuff could resist giving her very best and much more
+to the slip of a winsome maid, who confidingly asks it--especially
+if the sister has any knowledge of the shadows lurking in the
+beautiful world.
+
+Mate, these steamers as they sail from shore to shore are like
+giant theaters.  Every trip is an impromptu drama where comedy,
+farce, and often startling tragedy offer large speaking parts.  The
+revelation of human nature in the original package is funny and
+pathetic.  Amusement is always on tap and life stories are just
+hanging out of the port-hole waiting to attack your sympathy or
+tickle your funny bone.  But you 'd have to travel far to find the
+beginning of a story so heaped up with romantic interest as that of
+Sada San as she told it to me, one long, lazy afternoon as I lay on
+the couch in my cabin, thanking my stars I was getting the best of
+the bare tablecloth and the empty house at home.
+
+Some twenty years ago Sada's father, an American, grew tired of the
+slow life in a slow town and lent ear to the fairy stories told of
+the Far East, where fortunes were made by looking wise for a few
+moments every morning and devoting the rest of the day to samisens
+and flutes.  He found the glorious country of Japan.  The beguiling
+tea-houses, and softly swinging sampans were all too distracting.
+They sang ambition to sleep and the fortune escaped.
+
+He drifted, and at last sought a mean existence as teacher of
+English in a school of a remote seaside village.  His spirit broke
+when the message came of the death of the girl in America who was
+waiting for him.  Isolation from his kind and bitter hours left for
+thought made life alone too ghastly.  He tried to make it more
+endurable by taking the pretty daughter of the head man of the
+village as his wife.
+
+My temperature took a tumble when I saw proofs of a hard and fast
+marriage ceremony, signed and counter-signed by a missionary
+brother who meant business.
+
+You say it is a sordid tale?  Mate, I know a certain spot in this
+Land of Blossoms, where only foreigners are laid to rest, which
+bears testimony to a hundred of its kind--strange and pitiful
+destinies begun with high and brilliant hopes in their native land;
+and when illusions have faded, the end has borne the stamp of
+tragedy, because suicide proved the open door out of a life of
+failure and exile.
+
+Sada's father was saved suicide and long unhappiness by a timely
+tidal-wave, which swept the village nearly bare, and carried the
+man and his wife out to sea and to eternity.
+
+The child was found by Susan West who came from a neighboring town
+to care for the sick and hungry.  Susan was a teacher-missionary.
+Not much to look at, if her picture told the truth, but from bits
+of her history that I 've picked up her life was a brighter jewel
+than most of us will ever find in a heavenly crown.  Instead of
+holding the unbeliever by the nape of the neck and thrusting a
+not-understood doctrine down his unwilling throat, she lived the
+simple creed of loving her neighbor better than herself.  And the
+old pair of goggles she wore made little halos around the least
+speck of good she found in any transgressor, no matter how warped
+with evil.
+
+When she was n't helping some helpless sinner to see the rainbow of
+promise at the end of the straight and narrow way, Susan spent her
+time and all her salary, giving sick babies a fighting chance for
+life.  She took the half-drowned little Sada home with her, and
+searched for any kinsman left the child.  There was only one, her
+mother's brother.  He was very poor and gladly gave his consent
+that Miss West should keep the child--as long as it was a girl!
+Susan had taught the man English once in the long ago and this was
+his chance to repay her.
+
+Later on when the teacher found her health failing and headed for
+home in America, Uncle Mura was still more generous and raised no
+objections to her taking the baby with her.
+
+Together they lived in a small Western town.  The missionary reared
+the child by rule of love only and went on short rations to educate
+her.  Sada's eager mind absorbed everything offered her like a
+young sponge, and when a few months ago Susanna folded her hands
+and joined her foremothers, there was let loose on the world this
+exquisite girl with her solitary legacy of untried ideals and a
+blind enthusiasm for her mother's people.
+
+Right here, Mate, was when I had a prolonged attack of cold
+shivers.  Just before Miss West passed along, knowing that the
+Valley was near, she wrote to Uncle in Japan and told him that his
+niece would soon he alone.  Can't you imagine the picture she drew
+of her foster child who had satisfied every craving of her big
+mother heart?  Fascinating and charming and so weighted with
+possibilities, that Mura, who had prospered, leaped for his chance
+and sent Sada San money for the passage over.
+
+Not a mite of anxiety shadowed her eyes when she told me that Uncle
+kept a wonderful tea-house in Kioto.  He must be very rich, she
+thought, because he wrote her of the beautiful things she was to
+have.  About this time the room seemed suffocating.  I got up and
+turned on the electric fan.  The only thing required of her, she
+continued, was to use her voice to entertain Uncle's friends.  But
+she hoped to do much more.  Through Miss West she knew how many of
+her mother's dear people needed help.  How glorious that she was
+young and strong and could give so much.  Susan had also talked to
+her of the flowers, the lovely scenery, the poetry of the people
+and their splendid spirit--making a dreamland where even man was
+perfect.  How she loved it!  How proud she was to feel that in part
+it was her country.  Faithfully would she serve it.  Oh, Susanna
+West!  I 'd like to shake you till your harp snapped a string.  It
+'s like sending a baby to pick flowers on the edge of a bottomless
+pit.
+
+What could I say!  The missionary-teacher had told the truth.  She
+simply failed to mention that in the fairy-land there are
+cherry-blossom lanes down which no human can wander without being
+torn by the brier patches.
+
+The path usually starts from a wonderful tea-house where Uncles
+have grown rich.  Miss West didn't mean to shirk her duty.  In most
+things the begoggled lady was a visionary with a theory that if you
+don't talk about a thing it does not exist; and like most of her
+kind she swept the disagreeables into a dust heap and made for the
+high places where all was lovely.  And yet she had toiled with the
+girl through all the difficulties of the Japanese language; and, to
+give her a musical education, had pinched to the point of buying
+one hat in eight years!
+
+Now it is all done and Sada is launched on the high seas of life
+with a pleasure-house for a home and an unscrupulous Uncle with
+unlimited authority for a chaperon.  Shades of Susan! but I am
+hoping guardian angels are "really truly," even if invisible.
+
+Good night, Mate.  This game of playing tag with jarring thoughts,
+new and old, has made six extra wrinkles.  I am glad I came and you
+and Jack will have to be, for to quote Charity, "I 'se done
+resoluted on my word of honah" to keep my hands, if possible, on
+Sada whose eyes are as blue as her hair is black.
+
+
+
+
+PACIFIC OCEAN.
+
+Since morning the sea has been a sheet of blue, streaked with the
+silver of flying fish.  That is all the scenery there is; not a
+sail nor a bird nor an insect.  Either the unchanging view or
+something in the air has stimulated everybody into being their
+nicest.  It is surprising how quickly graciousness possesses some
+people when there is a witching girl around.  Vivacious young men
+and benevolent officers have suddenly appeared out of nowhere,
+spick and span in white duck and their winningest smiles.
+Entertainments dovetail till there is barely time for change of
+costume between acts.
+
+But let me tell you, Mate, living up to being a mother is no idle
+pastime, particularly if it means reviving the lost art of managing
+love-smitten youths and elderly male coquettes.  There is a
+specimen of each opposite Sada and me at table who are so generous
+with their company on deck, before and after meals, I have almost
+run out of excuses and am short on plans to avoid the heavy
+obligations of their eager attentions.
+
+The youth is a To-Be-Ruler of many people, a Maharajah of India.
+But the name is bigger than the man.  Two years ago his father
+started the boy around the world with a sack full of rubles and a
+head full of ancient Indian lore.  With these assets he paused at
+Oxford that he might skim through the classics.  He had been told
+this was where all the going-to-be-great men stopped to acquire
+just the proper tone of superiority so necessary in ruling a
+country.  Of course he picked up a bit on electricity, mechanics,
+etc.  This accomplished to his satisfaction he ran over to America
+to view the barbarians' god of money and take a glance at their
+houses which touched the sky.  But his whole purpose in living, he
+told me, was to yield himself to certain meditations, so that in
+his final reincarnation, which was only a few centuries off, he
+would return to the real thing in Buddha.  In the meantime he was
+to be a lion, a tiger and a little white bird.  At present he is
+plain human, with the world-old malady gnawing at his heart, a pain
+which threatens to send his cogitations whooping down a thornier
+and rosier lane than any Buddha ever knew.  Besides I am thinking a
+few worldly vanities have crept in and set him hack an eon or so.
+He wears purple socks, pink ties and a dainty watch strapped around
+his childish wrist.
+
+When I asked him what impressed him most in America, he promptly
+answered with his eyes on Sada, "Them girls.  They are rapturous!"
+
+Farewell Nirvana!  With a camp stool in one hand and a rosary in
+the other, he follows Sada San like the shadow on a sun dial.
+Wherever she is seated, there is the stool and the royal youth, his
+mournful eyes feasting on the curves and dimples of her face, her
+lightest jest far sweeter than any prayer, the beads in his hand
+forgotten.
+
+The other would-be swain calls himself a Seeker of Truth.
+Incidentally he is hunting a wife.  His general attitude is a
+constant reminder of the uncertainty of life.  His presence makes
+you glad that nothing lasts.  He says his days are heavy with the
+problems of the universe, but you can see for yourself that this
+very commercial traveler carries a light side line in an assortment
+of flirtations that surely must be like dancing little sunbeams on
+a life of gloom.
+
+Goodness knows how much of a nuisance he would be if it were not
+for a little lady named Dolly, who sits beside him, gray in color,
+dress and experience.  At no uncertain age she has found a belated
+youthfulness and is starting on the first pleasure trip of her life.
+
+Coming across the country to San Francisco, her train was wrecked.
+In the smash-up a rude chair struck her just south of the belt line
+and she fears brain fever from the blow.  The alarm is not general,
+for though just freed by kind death from an unhappy life sentence
+of matrimony she is ready to try another jailer.
+
+Whether he spied Dolly first and hoped that the gleam from her many
+jewels would light up the path in his search for Truth and a few
+other things, or whether the Seeker was sought, I do not know.
+However the flirtation which seems to have no age limit has
+flourished like a bamboo tree.  For once the man was too earnest.
+Dolly gave heed and promptly attached herself with the persistency
+of a barnacle to a weather-beaten junk.  By devices worthy a
+finished fisher of men, she holds him to his job of suitor, and if
+in a moment of abstraction his would-be ardor for Sada grows too
+perceptible, the little lady reels in a yard or so of line to make
+sure her prize is still dangling on the hook.
+
+To-day at tiffin the griefless widow unconsciously scored at the
+expense of the Seeker, to the delight of the whole table.  For
+Sada's benefit this man quoted a long passage from some German
+philosopher.  At least it sounded like that.  It was far above the
+little gray head he was trying to ignore and so weighty I feared
+for her mentality.  But I did not know Dolly.  She rose like a
+doughnut.  Looking like a child who delights in the rhythm of
+meaningless sounds, she heard him through, then exclaimed with
+breathless delight, "Oh, ain't he fluid!"
+
+The man fled, but not before he had asked Sada for two dances at
+night.
+
+It is like a funny little curtain-raiser, with jealousy as a
+gray-haired Cupid.  So far as Sada is concerned, it is admiration
+gone to waste.  Even if she were not gaily indifferent, she is too
+absorbed in the happy days she thinks are awaiting her.  Poor
+child!  Little she knows of the limited possibilities of a Japanese
+girl's life; and what the effect of the painful restrictions will
+be on one of her rearing, I dare not think.
+
+Once she is under the authority of Uncle, the Prince, the Seeker,
+and all mankind will be swept into oblivion; and, until such time
+as she can be married profitably and to her master's liking, she
+will know no man.  The cruelest awakening she will face is the
+attitude of the Orient toward the innocent offspring in whose veins
+runs the blood of two races, separated by differences which never
+have been and never will be overcome.
+
+In America the girl's way would not have been so hard because her
+novel charm would have carried her far.  But _hear me_: in Japan,
+the very wave in her hair and the color of her eyes will prove a
+barrier to the highest and best in the land.  Even with youth and
+beauty and intelligence, unqualified recognition for the Eurasian
+is as rare as a square egg.
+
+Another thought hits me in the face as if suddenly meeting a cross
+bumblebee.  Will the teachings of the woman, who lived with her
+head in the clouds, hold hard and fast when Uncle puts on the
+screws?
+
+The Seeker says it is the fellow who thinks first that wins.  He
+speaks feelingly on the subject.  Right now I am going to begin
+cultivating first thought, and try to be near if danger, whose name
+is Uncle, threatens the girl who has walked into my affections and
+made herself at home.
+
+
+
+
+Later.
+
+All the very good people are in bed.  The very worldly minded and
+the young are on deck reluctantly finishing the last dance under a
+canopy of make-believe cherry blossoms and wistaria.  I am on the
+deck between, closing this letter to you which I will mail in
+Yokohama in a few hours.
+
+In a way I shall be glad to see a quiet room in a hotel and hie me
+back to simple living, free from the responsibilities of a
+temporary parent.  I am not promising myself any gay thrills in the
+meantime.  What 's the use, with Jack on the borderland of a
+sulphurous country and you in the Garden of Eden?  His letters and
+yours will be my greatest excitement.  So write and keep on writing
+and never fear that I will not do the same.  You are the
+safety-valve for my speaking emotions, Mate; so let that help you
+bear it.
+
+Please mark with red ink one small detail of Sada's story.  When I
+was fastening her simple white gown for the dance her chatter was
+like that of a sunny-hearted child.  Indeed, she liked to dance.
+Susan did not think it harmful.  She said if your heart was right
+your feet would follow.  When Miss West could spare her she always
+went to parties with _Billy_, and oh, how he could dance if he was
+so big and had red hair.
+
+So! there was a Billy?  I looked in her face for signs.  The way
+was clear but there was a soft little quiver in her voice that
+caused me carefully to label the unknown William, and lay him on a
+shelf for future reference.  Whatever the coming days hold for her,
+mine has been the privilege of giving the girl three weeks of
+unclouded happiness.
+
+Outside I hear the little Prince pacing up and down, yielding up
+his soul to holy meditations.  I 'd be willing to wager my best
+piece of jade his contemplations are something like a cycle from
+Nirvana, and closer far to a pair of heavily fringed eyes.  Poor
+little imitation Buddha!  He is grasping at the moon's reflection
+on the water.  Somewhere near I hear Dolly's soft coo and
+deep-voiced replies.  But unfinished packing, a bath and coffee are
+awaiting me.
+
+Dawn is coming, and already through the port hole I see a dot of
+earth curled against the horizon.  Above floats Fuji, the base
+wrapped in mists, the peak eternally white, a giant snowdrop
+swinging in a dome of perfect blue.  The vision is a call to
+prayer, a wooing of the soul to the heights of undimmed splendor.
+
+After all, Mate, I may give you and Jack a glad surprise and
+justify Sada handing me that letter addressed to a Christian Sister.
+
+
+
+
+YOKOHAMA, July, 1911.
+
+Now that I am here, I am trying to decide what to do with myself.
+At home each day was so full of happy things and the happiest of
+all was listening for Jack's merry whistle as he opened the street
+door every night.  At home there are always demands, big and
+little, popping in on me which I sometimes resent and yet being
+free from makes me feel as dismal as a long vacant house with the
+For Rent sign up, looks.  In this Lotus land there is no _must_ of
+any kind for the alien, and the only whistles I hear belong to the
+fierce little tugs that buzz around in the harbor, in and out among
+the white sails of the fishing fleet like big black beetles in a
+field of lilies.  But you must not think life dull for me.  Fate
+and I have cried a truce, and she is showing me a few hands she is
+dealing other people.  But first listen to the tale I have to tell
+of the bruise she gave my pride this morning, that will show black
+for many a day.
+
+I joined a crowd on the water 's edge in front of the hotel to
+watch a funeral procession in boats.  Recently a hundred and eighty
+fishermen were sent to the bottom by a big typhoon, and the wives
+and the sweethearts were being towed out to sea to pay a last
+tribute to them, by strewing the fatal spot with flowers and paper
+prayers.  White-robed priests stood up in the front of the boats
+and chanted some mournful ritual, keeping time to the dull thumping
+of a drum.  The air was heavy with incense.  A dreamy melancholy
+filled the air and I thought how hallowed and beautiful a thing is
+memory.  From out that silent watching crowd came a voice that sent
+my thoughts flying to starry nights of long ago and my first trip
+across the Pacific; soft south winds; vows of eternal devotion that
+kept time with the distant throbbing of a ship's engine.  I fumed.
+I was facing little Germany and five littler Germanys strung out
+behind.  You surely remember him? and how when I could n't see
+things his way he swore to a wrecked heart and a
+never-to-be-forgotten constancy.  Mate!  There was no more of a
+flicker of memory in the stare of his round blue eyes than there
+would have been in a newly baked pretzel.  I stood still, waiting
+for some glimmer of recognition.  Instead, he turned to the
+pincushion on his arm, whom I took to be Ma O., and I heard him say
+"Herzallorliebsten."  I went straight to the hotel and had it
+translated.  Thought it had a familiar sound.  Would n't it be
+interesting to know how many "only ones" any man's life history
+records?  To think of my imagining him eating his heart out with
+hopeless longing in some far away Tibetan Monastery.  And here he
+was, pudgy and content, with his fat little brood waddling along
+behind him.  If our vision could penetrate the future, verily
+Romance would have to close up shop.  Oh, no!  I did n't want him
+to pine entirely away, but he needn't have been in such an
+everlasting hurry to get fat and prosperous over it.  Would n't
+Jack howl?
+
+I took good care to see that he was not stopping at this hotel.
+Then I went back to my own thoughts of the happy years that had
+been mine since Little Germany bade me a tearful good-by.
+
+And, too, I wanted to think out some plan whereby I can keep in
+touch with Sada and be friendly with her relative.
+
+Before I left the steamer, I had a surprise in the way of Uncles.
+Next time I will pause before I prophesy.  But if Uncle was a blow
+to my preconceived ideas, I will venture Sada startled a few of his
+traditions as to nieces.  Quarantine inspection was short, and when
+at last we cast anchor, the harbor was as blue as if a patch of the
+summer sky had dropped into it.  The thatched roofs shone russet
+brown against the dark foliage of the hills.  The temple roofs
+curved gracefully above the pink mist of the crepe myrtle.
+
+Sada was standing by me on the upper deck, fascinated by the
+picture.  As she realized the long dreamed-of fairy-land was
+unfolding before her, tears of joy filled her eyes and tears of
+another kind filled mine.
+
+Sampans, launches and lighters clustered around the steamer as
+birds of prey gather to a feast: captains in gilt braid; coolies in
+blue and white, with their calling-cards stamped in large letters
+on their backs, and the story of their trade written around the
+tail of their coats in fantastic Japanese characters.  Gentlemen in
+divided skirts and ladies in kimono and clogs swarmed up the
+gangway.  In the smiling, pushing crowd I looked for the low-browed
+relative I expected to see.  Imagine the shock, Mate, when a man
+with manners as beautiful as his silk kimono presented his card and
+announced that he was Uncle Mura.  I had been pointed out as Sada's
+friend.  A week afterwards I could have thought of something
+brilliant to say.  Taken unawares, I stammered out a hope that his
+honorable teeth were well and his health poor.  You see I am all
+right in Japanese if I do the talking.  For I know what I want to
+say and what they ought to say.  But when they come at me with a
+flank movement, as it were, I am lost.  Uncle passed over my
+blunder without a smile and went on to say many remarkable things,
+if sound means anything.  However, trust even a deaf woman to prick
+up her ears when a compliment is headed her way, whether it is in
+Sanskrit or Polynesian.  In acknowledgment I stuck to my flag, and
+the man's command of quaint but correct English convinced me that I
+would have to specialize in something more than first thought if I
+was to cope with this tea-house proprietor whose armor is the
+subtle manners of the courtier.
+
+Blessed Sada!  Only the cocksureness of youth made her blind to the
+check her enthusiasm was meant to receive in the first encounter of
+the new life.  She had always met people on equal terms, most men
+falling easy victims.  She was blissfully ignorant that Mura, by
+directing his conversation to me, meant to convey to her that
+well-bred girls in this enchanted land lowered their eyes and
+folded their hands when they talked in the presence of a MAN, if
+they dared to talk at all.
+
+Not so this half-child of the West.  She fairly palpitated with joy
+and babbled away with the freedom of a sunny brook in the shadow of
+a grim forest.  From the man's standpoint, he was not unkind;
+unrestraint was to him an incomprehensible factor in a young girl's
+make-up; and whatever was to follow, the first characters he meant
+her to learn must spell reverence and repression.
+
+They hurried ashore to catch a train to Kioto.  I must look
+harmless, for I was invited to call.  I shall accept, for I have a
+feeling in spite of manners and silken robes that the day is not
+distant when the distress signals will be flying.
+
+I waved good-by to the girl as the little launch made its way to
+land.  She made a trumpet of her hands and called a merry
+"sayonara."  The master of her future folded his arms and looked
+out to sea.
+
+The next day I had a lonely lunch at the hotel.  When I saw two
+lovery young things at the table where Jack and I had our wedding
+breakfast, so long ago, I made for the other end of the room and
+persistently turned my back.  But I saw out of the corner of my eye
+they were far away above food, and, Mate, believe me, they did n't
+even know it was hot, though a rain barrel couldn't have measured
+the humidity.
+
+Of course Jack and I were much more sensible, but that whole
+blessed time is wrapped in rosy mists with streaks of moonlight to
+the tune of heavenly music, so it 's futile to try to recall just
+what did happen.  I ought to have gone to another hotel, but the
+chain of memory was too strong for me.
+
+I was hesitating between the luxury of a sentimental spell and a
+fit of loneliness, when a happy interruption came in a message from
+Countess Otani, naming the next day at two for luncheon with her at
+the Arsenal Gardens at Tokio.  How I wished for you, Mate!  It was
+a fairy-story come true, dragons and all.  The Arsenal Garden means
+just what it says.  Only when the dove of peace is on duty are its
+gates opened, and then to but a few, high in command.  For across
+the white-blossomed hedge that encloses the grounds, armies of men
+toil ceaselessly molding black bullets for pale people and they
+work so silently that the birds keep house in the long fringed
+willows and the goldfish splash in the sunned spots of the tiny
+lake.
+
+After passing the dragons in the shape of sentries and soldiers, to
+each of whom I gave a brief life-history, I wisely followed my nose
+and a guard down the devious path.
+
+The Countess received her guests in a banquet-hall all ebony and
+gold, and was not seated permanently on a throne with a diamond
+crown screwed into her head as we used so fondly to imagine.
+
+The simplicity of her hospitality was charming.  She and most of
+her ladies-in-waiting had been educated abroad.  But despite the
+lure of the Western freedom, they had returned to their country
+with their heads level and their traditions intact.  But you guess
+wrong, honey, if you imagine custom and formality of official life
+have so overcome these high-born ladies as to make them lay figures
+who dare not raise their eyes except by rule.  There were three
+American guests, and only by being as nimble as grasshoppers did we
+hold our own in the table talk which was as exhilarating as a game
+of snowball on a frosty day.
+
+We scampered all around war and settled a few important political
+questions.  Poetry, books and the new Cabinet vied with the
+merriment over comparisons in styles of dress.  One delightful
+woman told how gloves and shoes had choked her when she first wore
+them in America.  Another gave her experience in getting fatally
+twisted in her court train when she was making her bow before the
+German Empress.
+
+A soft-voiced matron made us laugh over her story of how, when she
+was a young girl at a mission school, she unintentionally joined in
+a Christian prayer, and nearly took the skin off her tongue
+afterwards scrubbing it with strong soap and water to wash away the
+stain.  There wasn't even a smile as she quietly spoke of the many
+times later when with that same prayer she had tried to make less
+hard the after-horrors of war.
+
+The possibilities of Japanese women are amazing even to one who
+thinks he knows them.  They look as if made for decoration only,
+and with a flirt of their sleeves they bring out a surprise that
+turns your ideas a double somersault.  Here they were, laughing and
+chatting like a bunch of fresh schoolgirls for whom life was one
+long holiday.  Yet ten out of the number had recently packed away
+their gorgeous clothes, and laid on a high shelf all royal ranks
+and rights, for a nurse's dress and kit.  Apparently delicate and
+shy they can be, if emergency demands, as grim as war or as tender
+as heaven.
+
+It was a blithesome day and if it had n't been for that "all gone"
+sort of a feeling, that possesses me when evening draws near and
+Jack is far away, content might have marked me as her own.  As it
+was I put off playing a single at dinner as long as possible by
+calling on a month-old bride whom I had known as a girl.  With glee
+I accepted the offer of an automobile to take me for the visit, and
+repented later.  Two small chauffeurs and a diminutive footman
+raced me through the narrow, crowded streets, scattering the
+populace to any shelter it could find.  The only reason we didn't
+take the fronts out of the shops is that Japanese shops are
+frontless.  I looked back to see the countless victims of our
+speed.  I saw only a crowd coming from cover, smiling with
+curiosity and interest.  We hit the top of the hill with a
+flourish, and when I asked what was the hurry my attendants looked
+hurt and reproachfully asked if that wasn't the way Americans liked
+to ride.
+
+Mate, this is a land of contrasts and contradictions.  At the
+garden all had been life and color.  At this home, where the
+wrinkled old servitor opened the heavily carved gates for me, it
+was as if I had stepped into a bit of ancient Japan, jealously
+guarded from any encroachment of new conditions or change of custom.
+
+Like a curious package, contents unknown, I was passed from one
+automatic servant to another till I finally reached the
+_Torishihimari_ or mistress of ceremonies.  By clock-work she
+offered me a seat on the floor, a fan and congratulations.  This
+last simply because I was me.  The house was ancient and beautiful.
+The room in which I sat had nothing in it but matting as fine as
+silk, a rare old vase with two flowers and a leaf in formal
+arrangement, and an atmosphere of aloofness that lulled mind and
+body to restful revery.  After my capacity for tea and sugared
+dough was tested, the little serving maid fanning me, bowing every
+time I blinked, the paper doors near by divided noiselessly and,
+framed by the dim light, sat the young bride, quaint and oriental
+as if she had stepped out of some century-old kakemono.  In
+contrast to my recent hostesses it was like coming from a garden of
+brilliant flowers into the soft, quiet shadows of a bamboo grove.
+No modern touch about this lady.  She had been reduced by rule from
+a romping girl to a selfless creature fit for a Japanese
+gentleman's wife and no questions asked.  Her hair, her dress, and
+even her speech were strictly by the laws laid down in a book for
+the thirty-first day of the first month after marriage.  But I
+would like to see the convention with a crust thick enough to
+entirely obliterate one woman's interest in another whose clothes
+and life belong to a distant land.  When I told her I had come to
+Japan against Jack's wishes and was going to follow him to China if
+I could, she paled at my rashness.  How could a woman dare disobey?
+Would not my husband send me home, take my name off the house
+register and put somebody in my place?
+
+Well now, wouldn't you like to see the scientist play any such
+tricks with me--that blessed old Jack who smiles at my follies,
+asks my advice, and does as he pleases, and for whom there has
+never been but the one woman in the world!  I struggled to make
+plain to her the attitude of American men and women and the
+semi-independence of the latter.  As well explain theology to a
+child.  To her mind the undeviating path of absolute obedience was
+the only possible way.  Anything outside of a complete renunciation
+of self-interest and thought meant ruin and was not even to be
+whispered about.  I gave it up and came back to her sphere of
+poetry and mothers-in-law.
+
+When I said good-by there was a gentle pity in her eyes, for she
+was certain her long-time friend was headed for the highroad of
+destruction.  But instead I turned into the dim solitude of Shiba
+Park.  I had something to think about.  To-day's experiences had
+painted anew in naming colors the difference in husbands.  How
+prone a woman is, who is free and dearly beloved, to fall into the
+habit of taking things for granted, forgetting how one drop of the
+full measure of happiness, that a good husband gives her, would
+turn to rosy tints the gray lives of hundreds of her kind who are
+wives in name only.  Her appreciation may be abundant but it is the
+silent kind.  Her bugaboo is fear of sentiment and when it is too
+late, she remembers with a heart-break.
+
+I can think of a thousand things right now I want to say to Jack
+and while storing them away for some future happy hour, I walked
+further into the deep shadows of twilight.
+
+Instantly the spell of the East was over me.  Real life was not.
+In the soft green silences of mystery and fancy, I found a seat by
+an ancient moss-covered tomb.  Dreamily I watched a great red
+dragon-fly frivol with the fairy blue wreaths of incense-smoke that
+hovered above the leaf shadows trembling on the sand.  The deep
+melody of a bell, sifted through a cloud of blossom, caught up my
+willing soul and floated out to sea and Jack far from this lovely
+land, where stalks unrestrained the ugly skeleton of easy divorce
+for men.  The subject always irritates me like prickly heat.
+
+
+
+
+NIKKO, July, 1911.
+
+Summer in Japan is no joke, especially if you are waiting for
+letters.  I know perfectly well I can't hear from you and Jack for
+an age, and yet I watch for the postman three times a day, as a
+hungry man waits for the dinner-bell.
+
+The days in Yokohama were too much like a continuous Turkish bath,
+and I fled to Nikko, the ever moist and mossy.  Two things you can
+always expect in this village of "roaring, wind-swept
+mountains,"--rain and courtesy.  One is as inevitable as the other,
+and both are served in quantities.
+
+I am staying in a semi-foreign hotel which is tucked away in a
+pocket in the side of a mountain as comfy as a fat old lady in a
+big rocker who glories in dispensing hospitality with both hands.
+Just let me put my head out of my room door and the hall fairly
+blossoms with little maids eager to serve.  A step toward the
+entrance brings to life a small army of attendants bending as they
+come like animated jack-knives on a live wire.  One struggles with
+the mystery of my overshoes, while the Master stands by and begs me
+to take care of my honorable spirit.  As it is the only spirit I
+possess I heed his advice and bring it back to the hotel to find
+the entire force standing at attention, ready to receive me.  I
+pass on to my room with a procession of bearers and bearesses
+strung out behind me like the tail of a kite, anything from a
+tea-tray to the sugar tongs being sufficient excuse for joining the
+parade.
+
+When dressing for dinner, if I press the button, no less than six
+little, picture maids flutter to my door, each begging for the
+honor of fastening me up the back.  How delighted Jack would be to
+assign them this particular honor for life.  Such whispers over the
+wonders of a foreign-made dress as they struggle with the curious
+fastenings!  (They should hear my lord's fierce language!)  Each
+one takes a turn till some sort of connection is made between hook
+and eye.  All is so earnestly done I dare not laugh or wiggle with
+impatience.  I may sail into dinner with the upper hook in the
+lower eye and the middle all askew, but the service is so
+graciously given, I would rather have my dress upside down than to
+grumble.  Certainly I pay for it.  I tip everything from the
+proprietor to the water-pitcher.  But the sum is so
+disproportionate to the pleasure and the comfort returned that I
+smile to think of the triple price I have paid elsewhere and the
+high-nosed condescension I got in return for my money.  Japanese
+courtesy may be on the surface, but the polish does not easily wear
+off and it soothes the nerves just as the rain cools the air.  It
+goes without saying that I did not arrive in Nikko without a
+variety of experiences along the way.
+
+Two hours out from Yokohama, the train boy came into the coach, and
+with a smile as cheerful as if he were saying, "Happy New Year,"
+announced that there was a washout in front of us and a landslide
+at the back of us.  Would everybody please rest their honorable
+bones in the village while a bridge was built and a river filled
+in.  The passengers trailed into a settlement of straw roofs,
+bamboo poles and acres of white and yellow lilies.  I went to a
+quaint little inn--that was mostly out!--built over a fussy brook;
+and a pine tree grew right out of the side of the house.  My room
+was furnished with four mats and a poem hung on the wall.  When the
+policeman came in to apologize for the rudeness of the storm in
+delaying me, the boy who brought my bags had to step outside so
+that the official would have room to bow properly.  I ate my supper
+of fish-omelet and turnip pickle served in red lacquer bowls, and
+drank tea out of cups as big as thimbles.  Jack says Japanese
+teacups ought to be forbidden; in a moment of forgetfulness they
+could so easily slip down with the tea.
+
+It had been many a year since I was so separated from my kind and
+each hour of isolation makes clearer a thing I 've never doubted,
+but sometimes forget, that the happiest woman is she whose every
+moment is taken up in being necessary to somebody; and to such,
+unoccupied minutes are like so many drops of lead.  That, with a
+telegram I read telling of the increasing dangers of the plague in
+Manchuria, threatened to send me headlong into a spell of anxiety
+and the old terrible loneliness.
+
+Happily the proprietor and his wife headed it off by asking me if I
+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.
+
+So here goes a prayer, pinned to a shrine, for a body intact as I
+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.
+
+The ceremony over, the newly-wed seated themselves on a bench
+facing the guests.  An elder of the church arose and with a
+solemnity befitting a burial, read a sermon on domestic happiness
+and some forty or fifty congratulatory telegrams.  After an hour or
+so of this and several speeches, cake was passed around, and it was
+over.  At the maid's request I gave her an "American watch with a
+good engine in it" and my blessing with much love in it, and went
+back to work.  Do not for a minute imagine that because I am not a
+regularly ordained missionary-sister, that I am not working.  The
+fact is, Mate, the missionaries are still afflicted with the work
+habit, and so subtle is its cheerful influence, it weaves a spell
+over all who come near.  No matter what your private belief is, you
+roll up your sleeves and pitch right in when you see them at it,
+and you put all your heart in it and thank the Lord for the
+opportunity to help.
+
+The fun begins at 5:30 in the morning, to the merry clang of a
+brazen bell, and it keeps right on till 6 P.M.  For fear of getting
+rusty before sunrise, some of the teachers have classes at night.
+I would rather have rest.  I am too tired, then, to think.
+
+I have put away all my vanity clothes.  No need for them in
+Hiroshima and in an icy room on a winter's morning, I do not stop
+to think whether my dress has an in-curve or an out-sweep.  I fall
+into the first thing I find and finish buttoning it when the family
+fire in the dining-room is reached.  A solitary warming-spot to a
+big house is one of the luxuries of missionary life.
+
+In between times I 've been cheering up the home sickest young
+Swede that ever got loose from his native heath.  So firmly did he
+believe that Japan was a land where necessity for work doth not
+corrupt nor the thief of pleasure break through and steal, he gave
+up a good position at home and signed a three-years' contract with
+an oil firm.  Now he is so sorry, all the pink has gone out of his
+cheeks.  Until he grows used to the thought that living where the
+Sun flag floats is not a continuous holiday, the teachers here at
+school take turns in making life livable for him.
+
+His entertainment means tramps of miles into the country, sails on
+the lovely Ujina Bay and climbs over the mountains.  In the
+afternoon the boy is so in evidence, we almost fall over him if we
+step.  Yesterday in desperation I tied an apron on him and let him
+help me make a cake.  Even at that, with a dab of chocolate on his
+cheek and flour on his nose, his summer sky eyes were weepy
+whenever he spoke of his "Mutter."  I have done everything for him
+except lend him my shoulder to weep on.  It may come to that.
+There is hope, however.  One of our teachers is young and pretty.
+
+Jack, in a much delayed epistle, tells me thrilling and awful
+things about the plague; says he walks through what was once a
+prosperous village, and now there is not a live dog to wag a
+friendly tail.  Every house and hovel tenantless.  Often unfinished
+meals on the table and beds just as the occupants left them.  A
+great pit near by full of ashes and bones tells the story of the
+plague come to town, leaving silent, empty houses, and the
+dust-laden winds as the only mourners.
+
+The native doctors gave a splendid banquet the other night.  With
+the visiting doctors in full array of evening dress and
+decorations.  Jack says it looked like a big international flag
+draped around the table.  Everybody made a speech and Jack has not
+stopped yet shooting off fireworks in honor of that Englishwoman.
+
+Well, maybe _I_ should have studied science.  It is too late now.
+Besides, I have Uncle on my hands, and I have to commit to memory
+pages on color printing that run like this: "Fine as a single hair
+or swelling imperceptibly till it becomes a broken play of light
+and shade or a mass of solid black, it still flows, unworried and
+without hesitation on its appointed course."
+
+Sada San is coining down nest week.  I am looking forward to it
+with great delight and hunting for a plan whereby I can help her.
+
+Suppose Uncle should give me a glad surprise and come too!
+
+
+
+
+HIROSHIMA.
+
+_My dear Best Girl_:
+
+If ever a sailor needed a compass, I need the level head that tops
+your loving heart.  I am worried hollow-eyed and as useless as a
+brass turtle.
+
+It has been days since I heard from Jack.  When he last wrote, he
+was going to some remote district out from Mukden.  I dare not
+think what might happen to him.  Says he must travel to the very
+source of the trouble.
+
+If Jack really wanted trouble he could find it nearer home.  Is n't
+it like him, though, with his German education, to hunt a thing to
+its lair?  I suppose when next I hear from him, he will have
+disappeared into some marmot hole at the foot of a tree in a
+Siberian forest.
+
+Sada is here.  A pale shadow of her former radiant self.  She is in
+deadly fear of what Uncle has written he expects of her when she
+returns.
+
+For the first few days of her visit, she was like an escaped
+prisoner.  She played and sang with the girls.  The joy of her
+laughter was contagious.  Everybody fell a victim to her gaiety.
+We have been on picnics up the river in a sampan where we waded and
+fished, then landed on an island of bamboo and fern and cooked our
+dinner over a _hibachi_.  We have had concerts, tableaux and
+charades, here at the school, with a big table for the stage and a
+silver moon and a green mosquito-net for the scenery.
+
+In every pastime or pleasure, Sada San has been the moving spirit.
+Adorably girlish and winning in her innocent joy, I grow faint to
+think of the rude awakening.
+
+She has talked much of Miss West and their life together; their
+work and simple pleasures.
+
+To the older woman she poured out unmeasured affection, fresh and
+sweet.  Susan made a flower garden of the girl's heart, where, if
+even a tiny weed sprouted it was coaxed into a blossom.  But she
+gave no warning of the savage storms that might come and lay the
+garden waste.
+
+Well, I 'm holding a prayer-meeting a minute that the rosy ideals
+of the visionary teacher will hold fast when the wind begins to
+blow.
+
+I found Sada one day on the bed, a crumpled heap of woe; white and
+shaking with tearless sobs.  Anxious to shield her from the
+persistent friendliness of the girls, I persuaded her to come with
+me to the old Prince's garden, just back of the school.
+
+She had heard from Uncle.  For the first time he definitely stated
+his plans.  Hara, the rich man, had sent to him a proposal of
+marriage for Sada!  Of course, said Uncle, such an offer from so
+prosperous and prominent a man must be accepted without hesitation.
+It was wonderful luck for any girl, said dear Mura, especially one
+of her birth.  Nothing further would be done until she returned,
+and he wished that to be at once.
+
+Not a suggestion of feeling or sentiment; not a word as to Sada's
+wishes or rights.  If these were mentioned to him, he would
+undoubtedly reply that the rights in the matter were all his.  As
+to feelings, a young girl had no business with such things.  His
+voice would be courteous, his manner of saying it would fairly
+puncture the air.
+
+His letter was simply a cold business statement for the sale of the
+girl.  When I looked at the misery in her young eyes, I could
+joyfully have throttled him and stamped upon him.  I wished for a
+dentist's grinding machine and the chance to bore a nice big hole
+into each one of his white, even teeth.
+
+She knows nothing of the man Hara except that he is coarse and
+drinks heavily.  The girls in the tea-house always seemed afraid
+when he came.  Vague whispers of his awful life had come to her.
+What was she to do?  She had no money, no place to go, and Uncle
+was the only relative she had in the world.
+
+Mate, I heard a missionary speak a profound truth, when he said
+that no Japanese would ever be worth while till all his relatives
+were dead.  Their power is a chain forged around individual freedom.
+
+She had such loving thoughts of Uncle, Sada sobbed, before she
+came.  She longed to make his home happy and be one of his people.
+She loved the beautiful country of her mother and craved its
+friendship.
+
+Miss West had drilled it into her conscience that marriage was
+holy, and impossible without love.  (Bless you, Susan!)  She wanted
+to do her duty, but she _could not_ marry this man whom she had
+never seen but once, and had never spoken to.
+
+She knew the absolute power the law of the land gave Uncle over
+her.  She knew the uselessness of a Japanese girl struggling
+against the rigid rules laid down by her elders.  She knew
+resistance might bring punishment.  Well, Mate, I do not care ever
+to see again such a look as was in Sada's eyes as she turned her
+set face to me and forced through her stiff lips a stony, "I
+won't!"  But I thanked God for all the Susan Wests and their
+teachings.
+
+In spite of the girl's unhappiness, there was a thrill in the
+region of my heart.  Of her own free will Sada San had decided.
+Now there was something definite to work upon.  In the back of my
+brain a plan was beginning to form.  Hope glimmered like a
+Jack-o'-lantern.
+
+It was late evening.  A flaming sunset flushed the sky and bathed
+the ancient garden of arched bridges and twisted trees in a pinkish
+haze.  The very shadows spelled romance and poetry.  It was wise to
+use the charm of the hour for the beginning of my plan.
+
+I drew Sada down beside me, as we sat in a queer little play-house
+by the garden lake.
+
+In olden times it had been the rest place of the Prince Asano, when
+he was specially moved to write poetry to the moon as it floated
+up, a silver ball in a navy-blue sky over "Three Umbrella
+Mountain."  Had his ghost been strolling along then, it would have
+found deeper things than, "in the sadness of the moon night beholds
+the fading blossom of the heart," to fill his thoughts.
+
+I led the girl to tell me much of her life in Nebraska; of her
+friends and their amusements.  Hers had been the usual story of any
+fresh wholesome girl.  The social life in a small town had limited
+her experiences, but had kept her deliciously naive and sweet.
+
+For the first time in our talks, she avoided Billy's name.  I
+hailed it as a beautiful sign.  I mentioned William myself and
+delighted in her red-cheeked confusion.  I gently asked her to tell
+me of him.
+
+She and Billy had gone to school together, played together and he
+always seemed like a big brother to her.  Once a boy had called her
+a half-breed and Billy promptly knocked him down and sat on his
+head while he manipulated a shingle.
+
+Another time when they were quite small, the desire of her heart
+was to ride on the tricycle of a rich little boy who lived across
+the street.  But the pampered youth jeered at her pleadings and
+exultingly rode up and down before her.  Billy saw and bided his
+time till the small Croesus was alone.  He nabbed him, chucked him
+in a chicken-coop and stood guard for an hour while Sada rode
+gloriously.
+
+Through college they were comrades and rivals.  Billy had to work
+his way, for he was the poor son of an invalid mother.  From
+college he had gone straight to a firm of rich manufacturers and
+was now one of the big buyers.
+
+He had pleaded with her not to come to Japan.  He loved her.  He
+wanted her.  When she had persisted, he was furious and they had
+quarreled.  But she had thought she was right, then; she did not
+know how dear Billy was, how big and splendid.  She had written to
+him but seldom, nothing of her disappointment.  Maybe he had
+married.  She could not write now.  It would be too much like
+begging, when she was at bay, for the love she had refused when all
+was well.  No, she _could not_ tell him.
+
+We talked long and earnestly in that old garden, and the wind that
+sifted through the pine-needles and the waxy leaves was as gentle
+as if the spirit of Susan West had come to watch and to bless.
+
+I gained a half promise from her that she would write to Billy at
+once, but I didn't stop there.
+
+Unsuspected by Sada I learned his full address, and Mate, I wrote a
+letter to the auburn-haired lover in Nebraska, in which I painted a
+picture that is going to cause something to happen, else I am
+mistaken in my estimate of the spirit of the West in general and
+William Weston Milton in particular.
+
+I told him if he loved the girl to come as fast as steam would
+bring him; that I would help him at the risk of anything, though I
+have no idea how.  I have just returned from a solitary promenade
+to the post-office through the dark and lonely streets, so that
+letter will catch to-morrow's American mail.
+
+Sada told me that for some reason she had never mentioned Billy's
+name to Uncle.  Now isn't that a full hand nestling up my
+half-sleeve?  Uncle thinks the way clear as an empty race-track,
+and all he has to do is to saunter down the home stretch and gather
+in the prize-money.
+
+Any scruple on the girl's part will be relentlessly and carelessly
+brushed aside as a bothersome insect.  If she persists, there is
+always force.  He fears nothing from me.  I am a foreigner--from
+his standpoint too crudely frank to be clever.
+
+He doubtless argues, if he gives it any thought, that if I could I
+would not dare interfere.  And then I am so absorbed in
+color-prints!  So I am, and, I pray Heaven, in some way to his
+undoing.  The child has no other friend.  Shrinkingly she told me
+of her one attempt to make friends with some high-class people, and
+the uncompromising rebuff she had received upon their discovering
+she was an Eurasian.  The pure aristocrats seldom lower the social
+bars to those of mixed blood.  I wonder, Mate, if the ghost of
+failure, who was her father, could see the inheritance of
+inevitable suffering he has left his child, what his message would
+be to those who would recklessly dare a like marriage?
+
+Sada goes to Kioto in the morning.  She promises not to show
+resistance, but to keep quiet and alert, writing me at every
+opportunity.
+
+I am sure Uncle's delight in securing so rich a prize as Hara will
+burst forth in a big wedding-feast and many rich clothes for the
+trousseau.  I hope so.  Preparation will take time.  I would rather
+gain time than treasure.
+
+I put Sada to bed.  Tucked her in and cuddled her to sleep as if
+she had been my own daughter.
+
+There she lies now.  Her face startlingly white against the mass of
+black hair.  The only sign of her troubled day is a frequent
+half-sob and the sadness of her mouth, which is constantly reading
+the riot act to her laughing eyes in the waking hours.
+
+Poor girl!  She is only one of many whose hopes wither like
+rose-leaves in a hot sun when met by authority in the form of
+tyrannical relatives.
+
+The arched sky over the mountain of "Two Leaves" is all a-shimmer
+with the coming day.  Thatched roof and bamboo grove are daintily
+etched against the amber dawn.  Lights begin to twinkle and thrifty
+tradesmen cheerfully call their wares.
+
+It is a land of peace, a country and people of wondrous charm, but
+incomprehensible is the spirit of some of the laws that rule its
+daughters.
+
+
+
+_Mate dear_:
+
+One of my girls, when attached with the blues, invariably says in
+her written apology for a poor lesson, "Please excuse my frivolous
+with your imagination, for my heart is warmly." So say I.
+
+I am sending you the crepes and the kimono you asked for.  Write
+for something else.  I want an excuse to spend another afternoon in
+the two-by-four shop, with a play-garden attached, that should be
+under a glass case in a jewelry store.  The proprietor gives me a
+tea-party and tells me a few of his troubles every time I go to his
+store.  Formerly he kept two shops exclusively for hair ornaments
+and ribbons.
+
+He did a thriving trade with schoolgirls.  Recently an order went
+out from the mighty maker of school laws to the effect that
+lassies, high and low, must not indulge in such foolish
+extravagances as head ornaments.  The ribbon market went to smash.
+The old man could not give his stock away.  He stored his goods and
+went to selling high-priced crepes, which everybody was permitted
+to wear.  Make another request quickly.  I would rather shop than
+think.
+
+Also, if you need any information as to how to run a
+cooking-school, I will enclose it with the next package.
+
+Since the war, scores of Japanese women are wild to learn foreign
+cooking.  On inquiry as to the reason of such enthusiasm, we found
+it was because their husbands, while away from home, had acquired a
+taste for Occidental dainties.  Now their wives want to know all
+about them so they can set up opposition in their homes to the many
+tea-houses which offer European food as an extra attraction.  And
+depend upon it, if the women start to learn, they stick to it till
+there is nothing more to know on the subject.
+
+I was to furnish the knowledge and the ladies the necessary
+utensils, but I guess I forgot to mention everything we might need.
+
+The first thing we tried was biscuit.  All went well until the time
+came for baking.  I asked for a pan.  A pan?  What kind of a pan?
+Would a wash pan do?  No, if it was all the same I would rather
+have a flat pan with a rim.  Certainly!  Here it was with a rim and
+a handle!  A shiny dust-pan greeted my eyes.  Well, there was not
+very much difference in the taste of the biscuit.
+
+The prize accomplishment so far has been pies.  Our skill has not
+only brought us fame, but the city is in the throes of a pie
+epidemic.  A few days ago when the old Prince of the Ken came to
+visit his Hiroshima home, the cooking-ladies, after a few days'
+consultation, decided that in no better way could royalty be
+welcomed than by sending him a lemon pie.  They sent two creamy
+affairs elaborately decorated with meringued Fujis.  They were the
+hit of the season.  The old gentleman wrote a poem about them
+saying he ate one and was keeping the other to take back to his
+country home when he returned a month hence.  Then he sent us all a
+present.
+
+We have had only one catastrophe.  In a moment of reckless
+adventure my pupils tried a pound cake without a recipe.  A pound
+cake can be nothing else but what it says.  That meant a pound of
+everything and Japanese soda is doubly strong.  That was a week ago
+and we have not been able to stay in the room since.
+
+Good-by!  The tailless pink cat and the purple fish with the pale
+blue eyes are for the kiddies.
+
+I am inclosing an original recipe sent in by Miss Turtle Swamp of
+Clear Water Village:
+
+  Cake.
+
+  1 cup of _Desecrated_ coconut
+  5 cup flowers
+  1 small spoon and barmilla [vanilla]
+  3 eggs skinned and whipped
+  1 cup sugar
+  Stir and pat in pan to cook.
+
+
+
+
+HIROSHIMA, December, 1911.
+
+_Mate_:
+
+I would be ashamed to tell you how long it is between Jack's
+letters.  He says the activity of the revolutionists in China is
+seriously interfering with traffic of every kind.  All right, let
+it go at that!  Now he has gone way up north of Harbin.  In the
+name of anything why cannot he be satisfied?  England is with him.
+I do not know who also is in the party.  Neither do I care.  I do
+not like it a little bit.  Jealous?  The idea.  Just plain furious.
+I am no more afraid of Jack falling in love with another woman than
+I am of Saturn making Venus a birthday present of one of his rings.
+The trouble is she may fall in love with him, and it is altogether
+unnecessary for any other woman to get her feelings disturbed over
+Jack.
+
+I fail to see the force of his argument that it is not safe nor
+wise for any woman in that country, and yet for him to show wild
+enthusiasm over the presence of the Britisher.  No, Jack has lost
+his head over intellect.  It may take a good sharp blow for him to
+realize that intellect, pure and simple, is an icy substitute for
+love.  Like most men he is so deadly sure of one, he is taking a
+holiday with the other.
+
+Of course you are laughing at me.  So would Jack.  And both would
+say it is unworthy.  That's just it.  It is the measly little
+unworthies that nag one to desperation.  Besides, Mate, I shrink
+from any more trouble, any more heart-aches as I would from names.
+The terror of the by-gone years creeps over me and covers the
+present like a pall.
+
+There is only one thing left to do.  Work.  Work and dig, till
+there is not an ounce of strength left for worry.  I stay in the
+kindergarten every available minute.  The unstinted friendship of
+the kiddies over there, is the heart's-ease for so many of life's
+hurts.
+
+There are always the long walks, when healing and uplift of spirit
+can be found in the beauty of the country.  I tramp away all alone.
+The little Swede begs often to go.  At first I rather enjoyed him.
+But he is growing far too affectionate.  I am not equal to caring
+for two young things; a broken-hearted girl and a homesick fat boy
+are too much for me.  He is improving so rapidly I think it better
+for him to talk love stories and poetry to some one more
+appreciative.  I am not in a very poetical mood.  He might just as
+well talk to the pretty young teacher as to talk about her all the
+time.
+
+I have scores of friends up and down the many country roads I
+travel.  The boatmen on the silvery river, who always wave their
+head rags in salute, the women hoeing in the fields with babies on
+their backs, stop long enough to say good day and good luck.  The
+laughing red-cheeked coolie girls pause in their work of driving
+piles for the new bridge to have a little talk about the wonders of
+a foreigner's head.  With bated breath they watch while I give them
+proof that my long hatpins do not go straight through my skull.
+
+The sunny greetings of multitudes of children lift the shadows from
+the darkest day, and always there is the glorious scenery; the
+shadowed mystery of the mountains, a turquoise sky, the blossoms
+and bamboo.  The brooding spirit of serenity soon envelops me, and
+in its irresistible charm is found a tender peace.
+
+On my way home, in the river close to shore, is a crazy little
+tea-house.  It is furnished with three mats and a paper lantern.
+The pretty hostess, fresh and sweet from her out-of-door life,
+brings me rice, tea and fresh eel.  She serves it with such
+gracious hospitality it makes my heart warm.  While I eat, she
+tells me stories of the river life.  I am learning about the social
+life of families of fish and their numerous relatives that sport in
+the "Thing of Substance River"; the habits of the red-headed wild
+ducks which nest near; of the god and goddesses who rule the river
+life, the pranks they play, the revenge they take.  And, too, I am
+learning a lesson in patience through the lives of the humble
+fishermen.  In season seven cents a day is the total of their
+earnings.  At other times, two cents is the limit.  On this they
+manage to live and laugh and raise a family.  It is all so simple
+and childlike, so free from pretension, hurry and rush.  Sometimes
+I wonder if it is not we, with our myriad interests, who have
+strayed from the real things of life.
+
+On my road homeward, too, there is a crudely carved Buddha.  He is
+so altogether hideous, they have put him in a cage of wooden slats.
+On certain days it is quite possible to try your fortune, by buying
+a paper prayer from the priest at the temple, chewing it up and
+throwing it through the cage at the image.  If it sticks you will
+be lucky.
+
+My aim was not straight or luck was against me to-day.  My prayers
+are all on the floor at the feet of the grinning Buddha.
+
+Jack is in Siberia and Uncle has Sada.  I have not heard from her
+since she left.  I am growing truly anxious.
+
+
+
+
+January, 1912.
+
+_Dearest Mate_:
+
+At last I have a letter from Jack.  Strange to say I am about as
+full of enthusiasm over the news he gives me as a thorn-tree is of
+pond-lilies.
+
+He says he has something like a ton of notes and things on the
+various stunts of the bubonic germ in Manchuria when it is feeling
+fit and spry.  But he is seized with a conviction that he must go
+somewhere in northwest China where he thinks there is happy
+hunting-ground of evidence which will verify his report to the
+Government.  Suppose the next thing I hear he will be chasing
+around the outer rim of the old world hunting for somebody to
+verify the Government.
+
+There is absolutely no use of my trying to say the name of the
+place he has started for.  Even when written it looks too wicked to
+pronounce.  It is near the Pass that leads into the Gobi Desert.
+
+Jack wrote me to go to Shanghai and he would join me later.  I am
+writing him that I can't start till the fate of Sada San is settled
+for better or for worse.
+
+
+
+
+NANKOW, CHINA.  February, 1912.
+
+_Mate_:
+
+News of Jack's desperate illness came to me ten days ago and has
+laid waste my heart as the desert wind blasts life.  I have been
+flying to him as fast as boat and train and cart will take me.
+
+The second wire reached me in Peking last night.  Jack has typhus
+fever and the disease is nearing the crisis.  I have read the
+message over and over, trying to read between the lines some faint
+glimmer of hope; but I can get no comfort from the noncommittal
+words except the fact that Jack is still alive.  I am on my way to
+the terminus of the railroad, from where the message was sent.  I
+came this far by train, only to find all regular traffic stopped by
+order of the Government.  The line may be needed for the escape of
+the Imperial Family from Peking if the Palace is threatened by the
+revolutionists.
+
+Orders had been given that no foreigner should leave the Legation
+enclosure.  I bribed the room boy to slip me through the side
+streets and dark alleys to an outside station.  I must go the rest
+of the distance by cart when the road is possible, by camel or
+donkey when not.  Nothing seems possible now.  Everything within
+sight looks as if it had been dead for centuries, and the people
+walking around have just forgotten to be buried.
+
+I am wild with impatience to be gone but neither bribes nor threats
+will hurry the coolies who take their time harnessing the donkeys
+and the camels.
+
+A ring of ossified men, women and children have formed about me,
+staring with unblinking eyes, till I feel as if I was full of peep
+holes.  It is not life, for neither youth nor love nor sorrow has
+ever passed this way.  The tiniest emotion would shrivel if it
+dared begin to live.  Maybe they are better so.  But then, they
+have never known Jack.
+
+How true it is that one big heart-ache withers up all the little
+ones and the joy of years as well.  With this terror upon me, even
+Sada's desperate trouble has faded and grown pale as the memory of
+a dream.  Jack is ill and I must get to him, though my body is
+racked with the rough travel, and the ancient road holds the end of
+love and life for me.
+
+Around the sad old world I am stretching out my arms to you, Mate,
+for the courage to face whatever comes, and your love which has
+never failed me.
+
+
+
+
+KALGAN.
+
+Such wild unbelievable things have happened!
+
+After twenty miles of intolerable shaking on the back of a camel,
+my battered body fell off at the last stopping-place, which
+happened to be here.  There is no hotel.  But three blessed
+European hoys living at this place--agents for a big tobacco
+firm--took me into their little home.  From that time--ten days
+ago--till now, they have served and cared for me as only sons who
+have not forgotten their mothers could do.
+
+On that awful night I came, while forcing food on me, they said
+that Jack had stopped with them on his way out to the desert, where
+he was to complete his work for the Government.  He was to go part
+of the distance with the English woman, who, with her camels and
+her guides, was traveling to the Siberian railroad.  The next day
+they heard the whole caravan had returned.  Four days out Jack had
+been taken ill.  The only available shelter was an old monastery
+about a mile from the village.  To this he had been moved.  My
+hosts opened a window and pointed to a far-away, high-up light.  It
+was like the flicker of a match in a vast cave of darkness.  They
+told me wonderful things of the rooms in the monastery, which were
+cut in the solid rock of the mountain-side, and the strange dwarf
+priest who kept it.
+
+They lied beautifully and cheerfully as to Jack's condition, and
+all the time in their hearts they knew that he had the barest
+chance to live through the night.
+
+The woman doctor had nursed him straight through, permitting no one
+else near.  The dwarf priest brought her supplies.
+
+Her last message for the day had been, "The crisis will soon be
+passed."
+
+Even now something grips my throat when I remember how those dear
+boys worked to divert me, until my strength revived.  They rigged
+up a battered steamer-chair with furs and bath robes, put me in it,
+promising that as soon as I was rested they would see what could be
+done to get me up to the monastery.  But I was not to worry.  All
+of them set about seeing I had no time to think.  Each took his
+turn in telling me marvelous tales of the life in that wild
+country.  One boy brought in the new litter of puppies, begging me
+to carefully choose a name for each.  The two ponies were trotted
+out and put through their pranks before the door in the half light
+of a dim lantern.
+
+They showed me the treasures of their bachelor life, the family
+photographs and the various little nothings which link isolated
+lives to home and love.  They even assured me they had had _the_
+table-cloth and napkins washed for my coming.  Household interests
+exhausted, they began to talk of boyhood days.  Their quiet voices
+soothed me.  Prom exhaustion I slept.  When I woke, my watch said
+one o'clock.  The house was heavy with sleeping-stillness.
+
+Through my window, far away the dim light wavered.  It seemed to be
+signaling me.  My decision was quick.  I would go, and alone.  If I
+called, my hosts would try to dissuade me, and I would not listen.
+For life or for death, I was going to Jack.  The very thought lent
+me strength and gave my feet cunning stealthiness.  A high wall was
+around the house but, thank Heaven, they had forgotten to lock the
+gate.
+
+Soon I was in the deserted, deep-rutted street shut in on either
+side by mud hovels, low and crouching close together in their
+pitiful poverty.  There was nothing to guide me, save that distant
+speck of flame.  Further on, I heard the rush of water and made out
+the dim line of an ancient bridge.  Half way across I stumbled.
+From the heap of rags my foot had struck, came moans, and, by the
+sound of it, awful curses.  It was a handless leper.  I saw the
+stumps as they flew at me.  Sick with horror, I fled and found an
+open place.
+
+The light still beckoned.  The way was heavy with high, drifted
+sand.  The courage of despair goaded me to the utmost effort.
+Forced to pause for breath, I found and leaned against a post.  It
+was a telegraph pole.  In all the blackness and immeasurable
+loneliness, it was the solitary sign of an inhabited world.  And
+the only sound was the wind, as it sang through the taut wires in
+the unspeakable sadness of minor chords.  A camel caravan came by,
+soft-footed, silent and inscrutable.  I waited till it passed out
+to the mysteries of the desert beyond the range of hills.
+
+I began again to climb the path.  It was lighter when I crept
+through a broken wall and found myself in a stone courtyard, with
+gilded shrines and grinning Buddhas.  One image more hideous than
+the rest, with eyes like glow-worms, untangled its legs and came
+towards me.  I shook with fright.  But it was only the dwarf
+priest--a monstrosity of flesh and blood, who kept the temple.  I
+pointed to the light which seemed to be hanging to the side of the
+rocks above.  He slowly shook his head, then rested it on his hands
+and closed his eyes.  I pushed him aside and painfully crawled up
+the shallow stone stairs, and found a door at the top.  I opened
+it.  Lying on a stone bed was Jack, white and still.  A woman
+leaned over him with her hand on his wrist.  Her face was heavily
+lined with a long life of sorrow.  On her head was a crown of
+snow-white hair.  She raised her hand for silence.  I fell at her
+feet a shaking lump of misery.
+
+I could not live through it again, Mate--those  remaining  hours
+of agony, when every second seemed the last for Jack.  But morning
+dawned, and with the miracle of a new-born day came the magic gift
+of life.  When Jack opened his eyes and feebly stretched out his
+hand to me, my singing heart gave thanks to God.
+
+And so the crisis was safely passed.  And the hateful science I
+believed was taking Jack from me, in the skilful hands of a good
+woman, gave him back to me.
+
+The one comfort left me in the humiliation of my petty, unreasoning
+jealousy--yes, I had been jealous--was to tell her.
+
+And she, whose name was Edith Bowden, opened to me the door of her
+secret garden, wherein lay the sweet and holy memories of her
+lover, dead in the long ago.
+
+For forty long and lonesome years she had unfalteringly held before
+her the vision of her young sweetheart and his work, and through
+them she had toiled to make real his ideals.
+
+I take it all back, Mate.  A career that makes such women as this
+is a beautiful and awesome thing.
+
+In spite of all my pleadings to come with us, Miss Bowden started
+once again on her lonely way across the wind-swept plains, back to
+Europe and her work, leaving me with a never-to-be-forgotten
+humility of spirit and an homage in my heart that never before have
+I paid a woman.
+
+I am too polite to say it, but I have had a taste of the place you
+spell with four letters.  Also of Heaven.  Just now, with Jack's
+thin hand safely in mine, I am hovering around the doors of
+Paradise in the house of the boys in Kalgan.  If you could see the
+dusty little Chinese-Mongolian village, hanging on the upper lip of
+the mouth of the Gobi Desert, you would think it a strange place to
+find bliss.  But joy can beautify sand and Sodom.
+
+Yesterday my hosts made me take a ride out into the Desert.  Oh,
+Mate, in spots these glittering golden sands are sublime.  My heart
+was so light and the air so rare, it was like flying through sunlit
+space on a legless horse.
+
+Life, or what answers to it, has been going on in the same way
+since thousands of years before Pharaoh went on that wild lark to
+the Red Sea.  Every minute I expected to see Abraham and Sarah
+trailing along with their flocks and their families, hunting a
+place to stake out a claim, and Noah somewhere on a near-by
+sand-hill, taking in tickets for the Ark Museum, while the "two by
+two's" fed below.  I never heard of these friends being in this
+part of the country, but you can never tell what a wandering spirit
+will do.
+
+Jack is getting fat laughing at me.  But Jack never was a lady and
+does not know what havoc imagination and the spell of the East can
+play with a loving but lonesome wife.  And take it from me,
+beloved, he never will.  Nothing gained in exposing all your
+follies.  He sends love to you.  So do I--from the joyful heart of
+a woman whose most terrible troubles never happened.
+
+
+
+
+PEKING, February, 1912.
+
+_Mate_:
+
+I do not know whether I can write you sanely or not.  But write you
+I must.  It is my one outlet in these days of anxious waiting.  I
+have just cabled Billy Milton, in Nebraska, to come by the first
+steamer.  I have not an idea what he will do when he gets to Japan,
+or how I will help him; but he is my one hope.
+
+Yesterday, on our arrival here, I found a desperate letter from
+Sada San, written hurriedly and sent secretly.  She finds that the
+man Hara, whom her uncle has promised she shall marry, has a wife
+and three children!
+
+The man, on the flimsiest pretest, has sent the woman home to clear
+his establishment for the new wife.  And, Mate, can you believe it,
+he has kept the children--the youngest a nursing baby, just three
+months old!
+
+One of the geisha girls in the tea-house slipped in one night and
+told Sada.  She went at once to Uncle and asked him if it was true.
+He said that it was, and that Sada should consider herself very
+lucky to be wanted by such a man.  Upon Sada telling him she would
+die before she would marry the man, he laughed at her.  Since then
+she has not been permitted to leave her room.
+
+The lucky day for marriage has been found and set.  Thank goodness,
+it is seventeen days from now, and if Billy races across by
+Vancouver he can make it.  In the meantime Nebraska seems a million
+miles away.  I know the heartbeats of the fellow who is riding to
+the place of execution, with a reprieve.  But seventeen days is a
+deadly slow nag.
+
+I had already told Jack of my anxiety for Sada San and of the fate
+that was hanging over her, but now that the blow has suddenly
+fallen I dare not tell him.  In a situation like this I know what
+Jack would want to do; and in his present weakened condition it
+might be fatal.
+
+It is useless for me to appeal to anybody out here.  Those in Japan
+who would help are powerless.  Those who could help would smile
+serenely and tell me it was the law.  And law and custom supersede
+any lesser question of right or wrong.  By it the smallest act of
+every inhabitant is regulated, from the quantity of air he breathes
+to the proper official place for him to die.  But, imagine the
+_majesty_ of any law which makes it a ghastly immorality to mildly
+sass your mother-in-law, and a right, lawful and moral act for a
+man, with any trumped-up excuse, to throw his legal wife out of the
+house, that room may be made for another woman who has appealed to
+his fancy.
+
+Japan may not need missionaries, but, by all the Mikados that ever
+were or will be, her divorce laws need a few revisions more than
+the nation needs battleships.  You might run a country without
+gunboats, but never without women.
+
+This case of Hara is neither extreme nor unusual.  I have been face
+to face in this flowery kingdom with tragedies of this kind when a
+woman was the blameless victim of a man's caprice, and he was
+upheld by a law that would shame any country the sun shines on.  By
+a single stroke of a pen through her name, on the records at the
+courthouse, the woman is divorced--sometimes before she knows it.
+Then she goes away to hide her disgrace and her broken heart--not
+broken because of her love for the man who has cast her off, but
+because, from the time she is invited to go home on a visit and her
+clothes are sent after her, on through life, she is marked.  If she
+has children, the chances are that the husband retains possession
+of them, and she is seldom, if ever, permitted to see them.
+
+I know your words of caution would be, Mate, not to be rash in my
+condemnations, to remember the defects of my own land.  I am
+neither forgetful nor rash.  I do not expect to reform the country,
+neither am I arguing.  I am simply telling you facts.
+
+I know, too, that some Fountain Head of knowledge will rise from
+the back seat and beg to state that the new civil code contains
+many revisions and regulates divorce.  The only trouble with the
+new civil code is that it keeps on containing the revisions and
+only in theory do they get beyond the books in which they are
+written.
+
+Next to my own, in my affections, stands this sunlit,
+flower-covered land which has given the world men and women
+unselfishly brave and noble.  But there are a few deformities in
+the country's law system that need the knife of a skilled surgeon,
+amputating right up to the last joint; among these the divorce laws
+made in ancient times by the gone-to-dust but still sacred and
+revered ancestors.  Who would give a hang for any old ancestor so
+cut on the bias?
+
+I cannot write any more.  I am too agitated to be entertaining.
+
+I wrote Sada a revised version of Blue Beard that would turn that
+venerable gentleman gray, could he read it.  Uncle will be sure to.
+I dare him to solve the puzzle of my fancy writing.  But I made
+Sada San know the Prince Red Head was coming to her rescue, if the
+engine did not break down.
+
+Now there is nothing to do but wait and pray there are no weak
+spots in Billy's backbone.
+
+Cable just received.  William is on the wing!
+
+
+
+
+PEKING, CHINA, February, 1912.
+
+Well, here we still are, my convalescent Jack and I, bottled up in
+the middle of a revolution, and poor, helpless little Sada San
+calling to me across the waters.  Verily, these are strenuous days
+for this perplexed woman.
+
+It is a tremendous sight to look out upon the incomprehensible
+saffron-hued masses that crowd the streets.  I no longer wonder at
+the color of the Yellow Sea.
+
+But, Oh, Mate, if I could only make you see the gilded walled city,
+in which history of the ages is being laid in dust and ashes, while
+the power that made it is hastening down the back alley to a
+mountain nunnery for safety!  Peking is like a beautiful golden
+witch clothed in priceless garments of dusty yellow, girded with
+ropes of pearls.  Her eyes are of jade, and so fine is the powdered
+sand she sifts from her tapering fingers it turns the air to an
+amber haze; so potent its magic spell, it fascinates and enthralls,
+while it repels.
+
+For all the centuries the witch has held the silken threads, which
+bound her millions of subjects, she has been deaf--deaf to the
+cries of starvation, injustice and cruelty; heedless to devastation
+of life by her servants; smiling at piles of headless men; gloating
+over torture when it filled her treasure-house.
+
+Ever cruel and heartless, now she is all a-tremble and sick with
+fear of the increasing power of the mighty young giant--Revolution.
+She sees from afar her numbered days.  She is crying for the mercy
+she never showed, begging for time she never granted.  She is a
+tottering despot, a dying tyrant, but still a beautiful golden
+witch.
+
+We have not been here long but my soul has been sickened by the
+sights of the pitiless consequences of even the rumors of war all
+over the country and particularly in Peking.  If only the
+responsible ones could suffer.  But it is the poor, the innocent
+and the old who pay the price for the greed of the others.  In
+this, how akin the East is to the West!  The night we came there
+was a run on the banks caused by the report that Peking was to be
+looted and burned.  Crowds of men, women and even children,
+hollow-eyed and haggard, jammed the streets before the doors of the
+banks, pleading for their little all.  Some of them had as much as
+two dollars stored away!  But it was the twenty dimes that deferred
+slow starvation.  Banks kept open through the night.  Officials and
+clerks worked to exhaustion, satisfying demands, hoping to placate
+the mob and avert the unthinkable results of a riot.  Countless
+soldiers swarmed the streets with fixed bayonets.  But the
+bloodless witch has no claim to one single heart-beat of loyalty
+from the unpaid wretches who wear the Imperial uniform; and when by
+simply tying a white handkerchief on their arms they go over in
+groups of hundreds to the Revolutionists, they are only repaying
+treachery in its own foul coin.
+
+Though I hate to leave Jack even for an hour, I have to get out
+each day for some fresh air.  To-day it seemed to me, as I walked
+among the crowds, fantastic in the flickering flames of bonfires
+and incandescent light, that life had done its cruel worst to these
+people--had written her bitterest tokens of suffering and woe in
+the deeply furrowed faces and sullenly hopeless eyes.
+
+Earlier in the year thousands of farmers and small tradesmen had
+come in from the country to escape floods, famine and robber-bands.
+Hundreds had sold their children for a dollar or so and for days
+lived on barks and leaves, as they staggered toward Peking for
+relief.
+
+Now thousands more are rushing from the city to the hills or to the
+desert, fleeing from riot and war, the strong carrying the sick,
+the young the old--each with a little bundle of household goods,
+all camping near the towering gates in the great city wall, ready
+to dash through when the keeper flings them open in the early
+morning.
+
+And through it all the merciless execution of any suspect or
+undesirable goes merrily on.  Close by my carriage a cart passed.
+In it were four wretched creatures with hands and feet bound and
+pigtails tied together.  They were on their way to a plot of
+crimson ground where hundreds part with their heads.  By the side
+of the cart ran a ten-year-old boy, his uplifted face distorted
+with agony of grief.  One of the prisoners was his father.
+
+I watched the terrified masses till a man and woman of the
+respectable farmer class came by, with not enough rags on to hide
+their half-starved bodies.  Between them they carried on their
+shoulders a bamboo pole, from which was swung a square of matting.
+On this, in rags, but clean, lay a mere skeleton of a baby with
+beseeching eyes turned to its mother; and from its lips came
+piteous little whines like a hunger-tortured kitten.  Tears
+streamed down the woman's cheeks as she crooned and babbled to the
+child in a language only a tender mother knows, but in her eyes was
+the look of a soul crucified with helpless suffering.
+
+I slipped all the money I had into the straw cradle and fled to our
+room.  Jack was asleep.  I got into my bed and covered up my head
+to shut out the horrors of the multitude that are hurting my own
+heart like an eternal toothache.
+
+But, honey, bury me deep when there isn't a smile lurking around
+the darkest corner.  Neither war nor famine can wholly eliminate
+the comical.  Yesterday afternoon some audacious youngsters asked
+me to chaperon a tea-party up the river.  We went in a gaily
+decorated house-boat, made tea on a Chinese stove of impossible
+shape, and ate cakes and sandwiches innumerable.  Aglow with youth
+and its joys, reckless of danger, courting adventure, the promoters
+of the enterprise failed to remember that we were outside the city
+walls, that the gates were closed at sunset and nothing but a
+written order from an official could open them.  We had no such
+order.  When it was quite dark, we faced entrances doubly locked
+and barred.  The guardian inside might have been dead for all he
+heeded our importunities and bribes.  At night outside the huge
+pile of brick and stone, inclosing and guarding the city from
+lawless bandits, life is not worth a whistle.  A dismayed little
+giggle went round the crowd of late tea revelers as we looked up
+the twenty-five feet of smooth wall topped by heavy battlements.
+Just when we had about decided that our only chance was to stand on
+each other's shoulders and try to hack out footholds with a bread
+knife, some one suggested that we try the effect of college yells
+on the gentlemen within.  Imagine the absurdity of a dozen
+terrified Americans standing there in the heart of China yelling in
+unison for Old Eli, and Nassau, and the Harvard Blue!
+
+The effect was magical.  Curiosity is one of the strongest of
+Oriental traits, and before long the gates creaked on their hinges
+and a crowd of slant-eyed, pig-tailed heads peered wonderingly out.
+The rest was easy, and I heard a great sigh of relief as I
+marshaled my little group into safety.
+
+Jack's many friends here in Peking are determined that I shall have
+as good a time as possible.  Worried by disorganized business,
+harassed with care, they always find opportunity not only to plan
+for my pleasure but see that I have it, properly attended--for of
+course Jack is not yet able to leave his room.
+
+Beyond the power of any man is the prophecy of what may happen to
+official-ridden Peking.  The air is surcharged with mutterings.
+The brutally oppressed people may turn at last, rise, and, in their
+fury, rend to bits all flesh their skeleton fingers grasp.
+
+The Legations grouped around the hotel are triply guarded.  The
+shift, shift, shift of soldiers' feet as they march the streets
+rubs my nerves like sandpaper.
+
+Rest and sleep are impossible.  We seem constantly on the edge of a
+precipice, over which, were we to go, the fate awaiting us would
+reduce the tortures of Hades to pin-pricks.  The Revolutionists
+have the railroads, the bandits the rivers.  Yet, if I don't reach
+Japan in twelve days now, I will be too late.  Poor Sada San!
+
+Please say to your small son David that his request to send him an
+Emperor's crown to wear when he plays king, is not difficult to
+grant.  At the present writing crowns in the Orient are not
+fashionable.  As I look out of my window, the salmon-pink walls of
+the Forbidden City rise in the dusty distance.  Under the flaming
+yellow roof of the Palace is a frail and frightened little
+six-year-old boy--the ruler of millions--who, if he knew and could,
+would gladly exchange his priceless crown for freedom and a bag of
+marbles.
+
+Good night.
+
+
+
+
+PEKING, Next day.
+
+It is Sunday afternoon and pouring rain.  Outside it is so drearily
+mournful, I keep my back turned.  At least, the dripping wet will
+secure me a quiet hour or so.
+
+My Chinese room-boy reasons that only a sure-enough somebody would
+have so many callers and attend so many functions--not knowing that
+it is only because Jack's wife will never lack where he has
+friends.  Hence the boy haunts my door ready to serve and reap his
+reward.  But I am sure it was only kindness that prompted him on
+this dreary day to set the fire in the grate to blazing and arrange
+the tea-table, the steaming kettle close by, and turn on all the
+lights.  How cozy it is!  How homelike!
+
+Jack grows stronger each day, and crosser, which is a good sign.
+At last I have told him of Sada San's plight; and he is for
+starting for Kioto to-morrow to "wipe the floor with Uncle Mura,"
+as he elegantly expresses it.  But of course he 's still too weak
+to even think of such a journey.
+
+He makes me join in the gaieties that still go on despite the
+turmoil and unrest.  I must tell you of one dinner which, of the
+many brilliant functions, was certainly unique.
+
+It was a sumptuous affair given by one of the Legation officials.
+I wore my glory dress--the color Jack loves best.  I went in a
+carriage guarded on the outside by soldiers.  Beside me sat a
+strapping European with his pockets bulging suspiciously.  I was
+not in the least afraid of the threatening mob which stopped us
+twice.
+
+I could almost have welcomed an attack, just to get behind my big
+escort and see him clear the way.
+
+Merciful powers!  Hate is a sweet and friendly word for what the
+masses feel for the foreigners, whom most believe to be in league
+with the Government.
+
+Happily, nothing more serious happened than breaking all the
+carriage windows; and, in the surprise that awaited me in the
+drawing-room of the gorgeously appointed mansion, I quite forgot
+that.
+
+Who should be almost the first to greet me but Dolly and Mr. Dolly,
+otherwise the Seeker, married and on their honeymoon!  She was
+radiant.  And oh, Mate, if you could only see the change in him!
+As revolutions seem to be in order, Dolly has worked a prize one on
+him, I think.  He was positively gentle and showed signs of the
+making of a near gentleman.  I was glad to see them, and more than
+glad to see Dolly's unfeigned happiness.  The mournful little
+prince has gone on his way to lonely, isolated Sikkam to take up
+his task of endless reincarnation.
+
+Very soon I found another surprise--my friend Mr. Carson of the
+Rockies.  It seemed a little incongruous that the simple,
+unlettered Irishman should have found his way into the brilliant,
+many-countried company, where were men who made history and held
+the fate of nations in their hands and built or crumbled empires,
+and women to match, regally gowned, keen of wit and wisdom.
+
+But, bless you, he was neither troubled nor out of place.  He was
+the essence of democracy and mixed with the guests with the same
+innocent simplicity that he would have shown at his village church
+social.
+
+He greeted me cordially, asked after Jack and spoke
+enthusiastically of his work.
+
+I smiled when I saw that in the curious shuffling of cards he had
+been chosen as the dinner escort of a tall and stately Russian
+beauty.  I watched them walk across the waxen floor and heard him
+say to her, "Sure if I had time I would telegraph for me roller
+skates to guide ye safely over the slickness of the boards."  Her
+answering laugh, sweet and friendly, was reassuring.
+
+For a while it was a deadly solemn feast.  The difficulty was to
+find topics of common interest without stumbling upon forbidden
+subjects.  You see, Mate, times are critical; and the only way to
+keep out of trouble is not to get in by being too wordy.  By my
+side sat a stern-visaged leader of the Revolution.  Across the way,
+a Manchu Prince.
+
+Mr. Carson and the beauty were just opposite.  I became absorbed in
+watching her exquisite tact in guiding the awkward hands of her
+partner through the silver puzzle on each side of his plate to the
+right eating utensils at the proper time.  I saw her pleased
+interest in all his talk, whether it was crops, cider or pigtails.
+And for her gentle courtesy and kindness to my old friend I blessed
+her and wiped out a big score I had against her country.  How glad
+Russia will be!
+
+But the Irishman was not happy.  Course after course had been
+served.  With every rich course came a rare wine.  Colorado shook a
+shaggy gray head at every bottle, though he was choking with
+thirst.  He was a teetotaler.  Whenever boy No. 1, who served the
+wine, approached, he whispered, "Water."  It got to be "Water,
+please, _water_!"  Then threateningly, "Water, blame ye!  Fetch me
+water." It was vain pleading.  At best a Chinaman is no friend to
+water; and when the word is flung at him with an Emerald accent it
+fails to arrive.  But ten courses without moisture bred
+desperation; and all at once, down the length of that banquet
+board, went a hoarsely whispered plea, in the richest imaginable
+brogue,
+
+"Hostess, _where 's_ the pump?"
+
+It was like a sky-rocket scattering showers of sparks on a lowering
+cloud.  In a twinkling the heaviness of the feast was dispersed by
+shouts of laughter.  Everybody found something delightful to tell
+that was not dangerous.
+
+We wound up by going to a Chinese theater.  When we left, after two
+hours of death and devastation, the demands of the drama for gore
+were still so great, assistants had to be called from out the
+audience to change the scenery and dead men brought to life to go
+on with the play.
+
+When I got back Jack was, of course, asleep; but he had been busy
+in my absence.  I found a note on my pin-cushion saying he had sent
+a wire to meet Billy's steamer on its arrival at Yokohama and that
+I 'm to start alone for Japan in a day or two--as soon as it seems
+safe to travel.
+
+
+
+
+Next day.
+
+Honey, there is a thrill a minute.  I may not live to see the
+finish, for the soldiers have mutinied and joined the mob, maddened
+with lust for blood and loot.  I must tell you about it while I
+can; for it is not every day one has the chance of seeing a fresh
+and daring young Republic sally up to an all-powerful dynasty,
+centuries old with tyranny and treasure, and say, "Now, you vamoose
+the Golden Throne.  It matters not where you go, but hustle; and I
+don't want any back talk while you are doing it."
+
+If I was n't so excited I might be nervous.  But, Mate, when you
+see a cruelly oppressed people winning their freedom with almost
+nothing to back them hut plain grit, you want to sing, dance, pray
+and shout all at the same time, and there is no mistake about young
+China having a mortgage on all the surplus nerve of the country.
+Of course, the mob, awful as it is, is simply an unavoidable
+attachment of war.
+
+All day there has been terrible fighting, and I am told the streets
+are blocked with headless bodies and plunder that could not be
+carried off.
+
+The way the mob and the soldier-bandits got into the city is a
+story that makes any tale of the Arabian Nights fade away into dull
+myth.
+
+Some years ago a Manchu official, high in command, espied a
+beautiful flower-girl on the street and forthwith attached her as
+his private property.  So great was her fascination, the tables
+were turned and he became the slave--till he grew tired.  He not
+only scorned her, but he deserted her.  Though a Manchu maid, the
+Revolution played into her tapering fingers the opportunity for the
+sweetest revenge that ever tempted an almond-eyed beauty.  It had
+been the proud boast of her officer master that he could resist any
+attacking party and hold the City Royal for the Manchus.  Alas! he
+reckoned without a woman.  She knew a man outside the city walls--a
+leader of an organization--half soldiery, half bandits--who
+thirsted for the chance to pay off countless scores against
+officers and private citizens inside.  After a vain effort to win
+back her lover, the flower-girl communicated with the captain of
+the rebel band, who had only been deterred from entering the city
+by a high wall twenty feet thick.  She told him to be ready to come
+in on a certain night--the gates would be open.  The night came.
+She slipped from doorway to doorway through the guarded streets
+till she reached the appointed place.  Even the sentries
+unconsciously lent a hand to her plan, in leaving their posts and
+seeking a tea-house fire by which to warm their half-frozen bodies.
+The one-time jewel of the harem, who had seldom lifted her own
+teacup, tugged at the mighty gates with her small hands till the
+bars were raised and in rushed the mob.  She raced to her home,
+decked herself in all the splendid jewels he had given her, stuck
+red roses in her black hair, and stood on a high roof and jeered
+her lover as he fled for his life through the narrow streets.
+
+
+The city is bright with the fires started by the rabble.  The
+yellow roofs, the pink walls and the towering marble pagodas catch
+the reflection of the flames, making a scene of barbaric splendor
+that would reduce the burning of Rome to a feeble little bonfire.
+
+The pitiful, the awful and the very funny are so intermixed, my
+face is fatally twisted trying to laugh and cry at the same time.
+Right across from my window, on the street curbing, a Chinaman is
+getting a hair-cut.  In the midst of all the turmoil, hissing
+bullets and roaring mobs, he sits with folded hands and closed eyes
+as calm as a Joss, while a strolling barber manipulates a pair of
+foreign shears.  For him blessed freedom lies not in the change of
+Monarchy to Republic, but in the shearing close to the scalp the
+hated badge of bondage--his pigtail.
+
+And, Mate, the first thing the looters do when they enter a house
+is to snatch down the telephones and take them out to burn; for, as
+one rakish bandit explained, they were the talking-machines of the
+foreign devils and, if left, might reveal the names of the looters!
+
+High-born ladies with two-inch feet stumble by, their calcimined
+faces streaked with tears and fright.  Gray-haired old men shiver
+with terror and try to hide in any small corner.  Lost children and
+deserted ones, frantic with fear, cling to any passer-by, only to
+be shoved into the street and often trampled underfoot.  And
+through it all, the mob runs and pitilessly mows down with sword
+and knife as it goes, and plunders and sacks till there is nothing
+left.
+
+As I stood watching only a part of this horror, I heard a
+long-haired brother near me say, as he kept well under cover,
+"Inscrutable Providence!"  But (my word!) I don't think it fair to
+lay it all on Providence.
+
+So far the foreign Legations have been well guarded.  But there is
+no telling how long the overworked soldiers can hold out.  When
+they cannot, the Lord help the least one of us.
+
+Jack's friends are working day and night, guarding their property.
+
+I guess the Seeker found more of the plain unvarnished Truth in the
+East than he bargained for.  He and Dolly have disappeared from
+Peking.
+
+Nobody undresses these nights and few go to bed.  Our bodyguard is
+the room-boy.  I asked him which side he was on, and without a
+change of feature he answered, "Manchu Chinaman.  Allee samee
+bimeby, Missy, I make you tea."  I have a suspicion that he sleeps
+across our door, for his own or our protection, I am not sure
+which; but sometimes, when the terrible howls of fighters reach me,
+as I doze in a chair, I turn on the light and sit by my fire to
+shake off a few shivers, trying to make believe I 'm home in
+Kentucky, while Jack sleeps the sleep of the convalescent.  Then a
+soft tap comes at my door and a very gentle voice says, "Missy, I
+make you tea."  Shades of Pekoe!  I 'll drown if this keeps up much
+longer.  He comes in, brews the leaves, then drops on his haunches
+and looks into the fire.  Not by the quiver of an eyelash does he
+give any sign, no matter how close the shots and shouts.
+Inscrutable and immovable, he seems a thing utterly apart from the
+tremendous upheaval of his country.  And yet, for all anybody
+knows, he may be chief plotter of the whole movement.  His unmoved
+serenity is about the most soothing thing in all this Hades.  I am
+not really and truly afraid.  Jack is with me, and just over there,
+above the crimson glare of the burning city, gently but surely
+float the Stars and Stripes.
+
+Good night, beloved Mate.  I will not believe we are dead till it
+happens.  Besides, I simply could not die till Jack and I have
+saved Sada San.
+
+By the way, I start for Japan tomorrow.  The prayers of the
+congregation are requested!
+
+
+
+
+KIOTO HOTEL, KIOTO, March, 1912.
+
+_Beloved Mate_:
+
+Rejoice with me!  Sing psalms and give thanks.  Something has
+happened.  I do not know just what it is, but little thrills of
+happiness are playing hop-scotch up and down my back, and my bead
+is lighter than usual.
+
+Be calm and I will tell you about it.
+
+In the first place, I got here this morning, more dead than alive,
+after days of travel that are now a mere blur of yelling crowds,
+rattling trains and heaving seas.  A wire from Yokohama was
+waiting.  Billy had beat me here by a few hours.  At noon, to-day,
+a big broad-shouldered youth met me, whom I made no mistake in
+greeting as Mr. Milton.  Billy's eyes are beautifully brown.
+William's chin looks as if it was modeled for the purpose of
+dealing with tea-house Uncles.
+
+Not far from the station is a black-and-tan temple--ancient and
+restful.  To that we strolled and sat on the edge of the Fountain
+of Purification, which faces the quiet monastery garden, while we
+talked things over.  That is, Billy did the questioning; I did the
+talking to the mystic chanting of the priests.
+
+I quickly related all that I knew of what had happened to Sada, and
+what was about to happen.  There was no reason for me to adorn the
+story with any fringes for it to be effective.  Billy's face was
+grim.  He said little; put a few more questions, then left me
+saying he would join me at dinner in the hotel.
+
+I passed an impatient, tedious afternoon.  Went shopping, bought
+things I can never use, wondering all the time what was going to be
+the outcome.  Got a reassuring cable from Jack in answer to mine,
+saying all was well with him.
+
+Mr. Milton returned promptly this evening.  He ordered dinner, then
+forgot to eat.  He did not refer to the afternoon; and long
+intimacy with science has taught me when not to ask questions.
+There was only a fragment of a plan in my mind; I had no further
+communication from Sada, and knew nothing more than that the
+wedding was only a day off.
+
+We decided to go to Uncle's house together.  I was to get in the
+house and see Sada if possible, taking, as the excuse for calling,
+a print on which, in an absent-minded moment, I had squandered
+thirty yen.
+
+Billy was to stay outside, and, if I could find the faintest reason
+for so doing, I was to call him in.  This was his suggestion.
+
+I found Uncle scintillating with good humor and hospitality.
+Evidently his plans were going smoothly; but not once did he refer
+to them.  I asked for Sada.  Uncle smiled sweetly and said she was
+not in.  Ananias died for less!  He was quite capable of locking
+her up in some very quiet spot.  I was externally indifferent and
+internally dismayed.  I showed him my print.  At once he was the
+eager, interested artist and he went into a long history of the
+picture.
+
+Though I looked at him and knew he was talking, his words conveyed
+no meaning.  I was faint with despair.  It was my last chance.  I
+could have wagered Uncle's best picture that Billy was tearing up
+gravel outside.  I had been in the house an hour, and had
+accomplished nothing.  Surely if I stayed long enough something had
+to happen.
+
+Suddenly out of my hopelessness came a blessed thought.  Uncle had.
+once promised to show me a priceless original of Hokusai.  I asked
+if I might see it then.  He was so elated that without calling a
+servant to do it for him he disappeared into a deep cupboard to
+find his treasure.
+
+For a moment, helpless and desperate, I was swayed with a mad
+impulse to lock him up in the cupboard; but there was no lock.
+
+It was so deadly still it hurt.  Then, coming from the outside, I
+heard a low whistle with an unmistakable American twist to it,
+followed by a soft scraping sound.  My heart missed two beats.  I
+did not know what was happening; nor was I sure that Sada was
+within the house; but something told me that my cue was to keep
+Uncle busy.  I obeyed with a heavy accent.  When he appeared with
+his print, I began to talk.  I recklessly repeated pages of
+text-books, whether they fitted or not; I fired technical terms at
+him till he was dizzy with mental gymnastics.
+
+He smoothed out his precious picture.  I fell upon it.  I raved
+over the straight-front mountains and the marceled waves in that
+foolish old woodcut as I had never gushed over any piece of paper
+before, and I hope I never will again.  Not once did he relinquish
+his hold of that faded deformity in art, and neither did I.
+
+Surely I surprised myself with the new joys I constantly found in
+the pigeon-toed ladies and slant-eyed warriors.  Uncle needed
+absorption, concentration and occupation.  Mine was the privilege
+to give him what he required.
+
+No further sound from the garden and the silence drilled holes into
+my nerves.  I was so fearful that the man would see my trembling
+excitement, I soon made my adieux.
+
+Uncle seemed a little surprised and graciously mentioned that tea
+was being prepared for me.  I never wanted tea less and solitude
+more.  I said I must take the night train for Hiroshima.  It was a
+sudden decision; but to stay would be useless.
+
+I said, "Sayonara," and smiled my sweetest.  I had a feeling I
+would never see dear Uncle Mura on earth again and doubtless our
+environment will differ in the Beyond.
+
+I went to the gate.  It faced two streets.  Both were empty.  Not a
+sign of Billy nor the jinrickshas in which we had come.  I trod on
+air as I tramped back to the hotel.
+
+
+
+
+HIROSHIMA, Five Days Later, 1912.
+
+_Mate dear_:
+
+I am back in my old quarters--safe.  Why should n't I be!  A
+detective has been my constant companion since I left Kioto,
+sitting by my berth all night on the train, and following me to the
+gates of the School!
+
+I had planned to start back to Peking as soon as Sada and Billy
+were clear and away.  But this detective business has made me very
+wary--not to say weary--and I 've had to postpone my return to Jack
+to await the Emperor's pleasure and lest I bring more trouble on
+Sada's head, by following too closely on her heels; for I suspect
+the blessed elopers are themselves on the way to China.
+
+When I took my walk into the country the afternoon after I got
+here, I saw the detective out of the back of my head, and a merry
+chase I led him--up the steepest paths I knew, down the rocky
+sides, across the ferry, and into the remote village, where I let
+him rest his body in the stinging cold while I made an unexpected
+call.  For once he earned his salary and his supper.
+
+That night I was in the sitting-room alone.  A glass door leads out
+to an open porch.  Conscious of a presence, I looked up to find two
+penetrating eyes fixed on me.  It made me creepy and cold, yet I
+was amused.  I sat long and late, but a quiet shadow near the door
+told me I was not alone.  Even when in bed I could hear soft steps
+under my window.
+
+I have just come from an interview that was deliciously
+illuminating.
+
+Sada San has disappeared; and, so goes their acute reasoning, as I
+was the last person in Uncle's house, before her absence was
+discovered, the logical conclusion is that I have kidnapped her.
+
+Two hours ago the scared housemaid came to announce that "two Mr.
+Soldiers with swords wanted to speak to me."
+
+I went at once, to find my guardian angel and the Chief of Police
+for this district in the waiting-room.  We wasted precious minutes
+making inquiries about one another's health, accentuating every
+other word with a bow and a loud indrawn breath.  We were tuning up
+for the business in hand.
+
+The chief began by assuring me that I was a teacher of great
+learning.  I had not heard it but bowed.  It was poison to his
+spirit to question so honorable, august, and altogether wise a
+person, but I was suspected of a grave offense, and I must answer
+his questions.
+
+Where was my home?
+
+Easy.
+
+How did I live?
+
+Easier.
+
+Who was my grandfather?
+
+Fortunately I remembered.
+
+Was I married?
+
+Muchly.
+
+Where was my master?
+
+Did not have any.  My husband was in China.
+
+Was I in Japan by his permission?
+
+I was.
+
+Had I been sent home for disobedience?  Please explain.
+
+No explanation.  I was just here.
+
+Did I know the penalty for kidnaping?
+
+No, color-prints interested me more.
+
+Had any of my people ever been in the penitentiary?
+
+No, only the Legislature.
+
+At this both men looked puzzled.  Then the Chief made a discovery.
+
+"Ah-h," he sighed, "American word for crazysylum!"
+
+Would Madame positively state that she knew nothing of the girl's
+whereabouts.  Madame positively and truthfully so stated.  I did
+not know.  I only knew what I thought; but, Mate, you cannot arrest
+a man for thinking.  After a grilling of an hour or so they left
+me, looking worried and perplexed.  They had never heard of Billy,
+and I saw no use adding to their troubles.  Nobody seems to have
+noticed him at dinner with me; and now that I think of it, he had
+men strange to the hotel pulling the jinrickshas.
+
+It was dear of Billy not to implicate me.  I am ignorant of what
+really happened, but wherever they are I am sure Sada is in the
+keeping of an honorable man.
+
+Last night, after I closed this letter, I had a cable.  It said:
+
+  "Married in heaven,
+    "BILLY AND SADA."
+
+But the cables must have been crossed, for it was dated Shanghai;
+or else the operator was so excited over repeating such a message
+he forgot to put in the period.
+
+
+
+
+March 15.
+
+Just received a letter from Billy and Sada.  It is a gladsome tale
+they tell.  Young Lochinvar, though pale with envy, would how to
+Billy's direct method.  I can see you, blessed Mate that you are,
+smiling delightedly at the grand finale of the true love story I
+have been writing you these months.  Billy says on the night it all
+happened he tramped up and down, waiting for me to call him, till
+he wore "gullies in the measly little old cow-path they call a
+street."
+
+The passing moments only made him more furious.  Finally he decided
+to walk right into the house, unannounced, and find Sada if he had
+to knock Uncle down and make kindling wood of the bamboo
+doll-house.  But as he came into the side garden he saw in the
+second story a picture silhouetted on the white paper doors.  It
+was Sada and her face was buried in her hands.  That settled Billy.
+He would save Uncle all the worry of an argument by simply removing
+the cause.  There in the dusk, he whistled the old college call,
+then swung himself up on a fat stone lantern, and in a few minutes
+he swung down a suitcase and Sada in American clothes.  They caught
+a train to Kobe, which is only a short distance, and sailed out to
+the same steamer he had left in Yokohama and which arrived in Kobe
+that day.
+
+Billy says, for a quick and safe wedding ceremony commend him to an
+enthusiastic, newly-arrived young missionary; and for rapid
+handling of red tape connected with a license, pin your faith to a
+fat and jolly American consul.  So that was what the blessed rascal
+was doing all that afternoon he left me in Kioto to myself.  Cannot
+you see success in life branded on William's freckled brow right
+now?
+
+The story soon spread over the ship.  Passengers and crew packed
+the music-room to witness the ceremony, and joyously drank the
+health of the lovers at the supper the Captain hastily ordered.
+Without hindrance, but half delirious with joy, they headed for
+Shanghai.
+
+Billy found that he could transact a little business in China for
+the firm at home and with Western enterprise decided to make his
+honeymoon pay for itself.
+
+And now that my task is finished I shall follow them as fast as the
+next steamer can carry me.
+
+
+
+
+PEKING, APRIL, 1912.
+
+Back once again, Mate, in the City of Golden Dusts.  Glorious
+spring sunshine, and the whole world wrapped in a tender haze.
+Everything has little rainbows around it and the very air is
+studded with jewels.
+
+Soldiers are still marching; flags are flying; drums are thumping
+and it is all to the tune of Victory for the Revolutionists.  But
+best of all Jack is well!  To me Peking is like that first morning
+of Eve's in the Garden of Eden.
+
+What crowded, happy weeks these last have been.  Waiting for Jack;
+amusing him when time hangs heavy--even unto reading pages of
+scientific books with words so big the spine of my tongue is
+threatened with fracture.
+
+And in between times?  Well, I am thanking my stars for the chance
+to doubly make up for any little tenderness I may have passed by.
+Put it in your daily thought book, honey, forevermore I am going to
+remember that if at the time we'd use the strength in doing, that
+we consume afterwards being sorry we didn't do, life would run on
+an easy trolley.
+
+Billy and Sada are with us, still with the first glow of the
+enchanted garden over them.  Bless their happy hearts!  I am going
+to give them my collection of color prints to start housekeeping
+with.  How I'd _love_ to see Uncle--through a telescope.
+
+To-night we are having our last dinner here.  To-morrow the four of
+us turn our faces toward the most beautiful spot this side of
+Heaven, home.  The happy runaways to Nebraska, Jack and I to the
+little roost we left behind in Kentucky.
+
+
+There goes the music for dinner.  It 's something about "dreamy
+love." Love is n't a dream, Mate--not the kind I know; it's all of
+life and beyond.
+
+I know what they are playing!
+
+  Breathe but one breath
+  Rose beauty above
+  And all that was death
+  Grows life, grows love,
+  Grows love!
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lady and Sada San
+by Frances Little
+(pseudonym of Fannie Caldwell Macaulay)
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LADY AND SADA SAN ***
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