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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Captain June, by Alice Hegan Rice
+
+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: Captain June
+
+Author: Alice Hegan Rice
+
+Illustrator: C. D. Weldon
+
+Release Date: December 6, 2011 [EBook #38228]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPTAIN JUNE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Ernest Schaal, and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "All day long the boys played down by the river."]
+
+
+
+
+                              Captain June
+
+                                   By
+
+                            Alice Hegan Rice
+
+              Author of "Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch,"
+                           "Lovey Mary," Etc.
+
+                     With Pictures by C. D. Weldon
+
+                             [Illustration]
+
+                                New York
+                            The Century Co.
+                                  1907
+
+
+
+
+                         Copyright 1906, 1907,
+                           by THE CENTURY CO.
+
+                       _Published October, 1907_
+
+
+                           THE DE VINNE PRESS
+
+
+
+
+                     TO THE LITTLE BOY I LOVE BEST
+                         FRANCIS BARBOUR HEGAN
+
+
+
+
+                         LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+                                                                PAGE
+
+    "All day long the boys played down by the river"  _Frontispiece_
+
+    The Tea-party on the Train                                    17
+
+    "'Do you want me to help you?'"                               37
+
+    "'It's a Matsuri--a festival,' Seki explained"                49
+
+    "'Does it spell anything?' June asked"                        75
+
+    "They peeped through the cracks, gravely discussing the
+        situation"                                                85
+
+    "It was the old sword-hilt that Monsieur had given him"       97
+
+    "Long after he was asleep she sat beside him"                107
+
+    "June waved good-by to the friends below"                    117
+
+
+
+
+                              CAPTAIN JUNE
+
+
+
+
+                              CAPTAIN JUNE
+
+                               CHAPTER I
+
+
+JUNE had never sat still so long during the whole six years of his
+existence. His slender body usually so restless and noisy was
+motionless; his hands too fond of teasing and mischief lay limp in his
+lap, even his tongue was still and that was the most wonderful of all.
+The only part of him that stirred was a sparkling pair of gray eyes that
+were looking out upon the strangest world they had ever seen.
+
+The entire day had been one of enchantment, from the first waking hour
+when he discovered that the engines on the big steamer where he had
+lived for seventeen days had stopped, and that the boat was actually
+lying at anchor just off the coast of Japan. Seki San, his Japanese
+nurse who had cared for him ever since he was a baby, had been so eager
+to look out of the port-hole that she could scarcely attend to her
+duties, and the consequence was that he had to stand on the sofa and
+hook his mother's dress and help her with the little pins at the back of
+the neck while Seki San finished the packing. June could not dress
+himself but he knew a great deal about hooks and eyes and belt pins.
+When mother got in a hurry she lost things, and experience had taught
+him that it was much easier to fasten the pin where it belonged than to
+spend fifteen minutes on the floor looking for it.
+
+At last when all the bags and trunks were ready, and the pilot and the
+health officer had come aboard, and everybody had waited until they
+could not wait another moment, the passengers were brought ashore in a
+wheezy, puffy launch, and were whirled up to the hotel in queer little
+buggies drawn by small brown men with bare legs and mushroom hats, and
+great sprawling signs on their backs.
+
+Since then June had sat at a front window too engrossed to speak. Just
+below him lay the Bund or sea-road, with the wall beyond where the white
+waves broke in a merry splash and then fell back to the blue water
+below. Out in the harbor there were big black merchant steamers, and
+white men-of-war, there were fishing schooners, and sampans with wobbly,
+crooked oars. But the street below was too fascinating to see much
+beyond it. Jinrikishas were coming and going with passengers from the
+steamers and the coolies laughed and shouted to each other in passing.
+Women and girls clattered by on wooden shoes with funny bald-headed,
+slant-eyed babies strapped on their backs. On the hotel steps, a little
+girl in a huge red turban and a gorgeous dress of purple and gold was
+doing handsprings, while two boys in fancy dress sang through their
+noses and held out fans to catch the pennies that were tossed from the
+piazza above.
+
+If Cinderella, and Jack the Giant Killer, and Aladdin and Ali Baba had
+suddenly appeared, June would not have been in the least surprised. It
+was where they all lived, there could be no possible doubt as to that.
+Here was the biggest picture book he had ever seen, the coming true of
+all the fairy-tales he had ever heard.
+
+He was dimly conscious that in the room behind him Seki San was
+unpacking trunks and boxes, and that his mother was coming and going and
+leaving hurried instructions. Once he heard her say, "Don't say anything
+to him about it, Seki, I'll tell him when he has to be told." But just
+then a man went by with a long pole across his shoulder and round
+baskets on each end, and in the baskets were little shining silver
+fishes, and June forgot all about what his mother was saying.
+
+June's father was a young army officer stationed in the Philippines.
+June was born there but when still a baby he had been desperately ill
+and the doctor had sent him back to the States and said he must not
+return for many years. It was a great grief to them all that they had to
+be separated, but Capt. Royston had gotten two leaves of absence and
+come home to them, and now this summer June and his mother had come all
+the way from California to meet him in Japan.
+
+June was not his real name. It was Robert Rogers Royston, Junior, but
+mother said there never could be but one Robert for her, and father did
+not like the Rogers for a Christian name, so they called him Junior, and
+Junior soon got bobbed off into June. The name suited him too, for a
+sunshinier little chap you never saw. He never seemed to know that he
+was not as strong as other boys, and when his throat was very bad and
+his voice would not come, why he sat up in bed and whistled, just the
+keenest, cheeriest, healthiest whistle you ever heard.
+
+It was on the indoor days that Seki San used to tell him about her
+wonderful country across the sea, of the little brown houses with the
+flower gardens on the roofs, of the constant clatter, clatter of the
+wooden shoes, and the beautiful blossoms that rained down on you like
+snow.
+
+"Where are the blossoms?" he demanded, suddenly turning in his chair.
+"You said they came down thick and white and that I could let them fall
+over my face."
+
+Seki San did not answer, she was kneeling beside a very disconsolate
+figure that lay on the bed with face buried in the pillows. When June
+spoke, his mother sat up and pushed back her tumbled hair. She was a
+very little mother with round eyes and lips as red as June's, only now
+her eyes were red and her lips trembling.
+
+"You may go in the other room, Seki San," she said, "I want to talk to
+June by himself."
+
+June sidled up cautiously and took a seat near her on the bed. The one
+unbearable catastrophe to him was for his mother to cry. It was like an
+earthquake, it shook the very foundations on which all his joys were
+built. Sometimes when the postman forgot to leave a letter, and
+occasionally when he was sick longer than usual, mother cried. But those
+were dark, dreadful times that he tried not to think about. Why the
+tears should come on this day of all days he could not understand.
+
+She put her arm around him and held him close for a long time before she
+spoke. He could feel the thump, thump of her heart as he leaned against
+her.
+
+"June," she said at last, "you are going to be a soldier like father,
+aren't you?"
+
+June's eyes brightened. "Yes, and carry a sword!" he said.
+
+"There is something more than a sword that a soldier has to have."
+
+"A gun?"
+
+Mother shook her head. "It's courage, June! It's something I haven't got
+a scrap of. You'll have to be brave for us both!"
+
+"I'm not afraid," declared June. "I go to bed in the dark and go places
+by myself or anything."
+
+"I don't mean that way," said his mother. "I mean doing hard things just
+because they are right, staying behind for instance when--when somebody
+you love very much has to go away and leave you."
+
+June sat up and looked at her. "Who's going away?" he demanded.
+
+Mother's voice faltered. "Father's terribly ill with a fever, June. The
+letter was waiting here, it is from our old doctor in Manila, he says,
+'Come on first steamer, but don't bring the boy.'" The earth seemed
+suddenly to be slipping from under June's feet, he clutched at his
+mother's hand. "I am going too!" he cried in quick alarm, "I won't stay
+behind, I can't, mother!"
+
+Her arm tightened about him. "But I don't dare take you, June, think of
+the terrible heat and the fever, and you are the only little boy I've
+got in the world, and I love you so!"
+
+"I won't take the fever," protested June. "I'll be good. I'll mind every
+word Seki says."
+
+"But Seki isn't going. She wants to take you home with her down to a
+little town on the Inland Sea, where there are all sorts of wonderful
+things to do. Would you stay with her, June, while I go to father?"
+
+Her voice pleaded with eagerness and anxiety, but June did not heed it.
+Slipping from her arms, he threw himself on the floor and burst into a
+passion of tears. All the joys of the enchanted country had vanished,
+nothing seemed to count except that mother was thinking of leaving him
+in this strange land and sailing away from him across the sea.
+
+"Don't cry so, June, listen," pleaded his mother. "I have not decided, I
+am trying to do what is best."
+
+But June refused to be consoled. Over and over he declared that he would
+not stay, that he would rather have the fever, and die than to be left
+behind.
+
+By and by the room grew still, his mother no longer tried to pacify him,
+only the ticking of the little traveling clock on the table broke the
+stillness. He peeped through his fingers at the silent figure in the
+chair above him. He had never seen her look so white and tired, all the
+pretty smiles and dimples seemed gone forever, her eyes were closed and
+her lips were tightly drawn together. June crept close and slipped his
+hand into hers. In an instant her arms were about him.
+
+"I don't know what to do, nor where to turn," she sobbed. "I am afraid
+to take you and afraid to leave you. What must I do?"
+
+June was sure he did not know but when mothers are little and helpless
+and look at you as if you were grown up, you have to think of a way. He
+was standing beside her with his arm around her neck, and he could feel
+her trembling all over. Father often said in his letters, "Be sure to
+take care of that little Mother of yours," but it had always seemed a
+joke until now. He sighed, then he straightened his shoulders:
+
+"I'll stay, Mudderly," he said, then he added with a swallow, "Maybe it
+will help me to be a soldier when I get big!"
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+
+
+"SEKI SAN, look at the old woman with black teeth! What made them black?
+What have the little girls got flowers in their hair for? What are they
+ringing the bell for?"
+
+Seki San sitting on her heels at the car window tried to answer all
+June's questions at once. The sad parting was over. Mrs. Royston had
+left in the night on the steamer they had crossed in, and the Captain
+and the Purser and all the passengers were going to take care of her
+until she got to Hong Kong, and after that it was only a short way to
+Manila, and once she was with Father, June felt that his responsibility
+ceased.
+
+When they first boarded the train, June had sat very quiet. If you wink
+fast and swallow all the time, you can keep the tears back, but it does
+not make you feel any better inside.
+
+"If God has got to take somebody," June said at length gloomily, "I
+think He might take one of my grandmothers. I have got four but one of
+them is an old maid."
+
+"Oh no," said Seki, "she isn't."
+
+"She _is_," persisted June, "she keeps every thing put away in little
+boxes and won't let me play with them. Seki, do you guess God would jes'
+as lieve for me to have a horn as a harp when I go to Heaven? I want a
+presser horn like they have in the band."
+
+"But you will not go for many long times!" cried Seki, catching his hand
+as if he were about to slip away. "Look out of the window. See! They are
+giving the cow a bath!"
+
+In a field nearby an old man and woman were scrubbing a patient-looking
+cow, and when the creature pulled its head away and cried because it did
+not want to get its face washed, June laughed with glee. After all, one
+could not be unhappy very long when every minute something funny or
+interesting was happening. At every station a crowd of curious faces
+gathered about the car window eager to catch a glimpse of the little
+foreign boy, and June, always ready to make friends, smiled at them and
+bobbed his head, which made the boys and girls look at each other and
+laugh.
+
+"We bow with our whole self, so," Seki explained, putting her hands on
+her knees and bending her body very low, "and we never shake with the
+hands nor kiss together!"
+
+"Don't the mothers ever kiss the children good-night?" asked June
+incredulously.
+
+"Oh! no," said Seki, "we bow."
+
+While June was thinking about this strange state of affairs, a man came
+close under the window, carrying a tray and calling: "_Bento! Eo
+Bento!_"
+
+Seki San took some money from a little purse which she carried in her
+long sleeve, and handing it out to the man, received two square wooden
+boxes and a fat little tea-pot with a cup over its head like a cap.
+
+[Illustration: The Tea-Party on the train.]
+
+"Are we going to have a tea-party?" asked June, scrambling down from his
+perch.
+
+"So," said Seki San, reaching under the seat and pulling out a tiny
+chest, in which were other cups and saucers and a jar of tea leaves, "we
+will have very nice tea-parties and you shall make the tea."
+
+June, following instructions, put some of the tea in the small pot and
+poured the hot water over it, then he helped Seki San spread two paper
+napkins on the seat between them.
+
+"Now," he said, "where's the party?"
+
+Seki San handed him one of the boxes and began to untie the string of
+the other.
+
+"I have some sticks tied on to mine!" cried June, "two big ones and a
+tiny little one wrapped up in paper."
+
+"That is your knife and fork and pick-tooth," said Seki San. "You must
+hold the sticks in one hand like this."
+
+But June was too busy exploring the contents of the two trays that
+formed his box to stop to take a lesson in the use of chop-sticks. The
+lower tray was full of smooth white rice. In the top one, was a bit of
+omelet and some fish, and a queer-looking something that puzzled June.
+
+"What is it?" he asked.
+
+"Guess it!" said Seki mysteriously, "guess it with your nose."
+
+"It's pickle!" cried June.
+
+"Pickled sea-weed," said Seki, "and I have also brought you some
+Japanese candy that you pour out of a bottle."
+
+There was no bread, no butter, no knife nor fork nor spoon, but June
+thought it was the very nicest tea-party he had ever been to. Sitting
+with his stocking feet curled up under him as Seki had hers, he
+clattered his chop-sticks and spilt the rice all over the seat, while
+they both grew weak with laughter over his efforts to feed himself.
+
+"Don't you wish you were a little boy, Seki San?" he asked when most of
+the lunch had disappeared.
+
+"Why?" said Seki.
+
+"'Cause," said June, "you'd have such a good time playing with me all
+the time!"
+
+"But no," said Seki seriously, "I must be big womans to take care of
+you."
+
+"And tell me stories!" added June with policy: "tell me 'bout Tomi
+now."
+
+"Tomi?" said Seki San, smiling. "You going see Tomi very soon,
+to-morrow, perhaps to-night. Tomi very bad little dog, makes a cross
+bark at all big peoples, but loves little children. When Tomi very
+little his nose stick out, so--Japanese think it very ugly for little
+pug-dog's nose to stick out, so we push it in easy every day. Now Tomi
+has nice flat nose, but he sneeze all the time so--kerchoo, kerchoo,
+kerchoo."
+
+June laughed at the familiar story, but suddenly he sobered:
+
+"Say, Seki, I don't think it was very nice to push his nose in; I
+wouldn't like to have my nose pushed in so I would have to sneeze all
+the rest of my life."
+
+"Ah! but he must be beautiful! Tomi would not be happy if his nose stuck
+out when other pug-doggies had nice flat nose. Tomi is very happy, he is
+grateful."
+
+It was quite dark when they reached their destination; June had been
+asleep and when he slipped out on the platform he could not remember at
+all where he was; Seki's mother and her sisters and brothers besides all
+the relatives far and near had come to welcome her back from America,
+and quite a little crowd closed in about her, bowing and bowing and
+chattering away in Japanese.
+
+June stood, rather forlornly, to one side. This time last night Mother
+had been with him, he could speak to her and touch her, and now--it was
+a big, strange world he found himself in, and even Seki seemed his Seki
+no longer.
+
+Suddenly he felt something rub against his leg, and then he heard a
+queer sound that somehow sounded familiar. Stooping down he discovered a
+flat-nosed little pug that was kissing his hand just as if it had been
+brought up in America.
+
+"It's Tomi," cried June in delight, and the pug, recognizing his name,
+capered more madly still, only stopping long enough to sneeze between
+the jumps.
+
+Ten minutes later June was sitting beside Seki San in a broad
+jinrikisha, rushing through the soft night air, down long gay streets
+full of light and color and laughter, round sharp corners, up steep
+hills, over bridges where he could look down and see another world of
+paper lanterns and torches, and always the twinkling legs and the big
+round hat of the jinrikisha man bobbing steadily along before him.
+
+"Is it like a story-book all the time?" he asked.
+
+Seki San laughed: "Oh, no, June, story-book land is back in America,
+where the grown-up houses are, and the rich, fine furnitures, and the
+strange ways. This is just home, my very dear home, and I have such glad
+feelings to be here!"
+
+June cuddled close and held her hand, and if he felt a wee bit wistful,
+and wiped his eyes once in a while on her sleeve, he did it very
+carefully, so that Seki would have nothing to spoil the glad feeling in
+her heart at being home again.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III
+
+
+THE new life which opened up for June was brimming over with interest.
+Seki San lived in a regular toy house, which was like a lot of little
+boxes fitted into one big one. One whole side was open to the garden and
+a tiny railed balcony ran around outside the rooms. The walls were made
+of white paper, and when the sun shone all sorts of pretty shadows
+danced on them, and when it rained everybody ran about to put up the
+wooden screens, and fasten the house up snug and tight until the shower
+was over. A flight of low steps cut in the rock led down to a bamboo
+wicker, and here green lizards sunned themselves all day and blinked in
+friendly fashion at the passer-by.
+
+The night June arrived he had looked about blankly and said:
+
+"But Seki, there isn't any furniture in your house; haven't you got any
+bed, or chairs or table?"
+
+And Seki had laughed and told the others and everybody laughed until
+June thought he had been impolite.
+
+"I like it," he hastened to add, "it's the nicest house I ever was in,
+'cause, don't you see, there isn't anything to break."
+
+It was quite wonderful to see how easily one can get along without
+furniture. After one has sat on his heels, and slept on the floor and
+eaten off a tiny table no bigger than a footstool, it seems the most
+sensible thing in the world. June did hang up one picture and that was a
+photograph of his mother. She had left him two, but one was taken with
+her hat on.
+
+"I don't like for her always to look as if she was going away!" he said
+to Seki San when she wanted to put them both up.
+
+The life, interesting as it was, might have proven lonely, had it not
+been for Seki's younger brother, Toro, who was two years older than
+June. Although neither could understand a word the other said, yet a
+very great friendship had sprung up between them. "We understand just
+like dogs," June explained to Seki San.
+
+All day long the two boys played down by the river bank, paddling about
+in the shallow shimmering water, building boats and putting them out to
+sea, sailing their kites from the hill top, or best of all, sitting long
+hours on the parade grounds watching the drilling of the soldiers.
+
+Sometimes when they were very good, Seki San would get permission for
+them to play in the daimyo's garden and those days were red-letter days
+for June. The garden was very old and very sacred to the Japanese, for
+in long years past it had belonged to an old feudal lord, and now it was
+the property of the Emperor.
+
+From the first June had cherished a secret belief that somewhere in its
+leafy bowers he would come across the Sleeping Beauty. It was all so old
+and so still that even the breezes whispered as they softly stirred the
+tree-tops. In the very heart of the garden a little blue lake smiled up
+at the sky above, and all about its edges tall flags of blue and gold
+threw their bright reflections in the water below. A high-arched bridge
+all gray with moss, led from one tiny island to another, while along the
+shore old stone lanterns, very stiff and stern, stood sentinel over the
+quiet of the place. Here and there a tempting little path led back into
+mysterious deeps of green, and June followed each one with the half
+expectancy of finding the cobwebby old place, and the vine-grown steps,
+and the Sleeping Beauty within.
+
+One day when they were there, Toro became absorbed in a little house he
+was building for the old stork who stood hour after hour under the cool
+shadow of the arching bridge. June, getting tired of the work, wandered
+off alone, and as he went deeper into the tangle of green, he thought
+more and more of the Sleeping Beauty.
+
+It was cool and mysterious under the close hanging boughs, and the
+sunshine fell in white patches on the head of an old stone Buddha, whose
+nose was chipped off, and whose forefinger was raised in a perpetual
+admonition to all little boys to be good. Just ahead a low flight of
+stairs led up to a dark recess where a shrine was half concealed by a
+tangle of vines and underbrush. June cautiously mounted the steps; he
+was making believe that he was the prince in the fairy-tale, and that
+when he should push through the barrier of brier roses he would find the
+Sleeping Beauty within the shrine.
+
+As he reached the top step, a sound made him pause and catch his breath.
+It was not the ripple of the falling water that danced past him down the
+hillside, it was not the murmur of the wind in the bamboos overhead; it
+was the deep regular breathing very close to him of some one asleep. For
+a moment June wanted to run away, but then he remembered the golden hair
+and blue eyes of the princess and with heart beating very fast, he
+pushed through the underbrush and stumbled over some one lying in the
+grass.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IV
+
+
+BUT when June picked himself up and turned about, he found a very
+curious looking man sitting up glaring at him. He had a long pointed
+nose, and fierce little eyes that glowed like red hot cinders, and a
+drooping white mustache so long that it almost touched the lapels of his
+shabby French uniform.
+
+"What do you mean by falling over me like that?" he demanded
+indignantly.
+
+"I--I--thought you was somebody else," June faltered lamely.
+
+The man glared more fiercely than ever: "You were looking for some one!
+You were sent here to watch someone! Who did you think I was? Answer me
+this moment."
+
+He had caught June by the arm and was glaring at him so savagely that
+June blurted out in terror.
+
+"I thought you was the Sleeping Beauty."
+
+For a moment, suspicion lingered in the man's face, then his eyes went
+to and his mouth went open, and he laughed until June thought he would
+never get the wrinkles smoothed out of his face again.
+
+"The Sleeping Beauty, eh?" he said. "Well, whom do you think I am now?"
+
+June smiled in embarrassment. "I know who you look like," he said, half
+doubtfully.
+
+"Who?"
+
+"The White Knight," said June.
+
+"Who is he?"
+
+"In 'Alice in Wonderland,'" explained June. Then when he saw the man's
+look of perplexity, he added incredulously, "Didn't you _never_ hear of
+'Alice in Wonderland'?"
+
+The man shook his head.
+
+June was astounded; he didn't know that such ignorance existed in the
+world.
+
+"Didn't you never go to school?" he asked sympathetically.
+
+"Oh yes, a little," said the man, with a funny smile, "but tell me about
+this White Knight."
+
+June sat down quite close to him and began confidentially:
+
+"He was the one that met Alice in the wood. Don't you remember just
+before she was going to be queen? He kept falling off his horse first on
+one side and then on the other, and he would have to climb up again by
+the mouse traps."
+
+"The mouse traps, on horse-back?"
+
+"Yes, the Knight was afraid the mice _might_ come and he didn't want
+them to run over him. Besides he invented the mouse traps and course,
+you know, somebody had to use them."
+
+"Of course," said the man taking June's hand and looking at it as a
+person looks at something that he has not seen for a very long time.
+
+"He invented lots of things," went on June earnestly, "bracelets for the
+horse's feet to keep off shark-bites, and something else to keep your
+hair from falling out."
+
+"Eh! what's that?" said his companion rubbing his hand over his own bald
+head.
+
+June's eyes twinkled. "You ought to train it up on a stick," he said,
+"like a vine. That was what the White Knight said, that hair fell off
+because it hung down. It couldn't fall up, could it?"
+
+At this they both had a great laugh and the man said:
+
+"So I am the White Knight, am I?"
+
+"Just your mustache," said June; "it was when you was mad that you
+looked like him most. You're lots gooder looking than the picture.
+What's your real name?"
+
+"Monsieur Garnier,--no, Carré," he corrected himself quickly. "What is
+your name?"
+
+"June," then he added formally, "Robert Rogers Royston, Junior's the
+rest of it."
+
+"How did you come here?" asked Monsieur.
+
+June told him at length; it was delightful to find some one beside Seki
+San who understood English, and it was good fun to be telling all about
+himself just as if he were some other little boy.
+
+"So your father is a soldier!" said Monsieur, and June noticed that a
+curious wild look came into his eyes and that his fingers, which had
+knots on them, plucked excitedly at his collar. "Ah! yes, I, too, was a
+soldier, a soldier of France, one time attaché of the French Legation,
+at Tokyo, later civil engineer in the employ of the Japanese Government,
+now----!" he shrugged his shoulders and his nostrils quivered with
+anger. "Now a cast-off garment, a thing useless, undesired." He tried to
+rise and June saw that he used crutches and that it was very difficult
+for him to walk.
+
+"Do you want me to help you?" he asked.
+
+[Illustration: "'Do you want me to help you?'"]
+
+The man waved him aside. His eyes had changed into red hot cinders
+again, and he seemed to have forgotten that June was there. "I ask help
+from nobody," he muttered fiercely, "I live my own life. The beggarly
+Japanese I would never accept from, and my own country does not see fit
+to help me." His chest heaved with wrath, and he twisted his mustache
+indignantly.
+
+"Why don't you go home?" asked June.
+
+Monsieur turned on him fiercely: "Go home? Mon Dieu, do you suppose
+there is a waking hour that I am not thinking, longing, praying to be
+back in France? Do you suppose I have left any stone unturned? Any plan
+unmade that might take me away from this hateful place? It has been
+fourteen, fifteen years since I came away. It was a Japanese that had me
+dismissed from the service; he bore tales to the minister, he told what
+was not true. Oh, then I had honor, I was too proud to explain, but
+now!" he lifted a pair of crippled hands to Heaven, and shook them
+violently at the trees above, "now I know that honor does not pay, it is
+not worth while. I will give anything to get back to France!"
+
+June sat still and watched him. He had never seen anyone behave so
+queerly, and he was very much mixed up as to what it was all about.
+
+"I guess I have to go now," he said, "Toro's waiting."
+
+Monsieur's eyes flashed suspiciously. "Who's waiting?" he asked.
+
+"Toro, he is Seki's brother, he knows how to build awful nice houses and
+blockades too."
+
+"Blockades?" repeated Monsieur, "what kind of blockades?"
+
+"Like the soldiers make, we watch them all the time; come on, I will
+show you."
+
+The two made their way down the steps slowly, for Monsieur could go only
+a little way at a time. Toro looked mildly surprised when June came back
+with a companion, but he did not give a second glance at Monsieur, who
+was evidently a familiar figure about the town.
+
+For a long time the two children played in the sand, and Monsieur sat
+beside them and acted as interpreter, speaking first to one in Japanese,
+and then to the other in English, giving directions and suggestions and
+proving a first-rate play-fellow.
+
+"Why, you know a lot about forts and mines and blockades and things,
+don't you?" asked June.
+
+Monsieur looked absently across the lake. "Alas!" he said grimly, half
+to himself, "I know too much for their good and for mine."
+
+When the temple bell from the hillside boomed the supper hour, the boys
+gathered up their things and started home.
+
+"Good-by," said June to Monsieur, "I hope you'll come back and play with
+us another day."
+
+Monsieur bowed very politely, but he did not answer, his half-closed
+eyes still rested on the little forts that the boys had been making in
+the sand, and his thoughts seemed to be far away.
+
+When June reached the street, he turned to wave a good-by, but Monsieur
+was hobbling down the hill, his figure, in spite of the crutches,
+looking very straight and stiff against the evening sky.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V
+
+
+IT was a long time before June saw Monsieur again, for there were
+picnics up the river, with lunches cooked on the bank, there were jolly
+little excursions in sampans, and trips to the tea-houses, and flower
+shows, and an endless round of good times. Seki San kept June out of
+doors all day, and watched with glee the color return to his cheeks, and
+the angles of his slender body turn into soft curves.
+
+At night, she and June and Toro, with Tomi frisking and sneezing at
+their heels, would join the happy, chattering crowd that thronged the
+streets, and would make their way to the flower market where tall
+flaming torches lit up the long stalls of flowers, and where merchants
+squatting on their heels spread their wares on the ground before
+them,--curious toys, old swords, and tea-pots with ridiculous long
+noses. And in front of every door was a great shining paper lantern with
+queer signs painted on it, and other gay lanterns of all shapes and
+sizes and colors went dancing and bobbing up and down the streets like a
+host of giant fireflies.
+
+It was no wonder that June hated to go to bed when so much was happening
+outside. Only the promise of a story moved him when Seki gave the final
+word. But for the sake of a story he would have gone to the moon, I
+believe, and stayed there too.
+
+When at last he was bathed and cuddled down in his nest on the floor
+with a huge kimono--four times as big as the ones Seki wore--spread over
+him, Seki would sit on her heels beside him, sewing with an endless
+thread, which she only cut off from the reel when the seam was finished.
+And June would watch her pretty, plump little hands, and the shadows of
+her moving fingers as he listened to queer tales of the sea-gods and
+their palace under the waves. Sometimes she would tell of the old
+samurai and their dark deeds of revenge, of attacks on castles, and
+fights in the moats, and the imaginary clashing of swords and shouts of
+men would get so real to June that he would say:
+
+"I don't want any more scareful ones to-night. Please tell me about the
+little mosquito boy."
+
+Then Seki would begin: "Very long times ago, lived very good little boy,
+who never want to do anything but reverence his mother and his father,
+and his grandfathers and grandmothers. All times he think it over to
+himself how he can serve his parents. One night the wind blow up from
+the south and bring a thousand hundred _ka_, mosquito you call him, and
+they bite very much. So good little boy takes off all his clothes and
+lies at the door of his house so mosquitoes bite him and get so full of
+boy that they have not room more for father and mother." At which point
+June would never fail to laugh with delight, and Seki would look hurt
+and puzzled and say, "Not funny, June, very fine, kind, and noble of
+good little boy."
+
+After Seki had put out the light and joined the rest of the family in
+the garden, June would lie very still and the thoughts that had been
+crowded down in the bottom of his heart all day would come creeping up
+and whisper to him. "Mother is a long way off; suppose she has gotten
+lost and never comes back again. Perhaps I haven't got a father any
+more, maybe the soldiers have put him in the ground as they did Teddy's
+papa. Suppose I have to live here always and grow up to be a Japanese
+man, and never see the ranch in California nor my pony any more?" And a
+big sob would rise in his throat and he was glad of the dark, for the
+tears would come no matter how hard he tried to keep them back. But he
+never called Seki, nor let any one know. Sometimes he got up and got his
+little gun and took it back to bed with him; it was so much easier to be
+a soldier if you had a gun in your hand.
+
+But one morning when he awoke, two delightful things happened. First he
+saw up in the air, apparently swimming about over the house-tops, an
+enormous red fish as large as he was, and when he ran to the door there
+were others as far as he could see waving and floating about tall poles
+that were placed outside nearly every house.
+
+Without waiting to be dressed he rushed into the garden to ask Seki San
+what it all meant. When she saw him, she dropped the letter she was
+reading and came toward him as fast as her little pigeon toes would
+carry her.
+
+"It's from your mother," she cried, her face beaming with joy. "She did
+never get losted at all. She is with your father now, and he will have
+the strength again, and they will come back so sooner as he can journey.
+Oh! I could die for the happiness!"
+
+June jumped up and down, and Seki San giggled, and Tomi barked until the
+family came out to see what was the matter.
+
+"And what did she say? Tell me!" demanded June.
+
+"All this, and this, and this," said Seki, spreading out the closely
+written sheets. Then with many pauses and much knitting of brows and
+pointing of fingers, she read the letter aloud. There was very little
+about the sad journey, or the dreadful fever, or the life at the
+hospital. It was mostly about June, whether he was well, whether he was
+very unhappy, if he coughed at night, if he missed her very much.
+
+"And these at the end I sink I can not read," concluded Seki, pointing
+to a long row of circles and dots.
+
+June looked over her shoulder. "Why Seki!" he exclaimed, "that's the
+only part I can read! They are kisses and hugs, I showed her how to make
+them. That long one is a pink kiss, and this starry one is silver with
+golden spangles," he laughed with delight; then his eye catching sight
+of the fish overhead, he said:
+
+"Say Seki, why did they put out the fish? Is it because my father is
+getting well?"
+
+Seki San smilingly shook her head.
+
+"It's a matsuri, a festival," she explained; "this is the boys' day and
+wherever a boy live, they put out a big paper fish with round mouth open
+so----, and when the wind flow in, the fish grow big and fat and make
+like swim in the air."
+
+[Illustration: "'It's a Matsuri--a festival,' Seki explained."]
+
+"But why do they put out fishes?" persisted June.
+
+"'Tis the carp fish," said Seki San, "because the carp very strong and
+brave, he swim against the current, fight his way up the waterfall, not
+afraid of the very bad discouragings, like good boy should be."
+
+June was much more interested in the fish than in the moral, and when
+Toro brought a big red one for him and a paper cap and banner, he
+hastened away to be dressed so that he could be ready for the
+festivities.
+
+Taking it all in all, it was about the happiest day he had ever spent in
+his life. When he and Toro started forth the streets were already full
+of people, men and women in holiday attire, little girls in bright red
+petticoats and fancy pins in their hair, every boy with a fish on a
+stick, small children with bald-headed babies tied on their backs, all
+trotting merrily along to the matsuri.
+
+Everywhere June went a crowd went behind him, for a little foreign boy
+with gray eyes and fair hair, and strange foreign clothes was one of the
+greatest sights of the day. Sometimes a woman would stop him and look at
+his hat or his shoes, and a circle would close in and Toro would be
+bombarded with questions. But the people were always so polite, and
+their admiration was so evident, that June was rather pleased, and when
+he smiled and spoke to them in English, they bowed again and again, and
+he bowed back, then they all laughed.
+
+It was a terrible trial to June not to be able to ask questions. He was
+brimful of curiosity and everything he saw and heard had a dozen
+questions hanging to it. Usually Seki San supplied the answers but
+to-day Toro was in command, and while he was a very careful little
+guide, keeping tight hold of June's hand, pointing out all the
+interesting sights, and trying to explain by sign and gesture, still he
+did not know a single word of English.
+
+After passing through many gay streets they came to a tall red gate
+which June had come to recognize as the entrance to sacred ground. But
+inside it was not in the least like any churchyard he had ever seen. It
+was more like the outside of a circus where everything delightful was
+happening at once. On one side was a sandman making wonderful pictures
+on the ground with colored sand. First he made a background of fine
+white sand, then out of papers folded like cornucopias he formed small
+streams of black and red sand, skilfully tracing the line of a mountain,
+using a feather to make the waves of the sea, and a piece of silver
+money to form the great round moon, and before you knew it there was the
+very picture you had seen on fans and screens and tea-pots ever since
+you could remember, even down to the birds that were flying across the
+moon.
+
+Then there were jugglers and tight rope walkers, and sacred pigeons that
+lit on your head and shoulders and ate corn out of your hand. June
+thought he had never seen such greedy pigeons before. Two or three
+perched on his hand at once, and scolded and pushed each other, and even
+tried to eat the buttons off his blouse!
+
+Up the mountain side, flanked by rows of stone lanterns, ran a wide
+flight of steps and at the top was the gate-way to the temple itself. On
+either side were sort of huge cages, and in them the most hideous
+figures June had ever seen! They were fierce looking giants with
+terrible glass eyes and snarling mouths with all the teeth showing, just
+as the Ogre's did in the fairy tale. One was painted all over green, and
+the other was red, and they held out clutching fingers as if ready to
+pounce upon the passer-by. While June was looking at them and feeling
+rather glad that they were inside the cages, he saw two old men dressed
+in white, climb slowly up the steps and kneel before the statues. Bowing
+their heads to the earth and muttering prayers, they took from their
+belts some slips of paper, and after chewing them into wads began
+gravely to throw them at the fierce green demon behind the bars.
+
+June giggled with joy, this was something he could quite understand.
+Taking advantage of Toro's attention being distracted, he promptly began
+to make wads too, and before Toro could stop him he was vigorously
+pelting the scowling image. In an instant there was angry remonstrance
+and a group of indignant worshipers gathered around. Fortunately Seki
+San appeared on the scene in time to prevent trouble.
+
+"But I was only doing what the others did!" explained June indignantly.
+
+"It is no harm done," said Seki, reassuringly after a few words to those
+about her, "you not understand our strange ways. These are our Nio or
+temple guardians that frighten away the evil, bad spirits."
+
+"What makes the pilgrims throw at them, then?" asked June.
+
+"They throw prayers," answered Seki San very seriously, "they buy paper
+prayers from the old man at the gate, and throw them through the
+grating. If the prayer sticks, it is answered, if it falls down it is
+not answered. Come, I will show you!"
+
+They went very close, and looked through the bars; there on the grating,
+on the floor and even on the ceiling above them were masses of tiny
+paper wads, the unanswered prayers of departed thousands.
+
+"Well, three of mine stuck!" said June with satisfaction. "Do you
+suppose it's too late to make a prayer on them now?"
+
+Seki thought after considering the matter that it was not.
+
+"But I haven't got anything left to pray for!" said June, regretting the
+lost opportunity. "Father's getting well, and he and Mother are coming
+home, and I have got pretty near everything I want. I believe I'd like
+another fish though, and oh! yes, I want a little pug dog, jes' 'zactly
+like Tomi."
+
+"It's tiffin time," said Seki San, "and after that will be the
+fire-work."
+
+"In the day-time?" asked June.
+
+"Oh yes, very fine nice fire-work," said Seki.
+
+They left the temple grounds, and made their way up the river road,
+where everybody was having a tea-party out under the trees. Seki San
+secured a tiny table for them and they sat on their heels and ate rice
+out of a great white wooden bucket, and fluffy yellow omelet out of a
+round bowl, and the sunshine came dancing down through the dainty,
+waving bamboo leaves, and everybody was laughing and chattering and from
+every side came the click-clack of the wooden shoes, and the tinkle of
+samisens and the music of falling water.
+
+Suddenly Toro pulled June's sleeve and motioned excitedly to the
+road-way. Coming toward them in a jinrikisha, looking very pale and thin
+and with both arms in bandages, sat Monsieur.
+
+June broke away from Seki and raced after the jinrikisha. "Oh! Mister,"
+he cried, "Mr. Frenchman."
+
+Monsieur, hearing the English words, stopped his man and turned around.
+When he saw a very flushed little boy in blouse suit and a wide brimmed
+hat, he smiled.
+
+"Ah!" he cried, "my friend of the garden! My prince who found the
+Sleeping Beauty." Then he began to laugh so hard that it started up all
+his rheumatic pains, and he had to sink back and rest before he could
+speak again. "I am very bad since I saw you last," he said; "these dogs
+of Japanese will let me die here. One day in France will make me well. I
+may have it yet--I must get back some way--some way!" His eyes looked
+excitedly over June's head out into space as if trying to span the miles
+that lay between him and his beloved country.
+
+"My papa will take you home when he comes," said June; "he's a soldier."
+
+Monsieur shrugged his shoulders: "Your papa would not care _that_," he
+said, snapping his fingers; then seeing June's disappointment he added
+kindly, "But you--will you not come to see me? I will make you more
+forts, I will show you my goldfish."
+
+"Yes, I'll come," said June. "When?"
+
+But before Monsieur could answer, Seki had called June and the
+jinrikisha had started on its way.
+
+Late in the afternoon, as the revelers straggled home tired but happy,
+June slipped his hand into Seki's. The merry noises of the day had given
+place to the quiet chirp of the crickets and the drowsy croaking of the
+frogs, and the little breezes that stirred overhead sounded sleepy and
+far away.
+
+"Seki," said June, "I didn't make any prayer on that paper that stuck on
+the old giant's nose, do you think it too late?"
+
+"No," said Seki San, willing to humor him.
+
+"Well," said June sleepily, "I pray that the French gentleman will get
+back home."
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VI
+
+
+ONE morning several weeks later, June was lying on his back in the
+garden wishing he had someone to play with. Toro was away at school and
+Seki San was having her hair dressed. He had watched the latter
+performance so many times that it had ceased to interest him. Seki would
+sit for hours on a white mat before the old hair-dresser who combed, and
+looped and twisted the long oily strands into butterfly bows of shining
+black.
+
+The only person on the premises who was at leisure was Tomi, but that
+was just the trouble, he was so much at leisure that he refused to stir
+from his warm spot on the sunny steps no matter how much June coaxed. To
+be sure there was a yellow cat next door, but she did not understand
+English as Tomi did, and when June called her, she humped her back and
+would have ruffled her tail if she had had one, but Japanese cats do not
+have tails, so when they get angry they always look disappointed.
+
+Just as June was getting a bit lonesome the postboy came trotting in
+with a letter for Seki San and June ran in to take it to her.
+
+"For me?" said Seki San, looking very comical with one loop of black
+hair hanging over her eye, "from Meester Carré? I sink it is a mistake,
+I do not know Meester Carré."
+
+"Read it," demanded June impatiently.
+
+"It say," went on Seki San slowly, "that Meester Carré is not able to
+write hisself but he desire the writer to ask me will I permit the
+little American boy to come to see him to-day. He is sick on the bed,
+and have the low spirit. He will keep safe care of the little boy and
+send him home what time I desire."
+
+"Oh, let me go, Seki! Please let me go!" cried June.
+
+"But who is Meester Carré?"
+
+"He is the Frenchman," said June. "He is a soldier and has got the
+rheumatism. He has goldfish too, and a sword. Oh Seki, please let me go!
+Oh, do let me go!"
+
+"Ah yes," said Seki, "one leg is shorter than the other leg and he walks
+with sticks, and he has long white whiskers on his lip, ah! yes, I
+know."
+
+"Can I go?" begged June.
+
+Seki San took a long while to think about it. She consulted her mother
+and the old man next door, and the doctor who lived at the corner, but
+by and by she came back and said he could go.
+
+"I will send you in good Tanaka's 'rikisha, he will take good care of
+you and bring you back at tiffin time."
+
+June was greatly excited over the prospect and stood unusually still
+while Seki San buttoned him into a starchy white blouse and pinned a
+scarlet flower in his buttonhole.
+
+"Can't I pin my flag on too?" he begged, and Seki, who could not bear to
+refuse him anything, fastened the bit of red, white and blue silk on the
+other side.
+
+"Now keep your body still," cautioned Seki San as she put him in the
+jinrikisha and gave final instructions to Tanaka who was bowing and
+grinning and bowing again, "Tanaka will wait for you, and you must come
+when he calls you. Be good little boy! _Sayonara!_"
+
+June had never felt so important in his life. To be going out all by
+himself in a jinrikisha was quite like being grown up. The only thing
+lacking to make him quite happy was a pair of reins that he might
+imagine he was driving a horse instead of a little brown man with fat
+bare legs and a big mushroom hat who looked around every few moments to
+see if he was falling out.
+
+They trotted along the sunny streets, passing the temple grounds where
+the green and red Nio made ugly faces all the day, and where the greedy
+pigeons were waiting for more corn. They passed over the long bridge,
+skirted the parade ground, then went winding in and out of narrow
+streets until they came to a stretch of country road that ran beside a
+moat.
+
+Here there was less to see and June amused himself by repeating the few
+Japanese words he had learned. "Ohayo" meant "good-morning," and it was
+great fun to call it out to the children they passed and see them bow
+and call back "Ohayo" in friendly greeting. He knew another word too, it
+was "Arigato," and it meant "thank you." He used it on Tanaka every time
+he stopped by the wayside to pluck a flower for him. Once when they
+rested June saw a queer old tree, with a very short body and very long
+arms that seemed to be seeing how far they could reach. June thought the
+tree must have the rheumatism, for it was standing on crutches, and had
+knots on its limbs just like Monsieur had on his fingers. But the
+strange part of it was that from nearly every branch fluttered a small
+strip of paper with something written on it. June had seen this before
+on other trees, and he remembered that Seki San had told him that these
+little papers were poems hung there when the tree was covered with
+cherry blossoms.
+
+Now June always wanted to do everything anybody else did, so when they
+started off again, he decided that he would make up a poem to hang on
+the tree as they came back. He knew one that he had learned from a big
+boy coming over on the steamer, and he said it over softly to himself:
+
+        "King Solomon was the wisest man;
+            He had some ready cash,
+        The Queen of Sheeny came along
+            And Solly made a mash."
+
+To be sure he didn't understand at all what it meant, but it sounded
+nice and funny and always made him laugh.
+
+"I'd like to make up one out of my own head though," he thought, and he
+sat so still that Tanaka glanced back uneasily.
+
+It was a very hard matter indeed, for when you write a poem you have to
+get two words that sound alike, and then find something to write about
+them. It took him so long that by the time he finished, the shaft of the
+jinrikisha came down with a jerk and he looked up to find that they had
+stopped in front of a house all smothered in vines, with two inquisitive
+little windows peering out like eyes behind a tangle of hair. Everything
+about the place looked poor and neglected.
+
+As June and Tanaka made their way up the path, June gave an exclamation
+of delight. There about the door were bowls and jars and basins of
+goldfish. Every available receptacle had been pressed into service, and
+big fish and tiny ones in every shade of radiant gold swam gaily about
+in the sunshine.
+
+It was such an engrossing sight that June almost forgot to go in and
+speak to Monsieur who lay in a bed, near the door.
+
+"Ah, at last," cried the sick man. "My little friend is welcome. There,
+sit in the chair. Though I am poor, I live like a gentleman. See, I have
+a bed and chairs and a table!"
+
+June looked about the shabby crowded room, at the dusty flag of France
+that was draped over the window, at the map of France that was pinned on
+the wall beside the bed, at the cheap pictures and ornaments and the
+soiled curtains, then he remembered Seki San's room, clean and sweet and
+airy with nothing in it but a vase of flowers.
+
+"I'd rather sit on the floor," he said as he took his seat beside the
+bed, adding immediately, "I can stay until twelve o'clock!"
+
+Tanaka had gone to take a bath after his warm run and to drink tea at
+the little tea-house across the road.
+
+Monsieur lay propped up in bed with his bandaged hands lying helpless on
+the cover-lid. But his eyes were soft and kind, and he had so many
+interesting things to talk about that June found him a most entertaining
+host. After he had shown June his sword and told a wonderful story about
+it, he returned to the goldfish.
+
+"Alas, there are but twenty-one now," he sighed. "Napoleon Bonaparte
+died on Sunday. Have you seen the Grand Monarch? He is the great
+shining fellow in the crystal bowl. Those smaller ones are his
+gentlemen-in-waiting. Here is Marie Antoinette, is she not most
+beautiful?"
+
+June was introduced to every one in turn and had endless questions to
+ask in regard to the story of each. Monsieur was the only person he had
+ever met who always had another story on hand. Everything suggested a
+story, a story was hidden in every nook and corner of Monsieur's brain,
+they fairly bubbled over in their eagerness to be told, and June was as
+greedy for more as the pigeons were greedy for corn, and he thought up
+new questions while the old ones were getting answered.
+
+Once Monsieur recited something in verse to him, and that reminded June
+of his own poem.
+
+"I made up one coming," he announced, "do you want to hear it?"
+
+Monsieur did. Monsieur was very fond of verse, so June recited it with
+evident pride:
+
+        "Oh Gee!" said the tree,
+        "It seems to me
+        That under my branches
+        I see a bee!"
+
+"Bravo!" said Monsieur, "you will be a poet and a soldier too!"
+
+"I'd like to write it down," said June, "so I can hang it on the tree."
+
+"To be sure, to be sure," said Monsieur, "you will find pen and ink in
+the table drawer. Not that!" he cried sharply as June took out a long
+sealed envelope. "Give that to me!"
+
+June handed the packet to Monsieur in some wonder and then continued his
+search.
+
+"Here's a corkscrew," he said, "and some neckties, and a pipe. Here's
+the pen! And may I use this fat tablet?"
+
+When the materials were collected, June stretched himself at full length
+on the floor and began the difficult task.
+
+"I never did write with a pen and ink afore," he confided to Monsieur,
+"you will have to tell me how to spell the big words."
+
+The room grew very silent and nothing was heard but the scratch, scratch
+of June's clumsy pen, and the occasional question which he asked. A
+strange change had come over Monsieur; his face, which had been so kind
+and friendly, grew hard and scheming. He had drawn himself painfully up
+on his elbow and was intently watching June's small fingers as they
+formed the letters. Presently he drew the long envelope from under his
+pillow and held it in his hand. It was a very fat envelope with a long
+row of stamps in one corner, but there was no address on it. Twice he
+put it back and shook his head, and twice he looked longingly at the map
+of France, and at the flag over the window, then he took it out again.
+
+"Will you write something for me now, at once?" he demanded in such a
+hard, quick voice that June looked up in surprise.
+
+"Another poem?" asked June.
+
+"No, a name and address on this envelope. Begin here and make the
+letters that I tell you. Capital M."
+
+"Do you like wiggles on your _M's?_" asked June, flattered by the
+request and anxious to please.
+
+"No matter," said Monsieur impatiently, "we must finish before twelve
+o'clock. Now--small o--"
+
+June put his tongue out, and hunching up his shoulders and breathing
+hard proceeded with his laborious work. It was hard enough to keep the
+lines from running uphill and the letters from growing bigger and
+bigger, but those difficulties were small compared to the task of
+guiding a sputtering, leaking pen. Once or twice he forgot and tried to
+rub out with the other end of it and the result was discouraging. When a
+period very large and black was placed after the final word, he handed
+the letter dubiously to Monsieur.
+
+"Does it spell anything?" he asked. Monsieur eagerly read the scrawling
+address. "Yes, yes," he answered, "now put it inside your blouse, so.
+When you get home wait until nobody is looking, then put it in the
+mail-box. Do you understand? When nobody is looking! Nobody must know,
+nobody must suspect, do you understand?"
+
+[Illustration: "'Does it spell anything?' June asked."]
+
+"Oh, I know, it's a secret!" cried June in delight. "I had a secret with
+mother for a whole week once. I wouldn't tell anything if I said I
+wouldn't, would you?"
+
+June was looking very straight at Monsieur, his round eyes shining with
+honesty, but Monsieur's eyes shifted uneasily.
+
+"I would never betray a trust," he said slowly, "if I were trusted. But
+they believed lies, they listened to tales that the beggarly Japanese
+carried. They have made me what I am."
+
+June was puzzled. "Who did?" he asked.
+
+But Monsieur did not heed him; he was breathing quickly and the
+perspiration stood out on his forehead.
+
+"And you will be very careful and let no one see you mail it," he asked
+eagerly, "and never, never speak of it to anybody?"
+
+"Course not," said June stoutly, "that wouldn't be like a soldier, would
+it? I am going to be a soldier, like you and Father, when I grow up."
+
+Monsieur shuddered: "No, not like me. I am no longer a soldier. I am a
+miserable wretch. I--I am not fit to live." His voice broke and he threw
+his arm across his eyes.
+
+June looked off into the farthest corner of the room and pretended not
+to see. He felt very sorry for Monsieur, but he could think of nothing
+to say. When he did speak he asked if goldfish had ears.
+
+When the noon gun sounded on the parade grounds, Tanaka came trotting to
+the door with his jinrikisha, smiling and bowing and calling softly:
+"Juna San! Juna San!"
+
+June gathered his treasures together, a new lead pencil, an old sword
+hilt, some brass buttons and, best of all, a tiny goldfish in a glass
+jar.
+
+"Good-bye," he said as he stood by the bed with his hands full, "I am
+coming back to-morrow if Seki will let me;" then a second thought struck
+him and he added, "I think you _look_ like a soldier anyhow."
+
+And Monsieur smiled, and stiffening his back lifted a bandaged hand in
+feeble salute.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII
+
+
+"SEKI SAN, have you got a big enderlope?" June asked the question from
+the door-step where he was sitting with his chin in his hand and a very
+worried look in his face.
+
+It was two days after his visit to Monsieur and the big letter was still
+buttoned in his blouse. He had started to mail it as soon as he reached
+home, but just as he was ready to drop it in the box, he discovered that
+every "s" turned the wrong way! It was a dreadful blow to his pride, for
+the rest of the address was quite imposing with big flourishing capitals
+that stood like generals over the small letters, and dots that would
+have surely put out all the "i's" had they fallen on them. He never
+could send Monsieur's letter with the "s's" looking backward, he must
+try to set them straight again.
+
+So, very carelessly, in order not to excite suspicion, he asked Seki for
+pen and ink. He had written many letters to his mother and father, but
+always in pencil, and Seki hesitated about giving him ink.
+
+She said: "Our ink not like your American ink, live and quick as water,
+it hard like paint. We not use pen, but brush like which you write
+pictures. I sink it more better you use pencil."
+
+But June insisted and when he gained his point, he carried the small box
+into the garden and took out his letter. The jar containing his goldfish
+was close by, so he dipped his stick of paint into the water and rubbed
+it vigorously on the paint box. At the last moment just as his brush was
+poised in the air, he had a moment of misgiving, "maybe 's's' do turn
+that way!" he said, but the brush full of paint was a temptation not to
+be resisted, so he took each little "s" by its tail and turned it inside
+out. The paper was soft and thin and took the ink like blotting paper.
+June watched with dismay as the lines spread into ugly blots, and when
+he tried to make the letters plainer he only made the blots bigger until
+they all seemed to join hands and go dancing over the envelope in
+fiendish glee at his discomfort.
+
+For two days he had tried to think of a way out of the difficulty but
+before he could find one he would get interested in something else and
+forget about the letter. It was only when it felt stiff inside of his
+blouse that he remembered, and then he would stop playing and try again
+to solve the problem. At last in desperation he appealed to Seki San for
+an envelope.
+
+"It is not so much big," she said, bringing out a long narrow envelope
+and a roll of paper. "Why you want to write such big letter to your
+mother? She coming home soon!"
+
+"It isn't big enough," said June fretfully, then an idea struck him.
+"Seki, I want to go see Monsieur to-day."
+
+Seki San sat down on the step beside him and shook her head positively:
+
+"No, no," she said, "not to-day, nor to-morrow, nor any day. He is not a
+good man, I made mistakes in letting you go."
+
+"He _is_ a good man!" cried June indignantly, "he told me stories, and
+gave me lots of things."
+
+"I tell you 'bout him, June," said Seki San. "One time Monsieur very
+skilful smart man in Tokyo. He write pictures of the forts and show the
+Japanese how to find coast in time of war. He know more plenty than
+anybody about the coast and the mines. Then he is not behave right, and
+get sent out of the service, and he get sick in the hands so he can make
+no more maps, and he come down here and live all alone by himself. That
+was long time ago, but yesterday a high up messenger come from Tokyo,
+and asked for Monsieur Carré. The Emperor have desire to buy his old
+maps and reports, and get his help in making new plans. When the
+messenger come, they say Monsieur fall back on the bed very white and
+afraid, and say he will not give up the papers. Then messenger say maybe
+he has sold his papers to a foreign country and he get very much angry,
+and say if Monsieur Carré do not give the papers in twenty-four hours,
+he will have him arrested and take him to Tokyo. Still Monsieur keep the
+tight lips, and a guard is waiting outside his house."
+
+With troubled eyes, June listened to every word. "_Did_ he sell the
+papers, Seki?" he asked anxiously.
+
+"He will not say," said Seki, "they say he will not say, but it was a
+bad, wicked act if he sold our secrets, and he may die for it!"
+
+June stirred restlessly, and the packet in his blouse caught in his
+belt. He put up his hand to straighten it, and as he did so, a startled
+look of inquiry passed over his face. Could those papers in the long
+envelope have anything to do with Monsieur's present trouble? Why had
+Monsieur not wanted him to tell? Had his mistake about the "s's"
+anything to do with it all? The secret, which at first had seemed such a
+mysterious and delightful possession, suddenly grew into a great and
+terrible burden that he longed to cast at Seki's feet and ask her to
+share.
+
+But the thought of telling what he knew never crossed his mind. He had
+given his word, and he felt that to break it would be to forfeit forever
+his chance of becoming a soldier. But something must be done, he must go
+to Monsieur and tell him the truth at once.
+
+"Seki," he said persuasively, "Monsieur is sick in bed, don't you think
+it would be nice for me to take him a little cake?"
+
+"You can not ever go there any more," repeated Seki San positively. "I
+did a mistakes in letting you go."
+
+In vain June pleaded, every argument that he could think of he brought
+to bear, but Seki was firm. By and by he began to cry, at first softly,
+begging between the sobs, then when he got angry he cried very loud and
+declared over and over that he would go.
+
+Seki San was amazed at his naughtiness. It was the first time since his
+mother left that she had known him to be disobedient. When persuasion
+and coaxing proved in vain, she carried him into the house and carefully
+closing the paper screens left him alone. Here he lay on the floor and
+cried louder than ever. Seki San and her mother and the old man next
+door stood on the outside and peeped through the cracks, gravely
+discussing the situation. Even Tomi sniffed uneasily, and gave sharp,
+unhappy barks.
+
+[Illustration: "They peeped through the cracks, gravely discussing the
+situation."]
+
+After ever and ever so long the cries grew fainter and gradually ceased,
+and Seki peeping around the screen whispered to the others to be very
+still as he was going to sleep.
+
+June lay quiet on his face, but he was not asleep. Once in a while he
+opened his eyes a very little and peeped out, then he closed them
+quickly and listened. By and by he heard Seki go back to her work, and
+the old man next door hobble across the garden. Inch by inch June
+crawled over the mats until he reached the screen, which he carefully
+slid back. After waiting for a few breathless minutes, he reached out
+and got his shoes from the door-step and put them on. Back of the house
+he could hear Seki singing at her work, and not six feet away Tomi lay
+snoozing in the sun. Softly and cautiously he slipped out of the house,
+across the strip of a garden where all the leaves seemed to be shaking
+their heads at him, through a narrow passageway, then out of the gate
+that divided the little world he knew from the vast unknown world that
+lay beyond.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+EVEN more than usually quiet and deserted was the narrow street. The
+noon sun glaring down on the town had sent everybody into the shade, and
+at first June attracted little attention as he trudged off in the
+direction of the parade grounds. He knew the way that far, for Toro
+often took him there to watch the men drill. Soldiers passed him now in
+twos and threes, looking very smart in their buff uniforms with swords
+clanking at their sides, and as they passed they laughed and turned to
+look curiously at the small foreign boy. In fact curious eyes were
+peering out of many of the open front shops, and mothers were even
+holding up their babies and pointing to the strange little person who
+was passing.
+
+Here and there children were dipping water with their hands from pails
+and sprinkling the dusty street, and when they saw June they paused and
+gazed open-mouthed, or shouted derisively: "Eijin! Eijin!" The whole
+world seemed strange and unfriendly, and even the sun tried to see how
+hot it could glare down on June's bare head.
+
+When he reached the parade ground, he stopped to rest, but no sooner had
+he sat down than a circle gathered around him, two jinrikisha men, four
+boys, a girl with a baby on her back and an old fish woman. There was no
+chatter, they were all too interested to talk, they just stood and
+looked and looked until June felt that their eyes were pins and that he
+was the cushion. After a while he turned to one of the men and said: "Do
+you know where Monsieur Carré lives?"
+
+They looked at each other and smiled. It was much as if a new bird had
+twittered a strange note, and one boy tried to imitate the sound and
+repeated "Carré lives?" to the great amusement of the rest.
+
+"Monsieur Carré!" went on June, getting angry, "he's a Frenchman. Don't
+you know where he lives?"
+
+"Where he lives?" mimicked the boy and they laughed more than ever. June
+was so angry by this time that he could not tell which he wanted most to
+do, to cry or to fight.
+
+Beyond him was a wilderness of criss-cross streets with strange eyes
+peering at him from every quarter. What if he should get lost and
+swallowed up for ever in this strange place where nobody knew him nor
+loved him nor spoke his language?
+
+Instinctively he looked back toward the way he had come. He had only to
+retrace his steps past the parade ground, hurry back in a straight line
+until he came to the big red gate that marked the entrance to the
+temple, and then turning to the right run breathlessly down the street
+to the little gate in the wall, and after that to throw himself into
+Seki's arms and tell her all his troubles!
+
+But what would become of Monsieur? It must be very dreadful to be sick
+in bed with a guard waiting to arrest you if you do not get some papers
+for him, papers which you do not possess. And if Monsieur was arrested
+he never would get back to France!
+
+All this flashed through June's mind as he sat under the pine tree,
+trying with all his might to keep the black eyes all around from seeing
+that he was about to cry. Just then a soldier went by holding himself
+very erect and looking neither to the left nor the right. Suddenly June
+remembered that soldiers did not cry, and with resolution he got up and
+turning his back to the temple gate and the parade grounds, he continued
+courageously on his way.
+
+Far in the distance he could see, high on a hill, the old castle which
+he knew he must pass before he should come to Monsieur's. There were
+many streets to be passed, and many obstacles to be overcome, for as
+June got further from home the curiosity concerning him increased. It
+was very warm and he was tired but he dared not sit down for he dreaded
+the gaping crowd and the curious eyes. By and by he came to the old moat
+which circled the castle, and as the road led out into the country, the
+boys who had followed him gradually fell back until he realized with joy
+that there were no more wooden shoes clattering after him.
+
+In the moat big lotus leaves floated on the water and working among them
+were coolies, naked, except for a loin cloth. They were too busy to take
+any notice of a strange little boy, so he sat on a rock under a tree for
+a long time and wondered how it would feel to be down there under the
+lily pads and the lotus leaves, and if the same hob-goblins and sprites
+that live under the sea did not sometimes come to play in the moats, and
+take moonlight rides on the big broad leaves?
+
+The sun which had beaten so fiercely on his head was slowly dropping
+toward the distant mountain when he started once more on his way, and a
+long shadow went beside him. The shadow was a great relief for it kept
+him company without staring at him. By and by even the shadow deserted
+him and he trudged along the country road following a vague impression
+that somewhere around the foot of the mountain Monsieur lived.
+
+It was very quiet and lonesome with only the crickets and the frogs
+talking to each other out there in the grasses, and June's feet were
+tired and his head ached and he was hungry. A big lump kept lodging in
+his throat no matter how often he swallowed. Now that the gray twilight
+was creeping on, all sorts of fears assailed him. Ever since he could
+remember Seki San had told him of the hob-goblins and gnomes that haunt
+the woodlands and mountains in Japan. There were the Tengu, half bird
+and half man, that play all sorts of mischievous pranks on the farmers,
+there was the "Three-eyed Friar," and the "White Woman" who wanders
+about in the snow, and worst of all was a bogie with horns, whose legs
+dwindled away to nothing at all, but whose body was very large and
+horrible with a long neck twisted like a snake.
+
+As he thought about it his heart began to thump, and he quickened his
+steps to a run. All the trees seemed to be reaching out clutching hands
+as he sped by, and the darkness kept creeping closer and closer. The
+sobs which he had held back so long came faster, and at last breathless
+and panic-stricken he sank exhausted by the roadside and waited in dumb
+terror for what might happen.
+
+Looking fearfully around he saw just above him a kind, white face
+peering out of the twilight. It was only a stone face, and it belonged
+to an image that was sitting cross-legged on a mossy stone, but June
+felt as if he had met a friend. Of all the gods and goddesses that Seki
+San had told him about, the one he knew best was Jizo, the friend of
+little children. The drooping figure, the gentle face, and the shaven
+head had become as familiar to him as the pictures of Santa Claus at
+home. He had met him in the temples, in the woods, on the river road, in
+big stone statues and little wooden ones, and now when he found him here
+in this lonesome night world, he felt a vague sense of relief and
+protection.
+
+Climbing up on the stone he fingered the pebbles that filled Jizo's lap,
+and touched the red cotton bib that was tied about his neck. He knew
+what it all meant for Seki San had told him many times. Jizo was the
+guardian of dead children, and the red bib and the pebbles had been
+placed there by mothers who wanted the kind god to look after their
+little babies who had passed away into another world. There were
+hundreds of pebbles about the statue, in its lap, about its hands and
+feet, and even on its bald head, and June was very careful not to
+disturb any of them. He wished he had something to give the good god,
+but he was too tired to go down and look for a pebble. He searched
+through his pockets but nothing seemed to suit. Finally he separated one
+object from the rest, and placed it gently in Jizo's upturned hand. It
+was the old sword hilt that Monsieur had given him.
+
+[Illustration: "It was the old sword-hilt that Monsieur had given him."]
+
+Then, because he was very sleepy and tired, and because he was afraid of
+the dark, he nestled down in the niche under Jizo's upraised arm, and
+all the hob-goblins and evil spirits slipped away, and the stars came
+out and the big white moon, and the monotonous droning of the crickets
+and frogs seemed to be Seki San humming him to sleep, and the stone
+figure against which he leaned seemed to sway toward him in the
+moonlight and the face changed to the gentlest, sweetest one he knew,
+and instead of the little pebbles on the head there was a crown of
+thorns.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IX
+
+
+HOW long June slept there he did not know, but he was awakened by
+someone shaking his arm and holding a paper lantern close to his face.
+When he got his eyes open he found that it was a jinrikisha man and that
+he was talking to him in Japanese.
+
+"Where's Seki?" June asked, looking about him in bewilderment.
+
+The man shook his head and continued to talk excitedly in Japanese.
+
+"I want to go to Monsieur Carré's," said June very loud as if that would
+help the man to understand.
+
+"Wakarimasen," said the man.
+
+"Monsieur Carré!" shouted June, and again the man shook his head and
+said, "Wakarimasen."
+
+Over and over June repeated "Monsieur Carré," and pointed down the
+moonlit road. Finally in desperation he scrambled from his perch and
+seizing a stick thrust it under his arm like a crutch, then he humped
+his shoulders, drew down his brows, and limped along saying with a
+groan, "Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!" as he had heard Monsieur say it.
+
+In an instant the man clapped his hands and laughed. "Hai, Hai," he said
+and when the jinrikisha was wheeled about and June was invited to get
+in, you may be sure he lost no time in doing so. He even forgot to give
+a good-by look to Jizo, who sat smiling out into the moonlight with the
+little pebbles on his head.
+
+It was a wonderful ride, through the soft shiny darkness, with only the
+pitter patter of the kurumaya's sandals to break the silence. June,
+curled up on the seat, was not thinking of poor Seki San and her anxiety
+concerning him, neither was he thinking of the mother and father who
+would soon be coming to him over the sea, nor of Monsieur with the guard
+at his door. He was wondering if the stars were the moon's children, and
+who woke the sun up in the morning.
+
+And all the time a light at the foot of the hill was getting closer and
+closer, and before he knew it, they had stopped at the little brown
+house where the windows peeped through the vines.
+
+A voice spoke sharply in the darkness and before June could get down a
+man in uniform with a star on his breast, stopped him. The jinrikisha
+man seemed to be explaining and the soldier to be asking questions, and
+while they talked June sat very still with his heart beating furiously
+against the long envelope in his blouse.
+
+He was just as frightened as he had been back in the woods when the
+hob-goblins were after him, only it was different. Then he cried and ran
+away, now he was not thinking of himself at all, but of Monsieur who
+might have to go to prison and die if he should fail to get the papers
+to him.
+
+After what seemed to him hours of time, the guard evidently came to the
+conclusion that a sleepy little boy who had lost his way could do no
+harm, so he lifted him down and took him up the path.
+
+June was too full of anxiety even to glance at the goldfish as he passed
+them. He walked straight up the path and into the room where Monsieur
+lay. On the bed was an old man who looked as if he might have been
+Monsieur's father; his body seemed to have shrunk to half its size and
+his face was old and white and drawn. Only the eyes made June know that
+it was Monsieur himself, and the fierce startled look in them recalled
+the day he had stumbled over him in the Daimyo's garden.
+
+"I was coming to see you and I got lost," began June, but Monsieur held
+up a warning hand.
+
+"The guard will inform me in Japanese," he said so coldly that June
+wondered if he were angry with him.
+
+After a great deal of talk, the guard went away leaving June sitting
+half asleep on the floor with his head against the bed. In an instant
+Monsieur was leaning over him shaking his shoulder.
+
+"Tell me!" he demanded, "tell me quickly why did you come?"
+
+June rubbed his eyes and yawned; at first he could not remember, then it
+began to come back:
+
+"I made the 's's' the wrong way," he murmured, "and when I tried to fix
+them I spoiled your letter."
+
+"Yes, yes," cried Monsieur, now out of bed and on his knees before the
+child, "and you tore it up, you destroyed it?"
+
+June shook his head wearily, "It is inside here, but I can't undo the
+buttons."
+
+Monsieur's hands, bandaged though they were, found the packet and drew
+it eagerly forth. "Thank God! thank God!" he whispered, pressing the
+unbroken seal again and again to his lips.
+
+"Did I save your life?" asked June making a mighty effort to rouse
+himself, and enjoy his reward.
+
+"Not my life, boy; that did not matter; it is my honor you have saved,
+my honor." And Monsieur lay back upon the bed and sobbed like a little
+child.
+
+"He's coming!" warned June, and Monsieur had only sufficient time to
+wipe away the tears from his withered old cheeks before the guard
+returned with the jinrikisha man.
+
+After a consultation in Japanese, Monsieur said to June, "I have told
+the man how to take you home. They will be very anxious about you. You
+must start at once."
+
+"I'm hungry," said June, "I'd like some of those little crackers that
+you gave me before."
+
+The guard, obligingly following directions, produced a paper bag from
+the table drawer.
+
+"I wish they were animal crackers," said June, "I like to eat the
+elephant first, then he gets hungry and I have to eat the bear, then the
+bear gets hungry and I have to eat the pig, and the pig gets hungry and
+I have to eat the rabbit until there aren't any left in the bag."
+
+"You have not spoken to any one about the letter?" whispered Monsieur as
+he pretended to kiss June good-by.
+
+"'Course not!" declared June indignantly. "It's a secret!" Then as if
+remembering a lost opportunity he added: "Oh! you couldn't tell me a
+story, could you? Just a teeny weeny one?"
+
+"Not to-night," said Monsieur laughing, "why, it is eleven o'clock now.
+But to-morrow, next day, always when you come, the stories are waiting,
+all that my brain and heart can hold."
+
+And with this promise June was bound to be content.
+
+It was hard to believe that the way back was as long as the way he had
+come, for before he knew it the wall beside the moat appeared by the
+roadside, then the parade grounds dim and shadowy in the moonlight, then
+the crowded streets of the town. He did not know that he was the chief
+cause of the commotion, that for two hours parties of searchers had been
+hurrying along every road leading out of town, that people were telling
+where they had seen him last, and that anxious groups were looking over
+the low wall into the black waters of the moat.
+
+He only knew that from the moment he reached town a crowd followed his
+jinrikisha, that his kurumaya could scarcely push his way through the
+questioning throng, and that at last they stopped and a shout went up,
+the crowd parted, and through the opening dashed Seki San, her hair
+hanging limply about her face, her eyes full of joy, and her arms
+out-stretched.
+
+"Oh! My little boy darling!" she cried. "You have given me many
+troubles. Where you been, where did you go?"
+
+But June attempted no explanation; the papers were safe with Monsieur
+and he was safe with Seki San, and whether or not he had done right was
+too big a problem to wrestle with.
+
+After Seki had fed him and bathed him, and kissed his many bruises to
+make them well, he put his arms about her and gave her a long, hard hug.
+
+"I am awful sorry I had to run away," he said and Seki's English was not
+good enough to understand just what he meant.
+
+[Illustration: "Long after he was asleep she sat beside him."]
+
+Long after he was asleep she sat beside him on the floor, crying softly
+into her sleeve, and holding fast to his hand while she gave thanks not
+only to her new Christian God but to some of the heathen ones as well
+for sending him back to her.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X
+
+
+LATE in the summer, when the tiny maple leaves were turning blood-red
+and the white lotus was filling every pond and moat, June and Seki San
+journeyed back to Yokohama. They were going to meet the big steamer that
+was on its way from China to America, and June was to join his mother
+and father and go back with them to California. He was so happy over the
+prospect that he could not sit still a minute, but kept hopping from one
+side of the car to the other and asking Seki more questions than she
+could possibly answer.
+
+"Do you s'pose my mother'll know me now I've got so fat? Has my father
+grown any since I saw him? Will he carry a sword? What do you s'pose
+they will bring me?" and so on until there were scarcely any questions
+left to be asked.
+
+"One more day," said Seki San sadly, "and Seki will have no more little
+boy to hold her sleeves behind and tease and tickle her under her necks.
+She will have a very, very lonely heart."
+
+June's merriment ceased for a moment and he looked serious. The fact
+that Seki could not go back with him had been a misfortune that he had
+not yet faced.
+
+"I'm going to get my father to come back for you next year," he said at
+last, "you and Tomi and Toro, and your mamma with the black teeth too.
+We will have a little Japanese house on the ranch, and Toro can ride my
+pony."
+
+But Seki shook her head and wiped her eyes.
+
+"You will go back to your dear, affectionate home," she said, "and be
+big mans when I see you once more. But I will hear your lovingest little
+boy voice down in my heart alway!"
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+It was a happy meeting the next day on the steamer when June actually
+saw his mother, and clung about her neck as if he would never let go
+again. Then he had to be taken up on the shelter deck and introduced to
+a strange, pale man reclining in a steamer chair, who they said was his
+father. At first it was a dreadful disappointment, and he submitted to
+being kissed with an effort. But when the man lifted one eyebrow and
+puckered his mouth into a funny shape, and said, "Why, Mr. Skeezicks,
+you haven't forgotten your old Pard?" a dark spot seemed suddenly to go
+out of June's mind and in its place was a memory of the jolliest,
+funniest playfellow he had ever had in his life. With a rush he was in
+his lap. "You used to tell me about the Indians," he cried accusingly,
+"I remember now. What became of Tiger Tooth and the little white child?"
+
+"We will have just fourteen days to tell stories," said Captain Royston.
+"I shall probably be a dumb man by the time we land in San Francisco.
+You must sit down here now and tell this little mother of yours the
+story of your life. Where did you get these red cheeks and fat legs?"
+
+And with Seki San sitting on the floor at their feet, and with a
+frequent hug from mother and many a laugh from father, the story of the
+summer was told.
+
+When the last launch brought the passengers out from the shore, who
+should come aboard but Monsieur Carré. He was regularly engaged in
+Government service at Tokyo now, and when he saw in the paper that
+Master Robert Rogers Royston, Junior, would join his parents and sail
+for America on the S. S. _Mongolia_, he made the short trip to Yokohama
+to say good-by.
+
+He was so dressed up that June scarcely recognized him. His white
+mustache was waxed until it stood out very straight, and his hair was
+parted all the way down the back. He still carried a heavy cane and
+limped when he walked, but his hands, though knotted and gnarled, were
+free from bandages.
+
+Captain and Mrs. Royston welcomed him cordially as a friend of June's
+and even Seki San, who still looked upon him with suspicion, was
+discreetly silent.
+
+"Are you going back to France?" asked June.
+
+"Next year," answered Monsieur. "I will have made sufficient money to go
+home, and then! Ah, Mon Dieu! I will never leave it again."
+
+"I will write you a letter," said June, adding slyly, "I'll be sure to
+make the 's's' turn the right way."
+
+Monsieur put his finger on his lips and June nodded understandingly.
+
+"What secret have you there?" asked Captain Royston.
+
+Monsieur put his hand on June's head, and looking straight in the
+Captain's eyes, he said:
+
+"Your boy will make a fine soldier; he has courage and honor, and he can
+keep a secret. I congratulate you!"
+
+Just then a gong sounded and the first officer ordered everybody who was
+going ashore to hurry. There was general bustle and confusion, June had
+a vague impression of Monsieur kissing him on both cheeks, and
+disappearing down the rope ladder, of Seki San kneeling before him while
+he clung to her neck and begged her not to leave him, then he was
+sitting on the railing, with Father's arm about him, and Mother holding
+one hand while with the other he waved good-by to the friends below.
+
+[Illustration: "June waved good-by to the friends below."]
+
+The little launch grew strangely blurred as it danced away over the
+water. June did not see the crowd on the deck, nor the pilot at the
+wheel, nor even the white and orange flag that floated from the mast. He
+was watching the pink rose in Seki's hair growing fainter and fainter in
+the distance.
+
+"And now," said Father, with decision, "I think it's about time to get
+busy with the Indians."
+
+
+
+
+                           Transcriber Notes
+
+Passages in italics were indicated by _underscores_.
+
+Small caps were replaced with ALL CAPS.
+
+Throughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents of the
+speakers. Those words were retained as-is.
+
+The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up
+paragraphs and so that they are next the text they illustrate. Thus the
+page number of the illustration might not match the page number in the
+List of Illustrations, and the order of illustrations may not be the
+same in the List of Illustrations and in the book.
+
+Errors in punctuations and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected
+unless otherwise noted below:
+
+On page 90, "chlidren" was replaced with "children".
+
+On page 116, a comma was placed after "with suspicion".
+
+On page 116, the single quotation mark after "leave it again." was
+replaced with a double quotation mark.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Captain June, by Alice Hegan Rice
+
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