The Four Corners in Japan

Nan shot him a swift look. She felt the color rising to her cheeks as she answered, "I will not mind." Then fearful of further temptation she arose and fled, not even turning her head as Mr. Harding called after her, "Please, Miss Nan, don't go. Please come back."

Back she would not come, but she was happy, happy. She would let herself go for this one time. Surely so much was her due. In a little while these happy days would be over. Mr. Harding would be returning to his work. In the meantime let him choose between her and the younger girl. She would let fate decide.

Why Mr. Harding had gone so far as to venture on such an invitation, Eleanor might have explained. She adored Nan and had charged her brother with fickleness. Had asked why he treated Nan with such coldness when at first the two had seemed to be the best of friends. He had replied that it was all Nan's own doings, that she had turned the cold shoulder, and that he could but accept his position. "I think she wishes me to understand that some one else has a prior claim," he said at last.

Eleanor considered this before she replied. "I don't believe a word of it. I am quite sure she is not engaged to any one, but I shall make it my business to find out from Mary Lee. If she isn't and even though she may be interested in some other man, I don't see why you haven't as good a chance as he has. There isn't a girl in the world I would rather have for my sister, Neal, old boy."

"You are a trump, Nell," returned her brother, but he did not say that there was no girl he would rather she should have for a sister, an omission which Eleanor thought of in the light of after events.

By some hokus-pokus, Jack found herself in the society of Mr. Montell when they all started off for the Bon-ichi. This young man had come up with Neal Harding, and it is to Eleanor's credit that she managed to hand him over to Jack rather than to accept his escort for herself. Jack did not mind the experience in the least, although if it had been given her to choose, she would have selected Mr. Harding.

Between the flickering light of lanterns and torches all the way down the street moved a crowd of people and soon the party of Americans became a part of the throng, themselves, though soberly clad, conspicuous above the little women in bright garments and the small men in blue or black or gray. In spite of this, Nan and her companion were soon separated from the rest. They had stopped long before a booth where were sold lotus flowers and leaves for the ceremony of the morrow.

They lingered, too, to look at the bundles of hemp sticks, the crude dishes of earthenware, made especially for the ghostly visitors. As they turned away from these last, Mr. Harding looked down with a smile. "Now we are alone," he said with a smile.

Nan understood. Who is so alone as in a crowd? Some distance ahead she caught sight, once in a while, of the colonel's soldierly figure towering up above his companions, and once or twice she could see Jack's hat, and her sparkling face turned gaily toward her escort.

"We have gone back to the temple fair at Tokyo, I hope," said Mr. Harding as Nan grew more and more expansive and chatty.

"We won't talk about goings back," returned she lightly. "It is always better to go ahead. What is done is done. We can control the future somewhat, but we cannot help the past."

"That sounds like one of Confucius' philosophies. I accept the lesson it holds."

Just what did he mean by that? Nan felt that she had been more didactic than wise and wished she had said something else. She must be more guarded. She forgot her introspections in the beauty of the things to be seen at the next stall: wonderful lanterns of most beautiful shapes and colors, although there were some that were a pure luminous white and these were intended for the cemeteries. They stood long looking at them but in time moved on to where queer little figures made of straw were offered for sale. "What in the world are these?" inquired Nan.

"These are horses for the ghosts to ride and oxen to work for them," her companion told her.

"How queer, how very queer, and what is that on the next stall?"

"That is incense."

A little further along they came upon Jean and Mary Lee all absorbed in a display of tiny horsehair cages, from which twinkled and sparkled myriads of lights. Alongside of these were larger cages, though small enough, of bamboo from whose interiors the strident notes of great green crickets came incessantly.

"Aren't they darling?" cried Jean enthusiastically as Nan came up. "You can get a cricket and a cage for two cents, and for one cent you can buy fifteen fireflies in a cage. Mary Lee and I are getting ever so many."

"What for?" inquired Nan.

"Oh, just to give them their freedom. We hate to see the poor little creatures caged. The cages are so curious that we want those anyhow."

"Have they any religious fitness?" Nan asked Mr. Harding.

"Oh, no, they are only for the children."

Nan concluded that she must have a cage, too, and bore away a galaxy of twinkling stars which she declared she would make a ceremony of liberating.

Then while Mr. Harding told her a pretty tale of how the fireflies came to exist at all, and then wandered off into other folk-lore, they moved slowly out of the seething crowd to find their way into shadowy groves and at last to come upon a shrine before which lights were burning but where no one worshiped, for it seemed quite deserted.

"If we could but reach Kwannon-with-the-Horse's-Head," said Mr. Harding, "we could send up a prayer for the animals which have died, and Kwannon might answer."

"And where is Kwannon-with-the-Horse's-Head?"

"Away down near Izumo. I have seen the shrine and it seemed a very pleasant thing to think that these people cared to remember the welfare of their animals, and to want them to enter a better state after the trials of this. Their religion seems very fanciful and, to us, full of all sorts of errors, but one comes across very beautiful customs every now and then."

Nan knelt before the little shrine and opened her cage of fireflies. One after another found its freedom, darting out and floating up into the dimness of further distance. They stood watching them glimmering fitfully under the dark trees. "They seem like departing souls, themselves," said Nan. "They make me think of 'Vital spark of heavenly flame.'"

"Then you have found in them a symbol that the Japanese seem not to have discovered. I knew you would surprise me with something of the kind."

"How did you know?"

"I divined it as one sees with the eyes of his spirit."

"There is one poor little firefly left," said Nan suddenly observing a faint glimmer still coming from the tiny cage. "I am afraid he is hurt. If I knew what to feed him on I would take him home and keep him till he is able to fly."

"They feed the crickets on eggplant and melon rind. We can get some on the way back, or we can find out what to give this little fellow."

"Then that is what we must do, though I wonder if we take him so far away if he can find his way back to his companions. Do you suppose he will want to? Or does it make no difference to a vital spark where it is liberated?"

"I don't imagine it will make any difference. I know my soul could find its way to – " He stopped short fearing he was growing too bold.

"To where?" asked Nan.

"To its kindred soul," was the reply which was not exactly what was first intended.

Nan sighed. It was all so dreamily mysterious out there in the mild warm air under the trees. It was a great temptation to stay and listen to perhaps more daring speeches. They were both silent for a little while, Nan watching the feeble glimmer of the imprisoned insect, and Mr. Harding watching her in the light of the lantern hung before the shrine. "It is very lovely here," said Nan at last, "but I think we should go back."

"Must we? I could stay forever."

"It is very lovely," repeated Nan, but she began to move away from the spot.

They passed a temple where people were coming and going and heard the clanging of its gong, the shuffle of feet upon the stairway leading to it, the murmur of voices. "Shall we go up?" asked Mr. Harding.

Nan shook her head. "No, I don't care to, do you?"

"No, I would rather stay a little longer in the shadow of my dreams." They stood apart for a moment watching the moving throng, and then they turned away, each dwelling in a world far away from that which they saw, the land of Heart's Desire.

For some reason, Nan noticed that whenever Jack started off with Mr. Harding alone, after the night of the Bon-ichi, she was not allowed to go far without being joined by either Mary Lee or Eleanor, but when she, herself, happened to come upon either of these two latter in the young man's company, some mysterious errand would take one or the other to another part of the house or grounds. She was too happy to search very far for the cause of this and accepted what fate brought her in the way of a tête-à-tête. That it was anything more than accident she did not ask, that it was really a conspiracy she did not for a moment imagine. For one short week she would enjoy herself and then let come what must.

The last day of the Feast of Lanterns was the great one. On its morning Mary Lee came to her. "I want you to do something for me, Nan," she said. "I suppose you will think it is foolish, and of course I don't in the least believe in these queer religions, for who could? But I do want to do one thing. It seems as if somehow Phil might know that I am sending him a message and it would comfort me to pretend. I want to launch a little boat on the river this evening. Will you come with me?"

"Of course I will," said Nan heartily. "I don't think it is foolish at all. I should feel exactly the same under the circumstances. Where will you get the boat?"

"Oh, I have it. I managed all that. I shall not do as the Japanese do, of course, and load it with food. I shall only write a little letter and shall send out my boat with the lantern on it. I hope Phil will know," she said wistfully.

Nan's eyes filled with tears. This was the romance of Mary Lee's life she understood. All the poetry and romance of her nature was centred in the memory of the young lover she had lost. "I am sure, if our dear angels know anything of what we do, he will know," she answered her sister gently. "Are we not compassed about by a cloud of witnesses?" she added. "He must know, Mary Lee."

"I am glad you remembered that," returned her sister. "It is comforting. I will come for you, shall I? or will you come for me?"

"Whichever you say."

"Perhaps you'd better come for me, then we can steal away by ourselves more easily. I know just the spot."

The sun had set, but there was still light in the sky, when Mary Lee and Nan set out for a secluded place along the riverside. The little straw boat which Mary Lee carried was carefully screened from view and it was not till they reached the river's brink that she took it from its wrappings to set it afloat with its tiny lantern and the written message of love and longing. Very carefully Mary Lee lighted the small lantern, very cautiously set the tiny craft afloat and watched it drift off adown the current to join the fleet further along. The twinkling lights from many another frail bark showed that a host of phantoms were supposedly moving out upon the current to find the sea at last.

The two girls stood silently watching the boat slowly making its way down-stream. When its tiny spark at last vanished around a bend in the river Mary Lee turned away with a quick sob. "Sometimes I feel as if I could not bear it," she said.

Nan put her arms lovingly around the younger girl and laid her cheek against the fair hair. "I know, I know," she whispered, "but he is always there, dear, and always yours."

"Yes," returned the other, "and that is all that comforts."

"Suppose you had been obliged to give him up to some one else, loving him as you did, wouldn't it have been harder?"

"I don't know. Perhaps. Yes, he is mine, forever mine, and he may not be very far away if I could only have faith to realize it. I shall think he does know and is glad to have me do what I have done to-night."

They returned slowly saying little. As they neared the hotel, they saw Jack and Mr. Harding sauntering through the garden paths. They appeared to be having an animated conversation. "Do you like Mr. Harding as much as you did at first?" inquired Mary Lee.

"Oh, yes," returned Nan in as indifferent a manner as she could assume though she felt the color rush to her face. Mary Lee stole a glance at her, and remembered what Nan had forgotten. It was when she did not talk freely of any special man that she might be counted on as feeling the deeper interest. Nan rarely discussed Neal Harding and Mary Lee drew her own conclusions.

"I wonder what Carter would say if he saw Jack now," she said after a pause.

"He knows what Jack is," replied Nan, "and moreover I don't know that he has any right to criticize her actions. We only assume that he has any claim. Jack has never said so."

"No, she is a perfect sphinx upon the subject. Sometimes I think she doesn't care a rap for him and again I am convinced that she would never consider any one else."

"She is too young to know her own mind."

"I knew my own mind when I was younger than she."

"Well, I think she ought to have her chances."

"And you think Neal Harding is one of them."

"I think it within the bounds of possibility."

"Nonsense!"

"Why nonsense? He attracts her and I think she would attract him if – "

"If what?"

"If propinquity were made a factor."

"Do you think she would be happy married to Neal Harding?"

"Certainly. Why shouldn't she be? He is a fine, honorable gentleman with a good mind and with excellent prospects. I cannot imagine how any one could find fault with him."

Mary Lee smiled wisely. "Oh, I am not picking flaws. I think he is fine but I don't concede that he would suit Jack in the least."

"Oh!" Nan seemed a little bewildered, but Mary Lee, watching the pair wandering around the garden together, made up her mind to several things which she did not reveal to Nan.

Jack espied her sisters as they came forward. She ran to meet them exclaiming: "Why, where have you all been? We have been looking all over for you. Mr. Harding wants us to see the great dance, the dance called Bon-odori. Eleanor and the rest are waiting for us. The others have gone on ahead."

There was nothing to do but follow out the suggestion and in due time the party reached the temple court where the strangely-fascinating, weird dance was going on. It was one of those peculiar religious rites performed in many countries on special feast days, though varying with the time and place, a quaint and rhythmical march, accompanied by the clapping of hands, the beat of a drum. A procession of maidens swaying, turning, stepping lightly, moving gracefully around the temple court; this is what they saw. Presently others joined the procession, men and again other women. Then began the songs, curious antiphonal chants rising with more and more volume as the company of marching figures grew larger.

"It reminds me of some strange old Scriptural rite," said Mrs. Corner to the colonel. "One might imagine the daughters of Israel going out to meet David, or dancing before the golden calf. It is very Oriental, but really very beautiful. The hands are very expressive and the rhythm is perfect."

"I have seen the dance done in different parts of Japan," returned the colonel, "and it is never quite the same, but it is always interesting."

They tarried till a booming bell gave signal that the dance was over and then they joined the throng of toddling women and shuffling men who turned toward their homes.

"To-morrow," said the colonel, "the fishermen can go out again, for those who have parents need not go without meat, although those who have lost a parent must wait a day longer before they can have fish to eat."

"But we shall have fish," said Mrs. Craig with decision. And so ended the great Festival of the Bonku.

CHAPTER XIV

JEAN VISITS

Nan hung the tiny cage with its one occupant outside her room on the verandah and the next morning discovered that the small maker of light had escaped through the open door. Later in the day, joy itself took wings with the return of Neal Harding to his post. He had declared that he would see them all again, but as he would remain in Tokyo, to which place they did not expect to go again, it seemed to Nan that the end of her summer had come. He had not asked her to write, and she told herself that this dream was ended, ended with the flitting of the ghostly visitors from another world. "It was all a phantom anyhow," she sighed as she took down the wee cage and laid it among her treasures. She wondered if Jack would start up a correspondence. Jack did not like to write letters, to be sure, but she was one who made a means serve her ends and if she really did like Mr. Harding above any other man she had met, she would be sure to find a way of keeping him in sight.

A few days later Nan happened to come upon her mother and aunt deep in a discussion of further plans. "You're just the girl we want to see," said Mrs. Corner. "Come, sit down here and talk it all over with us. We feel that we should be thinking of starting forth again, not because we are tired of this lovely spot, but because there is so much more to see, and one can scarcely expect to come to Japan more than once in a lifetime. You and Mary Lee have made the Craigs a long visit and it is time that should be ended. Now what do you think we should make our next point?"

Nan gave the question due consideration. "We must certainly see Kyoto," she said at last. "It is such a very old city and was the capital before Tokyo became so. I have been told that it is the most interesting city in Japan."

Mrs. Corner looked at Miss Helen. "Now that is quite as it should be. Jean has had an invitation to visit there."

"She has? Who has asked her?"

Mrs. Corner raised her voice slightly to say, "Jean, dear, come in here and bring the letter you had this morning."

Jean, who could hear perfectly well through the thin paper partitions of the room, appeared presently with the letter in her hand. It was written on a very long sheet of paper, ornamented delicately upon its surface with shadowy designs. It was in a long narrow envelope, and was folded over and over many times in order to make it fit.

"It is from Ko-yeda Sannomiya," said Jean. "You remember her, Nan? She was the little Japanese girl at Rayner Hall. We took her to Cloverdale once and tried to be nice to her. She is a funny little thing, and some of the girls fought shy of her, but I always liked her, she was so sweet and gentle."

"And has she come back home?"

"Yes, and lives in Kyoto. She heard in some roundabout way that we were over here and had the sense to write to Bettersley and ask to have the letter forwarded. It has been a long time on the way, of course, but the invitation stands for any time I may accept it."

"I don't see why she didn't ask me, too," said Jack who had come in.

"I know," said Mary Lee; "you are too big, and you would scare her family; besides you would fill up the house and there wouldn't be room for any one else."

"Oh, pshaw!" exclaimed Jack, "I am no taller than Nan."

"Well, they didn't ask her."

"That is all nonsense," replied Jack. "I suppose the real reason is that Jean flocked with her more than I did, and once I laughed at her for some funny mistake she made. I suppose I shouldn't have done it for it wasn't very polite, but the laugh came out before I thought."

"Are you going, Jean?" Nan asked.

"I think so. It is quite a compliment, I reckon, and I ought to take advantage of it, though it scares me rather to go in among such exceedingly foreign people. I shall only stay a day or so, however, and I don't reckon anything very terrible can happen in that time."

"So then it is settled, is it, that we go on to Kyoto?" said Nan.

"It will be pretty warm, I suppose, after these delightful mountains," remarked Miss Helen regretfully, "but if we come to Japan in summer we must take the consequences. At all events we can be thankful that the rainy season is over."

"I wonder what Ko-yeda means," said Nan musingly, as she handed back the letter to Jean.

"It means a slender twig," Jean informed her. "Ko-yeda told me so long ago."

"It is very pretty, especially for a young girl," Nan decided.

In spite of Eleanor's protests and charges of desertion, and of Mrs. Craig's persuasions, the day was set for their departure. It came all too soon. The evening before, Nan made a last visit to the temples and to the little shrine where she had set free her fireflies. The discovery that Jack had received a letter from Mr. Harding that very morning did not give her a very serene state of mind, but in spite of that she felt a melancholy satisfaction in visiting the places where she had been so happy. The booths had departed from the streets and the crowd had dwindled to the usual number, but in the garden, which held many a dear memory, the water still lapped the slim reeds and the nightingale still repeated its song, not a long sustained, nor so full a strain as she had heard in Italy, but nevertheless a lovelier one to her because of association. Here they two had sat and listened on more than one evening when the air was soft and balmy and when the scent of lilies came to them. "Nevermore, nevermore," was the only refrain which Nan's heart could hear.

Eleanor found her in the little summer-house where they all had spent so many gay and happy hours.

"I could weep when I think of your leaving me, Nan," she said. "I used to be awfully fond of you there at Bettersley but I have enlarged the borders of the place you occupied in my heart and now you take up such a lot of room that I don't see how I can let you go."

"Better come along," said Nan lightly.

"Do you really mean it?"

It had not occurred to Nan before, but, as she turned the plan over in her mind, she was pleased with it. "Why not?" she said.

"I'd simply love to. Of course I must see all I can of Japan, and Aunt Nora wouldn't leave the colonel, neither would he leave her, if he could, which he can't. As for Neal he is not to be depended upon except upon occasions. I don't in the least see why I shouldn't go with you, for a time anyhow. I know Aunt Nora will say I must. Are you really in earnest, Nan, and do you think your mother and aunt would consent to let me hang on to your skirts?"

"I am sure they would be delighted. You all have been mighty nice to us, Nell Harding, and even if we didn't like you so powerful much as we do we'd say, 'Come along.'"

"Don't talk of our having been nice. Why, my dear, you all have been the whole show this summer. You have simply lifted us all out of stupid monotony into delirious excitement."

An hour later it was all settled that Eleanor should be one of the party and after a whirl of packing on her part, she started off for Kyoto with the Corners the very next day.

After all it was found that Kyoto would be more easily reached by way of Tokyo than by any other route and in the latter city was made the stay of a night. It brought Mr. Harding post haste to see them all, but, as luck would have it, Nan was laid up with a headache and could not appear. She insisted upon going on the next morning, and so Tokyo brought her no added memories. At the quiet European hotel in Kyoto, Jean met her late schoolfellow and was borne off without delay.

She made a little wry face over her shoulder as she said good-bye to her sisters, but Jack was very envious of her opportunity and bemoaned her luck in not having won Ko-yeda's regard. "It doesn't make it any better to tell me it is my own fault," she said to Mary Lee, who reminded her of the fact. "Never mind, I will have some sort of adventure before I leave this town; you see if I don't."

However reluctantly Jean started forth, nothing could have exceeded the gracious welcome she received from the family of Ko-yeda. Mrs. Sannomiya bowed to the floor, likewise did Grandmother Sannomiya, as well as every one else in the establishment. Into a fresh, sweet room covered with mats of rice straw she was ushered, a silken cushion was placed for her and she was at once served with "honorable tea," sweetmeats and cakes. This ceremony over, she was taken to another matted room where, as she told her sisters afterward, she hung up her clothes on the floor and listened to what they were saying in the next room. After this Ko-yeda led her to the front of the house which did not face the street, but the garden, and a charming one it was. Not large, but displaying a tiny grotto, a miniature pond where goldfishes and little turtles lived, and where, at this season, lovely lotus blooms floated. Along the stone paths potted plants were set and in one spot Ko-yeda pointed out with pride a cherry tree which was the garden's glory in spring. It was not a very big place but it was admired and beloved by the whole family from the opening of the first budlet to the falling of the scarlet leaves from a baby maple tree. The verandah of the house overlooked the garden rather than the street.