The Four Corners in Japan

The newcomer soon was at her side. "Will you please tell me where I can get a jinrikisha?" asked Jack.

The person so accosted started. "Why – " she looked Jack over, surprise giving way to amused interest. "Why, my child, what in the world are you doing over in this part of the city dressed like that, when you don't know the language?" she asked.

Jack colored up. "I was out for a walk," she said. "I didn't realize how tall I was and that I would attract attention. I thought I could pass along and no one would notice very particularly, for I am sure I have my things on quite properly and I can walk on the getas, though not so very fast."

The lady listened with still an amused expression. "Come along with me," she said. "I can soon set you all right. I am a teacher in a mission school in this part of the city. I am going there now."

"Oh, I should love to see a mission school," declared Jack, gladly accepting the invitation. The two walked along together both asking many questions and becoming on good terms by the time they had reached the door of the school. As they went in, an older person came forward, but stopped in surprise as she saw the tall girl in Japanese dress.

The circle of little girls sitting on the matted floor looked up also, their serious faces broadening into smiles as they beheld Jack. "This is Miss Corner, Mrs. Lang," said Jack's companion. "She has lost her way in this big city and needs to be sent home." Then she gave an account of Jack's escapade and the elder teacher laughed merrily.

"I suppose I ought to have known better," said Jack ruefully. "It is a downfall to my pride. I thought I looked so lovely and Japanesy. I even put little dabs of red on my cheeks and my lower lip, you see."

"But that didn't lessen your inches nor slant your eyes in the right direction," Mrs. Lang said. "Of course you slipped out without your mother's seeing you."

"Yes, of course," returned Jack rather meekly. "If it hadn't been for those horrid little boys I should have had no trouble. Of course people laughed and one or two men said something to me but I just went on and didn't answer."

Mrs. Lang shook her head. "Don't do it again. It wouldn't be exactly safe for you to go alone into the native part of the city in your accustomed dress and as a mock Japanese you might expect some trouble."

"But I thought they were always so gentle and polite here that I would be quite safe."

"There are circumstances when it doesn't do to trust too much to theories," Mrs. Lang replied.

"Miss Corner would like very much to hear the children sing," said Miss Gresham, Jack's first acquaintance.

Mrs. Lang turned to the little group and said something, then she started a song. Jack listened attentively and with perfect gravity, but the children, whose voices were so sweet in speech, sang execrably, with very little idea of tune, and so raucously as to make one wonder how they could do it. "Nan would curl up and die if she were to hear them," she said to herself.

The children then went through several exercises for her benefit and at last subsided in order with solemn set little faces.

"I thought them so expressionless and unresponsive when I first came," said Miss Gresham as she conducted Jack to another room, "but you have no idea how receptive they are and how attentive. We are doing good work here and I wish you would bring all your party to see us and some of the other classes which are more advanced."

Jack promised and was told the name of the street, and how to reach Miss Gresham herself and then she took her leave with a feeling of thankfulness that she had been so lucky as to come across one of her own people. "It was truly a missionary act," she said with a smile as she bade Mrs. Lang good-bye. "I begin to realize what a debt of gratitude I owe you."

"It was only what the veriest stranger might do in any place," protested Miss Gresham, though Jack felt it was more.

"I might have been any kind of a horrid person," she said, "and you were just as nice to me as could be."

"My dear," said Miss Gresham, "I knew as soon as I looked at you that you were not a horrid person."

"With all this powder and rouge on my face?"

"I could see under that," responded Miss Gresham with a smile.

Miss Gresham insisted upon going all the way to the hotel with her in a jinrikisha which carried them swiftly through the streets to the place in no time.

"I wish you would come in and see them all," urged Jack.

"Not to-day; perhaps another time, but you will be sure to come to see us."

Jack was earnest in her promise to do this and went on feeling rather shamefaced. It had been easy to slip out but the coming back was quite a different matter. She could not but be observed, she reflected, and it might not be as pleasant for her to be pointed out as the flyaway girl who masqueraded as a Japanese. She hesitated so long on the steps that Miss Gresham came back to her. "What is the matter?" she asked.

"I wish you would go in with me," she begged. "I am afraid the servants will discover me, or, if they don't, that they won't let me go up without questions. If you were to ask for Mrs. Corner, I could go along with you and no one need notice particularly."

"I understand," responded Miss Gresham, "and of course I will go." So the matter of entrance was effected without undue remark. If any one observed the tall Japanese girl, she passed by so quickly that it gave but a momentary interest, and so was forgotten.

The adventure was frowned at of course, but in the presence of Miss Gresham and in the interest her account of the mission aroused, Jack was allowed to escape with less of a scolding than she really deserved. It was her first serious scrape since she had arrived in Japan, and perhaps that was one reason why it was treated with some degree of mildness. "Jack was bound to do something," said Nan, "and we are lucky to have her do nothing more serious. I am sure she won't venture forth again in such a get-up." And it is safe to say that Jack did not.

CHAPTER XVI

A PROSPECTIVE SERVANT

Although Jack's escapade was the talk of the hour, the excitement it brought died away in a day or two, while Jean's experiences continued to be discussed for a longer time. Every now and then would crop up something funny or, at least, interesting, which she had to tell about.

"I found out why the people here make such a noise in that piggy way when they eat," she told her family. "It is to show appreciation of your food. It is particularly desirable to do it when you are dining out, the more succulent the sound the more polite."

"Oh, Jean," protested Mary Lee.

"It is a fact, really it is. Ko-yeda told me and I noticed it myself."

"Let's all do that way the next time we go over to Jo's," proposed Jack. "She won't know what to make of it, but after a while we will tell her it is a custom we learned in Japan."

The girls laughed and agreed to try it. "Poor old Jo," said Jean. "She is out of it this time. I really miss her once in a while. She has always been around when we were having our good times."

"Don't you believe but that she would a thousand times rather be where she is." Nan spoke with conviction.

"I wonder if I shall feel like that ever," said Jack thoughtfully. "I can't imagine myself so devoted to a husband as Jo is to Dr. Paul."

"I wouldn't trust you," returned Jean. "You will quite as likely outdo her in your abject devotion."

"I hope I shall at least not be abject," retorted Jack stiffly. "That is one thing I shall not care to learn from the Japanese."

"Is Mrs. Sannomiya abject?" inquired Eleanor.

"Well, she is a little bit, but I have seen American women with big bullies of husbands quite as much so," Jean replied. "Not that Mr. Sannomiya is a bully, far from it, but I suppose it is the Japanese woman's prerogative to be humble as it is the man's to be lordly. The girls are all trained from the beginning to be meek and gentle, to exercise self-control under all circumstances, to smile and be agreeable no matter how mad they feel inside."

"Humph!" ejaculated Jack. "I'd like to see me."

"You would have to if you were a Japanese," insisted Jean.

"I think we will leave Jack here for a year in a Japanese household," remarked Mary Lee.

Jack made a face at her. "I'd run away," she said.

"Where?" said Mary Lee teasingly.

"Oh, I would throw myself upon the mercies of the American legation and get the chief to let me marry one of his nice attachés," returned Jack.

Mary Lee did not pursue the subject, but turned to Jean to ask, "Does Ko-yeda do anything about the house?"

"Oh, yes, though there isn't so very much to do; not near so much as in our homes. She always serves tea when there is extra company, and when her father has a particular guest she waits on them, not because there are no servants nor because they don't know how, but because it is considered the thing to serve the two, or three, or whatever number of men with their meal separately, and it is more hospitable and courteous to have it served by one of the ladies of the family."

"That is something the way they do in provincial districts at home," remarked Nan.

"What do the maids do?" inquired Mary Lee.

"Oh, they roll up the beds and store them away for the day in the closets, take down the mosquito nets, sweep and dust the rooms, wash the porches, and the dishes, maybe. The market people come with baskets to the door sometimes. Ko-yeda or her mother or grandmother used to go to the go-down and select what was to be the decoration for the day and one of them spent a long time arranging the flower vases. Then there always seemed to be some kimonos or something to be ripped up or dyed, for they use them over and over while there is anything left of them, and whenever they are washed they must be taken apart."

"Again like the primitive methods of our grandmothers and our thrifty New England women," said Nan.

"Just what class do the Sannomiyas belong to?" asked Mary Lee.

"I think that they must have been in the daimio class," Jean told her, "for they showed me some wonderful embroidered robes that had been in the family for years. I asked Ko-yeda why she didn't wear them, and she said that there was no class distinction nowadays, that the castles were done away with, for Japan is quite democratic."

"What has that to do with the robes?" asked Jack.

"The handsome embroidered robes were worn only by nobility," Jean told her. "The daimios were proud as Lucifer and their establishments in their castles must have been very much like those we read of in old feudal times. I believe there are still very exclusive households who keep up many of the old traditions."

"And the samurai class?" interrogated Nan.

"They were the military who had their special lords, and served them and the Shogun to the death. They were what we might call retainers, and they were the class between the upper nobility and the common people."

"And what were the ronin? Don't you know we are always hearing that tale of the 'Forty-seven Ronin'?"

"They were the masterless samurai, who wandered about, owing no special allegiance to any master."

"Oh, I see. This is all very interesting," declared Nan. "You certainly have learned something from your stay with the Sannomiyas, Jean. Tell us some more. What about the classes below the samurai, the common people, 'po' white trash' as it were?"

"So far as I could learn, the peasant class are called either eta or heimin, though it seems to me that the eta is lower than the heimin, for they are the ones who are considered very unclean, as they slaughter animals, tan skins, and are sometimes beggars."

"But tanners are quite respectable persons at home," put in Jack.

"They are not so here, for the having something to do with dead animals puts them quite without the pale. The samurai would be disgraced if he married into an eta family and would be considered an eta himself, although they maintain that there is no such thing as any difference in class nowadays. Mr. Sannomiya told me, through Ko-yeda as an interpreter, that the samurai despised trade and all that. The merchant class is considered, or used to be so, below the farmers; in fact they were not up to the mechanics, and were very low down in the social scale. That partly explains why there is so much talk of the dishonesty of tradespeople in Japan; it is the lower class who carry on the shops and all that, or so it was. The samurai try to keep to the professions and such employments, for it was formerly thought very low down indeed to barter in any way. All this is passing away, Mr. Sannomiya says, and many of the samurai are going into mercantile life, adopting Western standards and trying to establish a reputation for honest dealing which the merchant class have not always had."

"Did you make any dreadful mistakes?" inquired Jack.

"No, I don't think so. I wasn't quite as bad as the lady who wanted onions for dinner and told the cook to serve up a Shinto priest. The two words are almost the same, only one has a very different meaning from the other. The worst thing I did was to sit in front of the tokonoma when I went in. It was like planting yourself at the right hand of your host without being asked."

"How did you find out it was not the thing to do?" asked Mary Lee.

"I begged Ko-yeda to tell me if I had made any mistake. She was overcome with confusion at the idea of saying anything to the discredit of a guest, but I just insisted and she told me that."

"It was like Nan's taking her seat on the sofa in Germany," remarked Jack.

"Just about the same thing," Jean answered. "I imagine that American free and easy manners often shock the Japanese. Ko-yeda says that when she first came to Rayner Hall she was overwhelmed by the rudeness of American girls, and I can well believe it when you consider her point of view. I think you can set it down as a safe rule that it is well to apologize to a Japanese for anything and everything, that is, if you are using their language."

"Dear me," Jack sighed, "I suppose I have said dreadful things when I have tried to speak the language."

"I haven't a doubt of it," Jean was ready to agree. "When you are speaking of doing anything yourself you must say 'I humbly do thus and so,' but when you speak of another's doing the same thing you must say they do it honorably. If you give a present it is poor and insignificant, but if you accept the same thing it at once becomes magnificent."

"Well, I don't see how a foreigner ever learns," said Jack. "I shall never become a missionary or a teacher or anything that leads me to study the language."

"They insisted upon my entering the bath first," Jean went on, "and I soon saw that it would be very much out of place if I didn't. It may be the family all used the same water; I didn't inquire; I only know that it is the custom, the servants coming last, and they all do it in the frankest way. At the Sannomiyas' they were quite as particular as we would be, but I know it is not always so. The Sannomiyas are becoming quite Americanized. I am sure Ko-yeda has been teaching them our manners and morals. She thinks she may become a teacher; it was with that idea they sent her to us to be educated, but I have a notion that she will marry, though she said she meant to keep on with her studies here."

"Don't you wish she would have a wedding while we are here so we could see how it is done?" said Jack.

"I don't imagine it would be very different from our own ceremony," Jean rejoined, "for you know they are a Christian family, and her father says she shall marry none but a Christian. He is devoted to her and thinks we treat our women so well that she must have the same consideration."

"I am glad he thinks that," said Jack heartily.

This ended the conversation for the moment, for Nan, who had been looking up the attractions, announced that they must certainly see Lake Biwa. "It is the largest," she said, looking up from her guide-book, "and must be very beautiful."

"I heard some interesting things of Fuji," said Jean. "A beautiful goddess is supposed to make her home there. She has such a pretty name, 'The Princess who makes the Trees to Blossom.' I think a great many people think that the mythological stories are wicked because they are those of a false religion, but I really don't think that they ought to be frowned upon any more than those of the Greek heroes."

"I suppose," said Nan reflectively, "that the reason some persons condemn them is because the temples and the old rites are still present, while the Greek ones are a thing of the past."

"Well, they certainly can't hurt us," declared Jack, "and I want to hear them all."

"If you were to do that you would spend most of your time listening, for their name is legion," Jean told her. "I think they are perfectly fascinating, and so are the rites, and many things the people still do. I don't see why we shouldn't study all these things as curiosities, not as a religion."

The rest quite agreed with her and as Nan began to hurry them off, they went to get ready for their trip to Lake Biwa.

This, however, was interrupted in a manner entirely unlooked for. It was decided to take jinrikishas, as the country through which they would go was exceedingly lovely and they could enjoy the journey quite as much as the final view of the great lake. Past palaces and temples, long rows of gray-roofed houses, gay shops, parks and gardens they were carried to where the high hills arose above them on each side. In this warm weather and beyond the limits of the big city, little naked babies, and larger children scarcely clad, rolled about in play in the village streets through which they went. Jack and Nan were in the first jinrikisha, behind them came Jean and Miss Helen, while Mary Lee and Eleanor occupied the third. Mrs. Corner had decided to stay at home being rather afraid of the heat. Generally when the runners gave their call of "Hi! Hi!" the little ones scattered but there was one little youngster who, if hearing, did not heed and was bowled over completely, directly in the path of the runners. These stopped short nearly upsetting Jack and Nan who looked out to see what was the matter.

"What in the world are they jabbering about?" asked Jack looking out. "We seem to have stirred up the community, for, see, the people are coming running."

"We'd better get out," decided Nan, "and see what is wrong."

They suited the action to the word and presently found themselves on the edge of a group where there was much talk and gesticulating going on. The two tall girls could easily see over the heads of the nearest bystanders and discovered that the centre of interest was a small chubby little lad whose plump brown body bore evidences of having been hurt in some way, for blood was streaming from his head and he was quite limp and helpless. A woman was kneeling on the ground holding him while the coolie who had been the unfortunate cause of the accident was squatting near looking most unhappy.

"Oh, dear," cried Jack, "the poor little tot is hurt." She pushed through the crowd and reached the child. "What is the matter?" she asked the runner who knew a few words of English. But his vocabulary was not equal to the occasion and Jack could learn but little. However she made out that the child was hurt, and when the man took him in his arms to carry him to the nearest little cottage, she followed with the rest.

By this time the occupants of the other jinrikishas had alighted and, as one of their runners knew more English than the rest, they were able to get at facts. The little boy had been knocked down, had hit his head against a stone, was slightly stunned but was recovering.

"Where are his parents?" Jack inquired.

"He have none, honorable lady," replied the man addressed, who was the runner speaking English.

"Poor little rabbit!" exclaimed Jack compassionately. She stooped to pick up the little fellow and to set him on her knee where he sat looking at her unblinkingly with his queer little slits of eyes. Whether it was surprise or fear which made him so still she could not tell. She smiled down at him, but not a quiver passed over the little face. Jack took a coin from her purse and put it in his chubby fingers but he only looked at it gravely and made no response.

"He is like a graven image," remarked Jean who stood by. "Did you ever know such immovable gravity?" Presently Mary Lee who wore some flowers in her belt drew them forth and held them out to the little fellow, and then he smiled.

Jack gave him an ecstatic hug. "Isn't he the cunningest ever?" she cried. "I wish we could take him home. I would so love to have him."

"Oh, Jack, what an idea!" exclaimed Jean. "What in the world would you do with him?"

"I'd train him to be a cracker-jack of a servant and when I am married, I would take him into the house and he could live with me always."

"I never heard such nonsense," returned Jean. "I think he is all right. We must go on or we will never get to the lake."

Jack was very unwilling to give up her little brown boy, but knew that she could not keep the entire party there any longer, so after seeking out his proper guardian, who proved to be an aunt by marriage, they gave her some money and went on their way. But all the beauties of the lake and the mountains were of small interest compared to the little naked child they had tumbled over on their way.

Jack talked of little else. She had a baby bee in her bonnet as Nan expressed it and it was like her to become completely possessed with the idea of taking him home, once she had decided that she wanted to. "I am going to talk to mother about it," she declared, "and I am going to hunt up Miss Gresham and get her to come out here again with me to talk to the aunt. No doubt they would be only too glad to get rid of him, for you see they are such a poor looking set of people. We upset him and we ought to do something for him. Besides," she added after using all other arguments, "we could do some missionary work and make a Christian of him, so I am sure it would be worth while."

She was so in earnest that Nan did not laugh, but it was a habit of Jack's to make her duty wait upon her desires, and Nan knew that the missionary spirit was aroused for the occasion.

However, in some way or other Jack did get around her mother to a degree sufficient for her to give consent to a second visit to the village in Miss Gresham's company. Whether Jack had pictured the child's condition as so pitiful as to arouse her mother's commiseration or just how she had managed no one could exactly tell, but sufficient to say that Jack and Miss Gresham did go a day or two after and to the dismay of every one came back with the little lad, whose brown nakedness was covered by clothes fitted to his estate. These Jack had bought, with Miss Gresham's help, and the two had very much enjoyed their mission.

Miss Gresham had a way with children and, knowing Japanese fairly well, could manage the conversation without difficulty. She found that the child had no special claim upon any one. Both his parents were dead. His mother's sister had taken him but she, too, had died and those who now cared for him were no blood relation, but were too charitable to turn him away.

"Miss Gresham says she can keep him at the school as well as not," Jack informed her mother eagerly, "so we need not be bothered with him while we are traveling, and when we are ready to go she can find a way to send or bring him to Nagasaki when we sail for home."

"You seem to have bewitched Miss Gresham completely," said Mrs. Corner.

"She is the nicest kind of missionary lady," returned Jack heartily. "She is so different from my idea of such. Her brother is a medical missionary, and she has been out here ten years. She has been home but once in all that time. She has told me the most interesting things about her work. I shall always be interested in missions after this; I used rather to think them a bore, but after seeing the work in her school, and hearing what has been accomplished by the medical missionaries, I have changed my mind."

The small boy continued to remain under Miss Gresham's care, and was the loadstone which drew all the girls to the mission school more frequently than any one of them could have prophesied. Little Toku was quite placid during this change, the only objection he made being to clothes, which, in the state of the weather, seemed perfectly reasonable to every one. He was serene, well cared for and happy.