Part 7

I vowed to myself—with three low bows—to take perfect care of my noble worker.

Then I gave him my sweet smile.

“Uncle, let me fix something more! Haven’t you anything? Tear your shirt or pull off the buttons, then!”

20th—Already I could suck from the agile air the flavour of spring upon the lawn.

I was roving by the rose-bushes along the street with scissors.

A gentleman passed by me. How sluggish his shoes sounded! He stopped, waving his old-scented smile, and addressed me:

“Good morning, young lady!”

“Ohayo!”

“I perceive that you are Japanese.”

“Yes, sir!”

He stepped nearer to me. I took a peep at the Bible under his arm.

“Are you a Christian?” he lowered his tone.

“Don’t you read the Gospel?” his voice rose higher.

“Don’t you attend church?” his sound grew higher still.

“I love to be shocked. I couldn’t sustain myself against a bore. Church? It’s too sleepy, don’t you know? I have remarked that God is with me without any sort of prayer, if I trace the path of righteousness. A minister is only a meddling grandmamma to my mind. If I ever build my ideal city, two things shall not be tolerated. One is a lawyer’s office and the other is a church. Church, sir! May I present you with one rose?”

I raised me to place it in his coat.

“Here’s a letter for you, Morning Glory!”

I was rescued by my uncle. How angelic his voice rang!

“I’m sorry, I’m much occupied this very morning,” I said, bowing slightly.

I pushed myself within the door.

Poor preacher!

21st—My answer to Oscar is as follows:

“DEAR HONOURABLE MR. ELLIS:

“Let me begin in respectable fashion!

“A Jap girl is awfully formal.

“Do you know, Mr. Ellis, whom you are addressing?

“I am an Oriental.

“Nippon daughters believe ‘ev’rithin’ a gentleman mentions.

“They have been fooled enough, I should declare, in American fiction. Oscar—no, Mr. Ellis—don’t let me earn the anecdote that I drifted to Ameriky to be toyed with! My ancestor did a harakiri. I am pretty sure I have, then, to kill myself.

“Don’t recite again your honourable confession of love!

“It made me cry.

“My dark face with drenched eyes will degrade me to a hired Chinese ‘crying woman.’

“Your narration was dramatic.

“Your cleverness is the most lamentable thing about you. Woman used to love a bright fellow many years ago. Do you know that the modern girl woos a stupid man?

“Please, don’t repeat again such an adjective as ‘heavenly’ for my face! No one utters the word ‘heaven’ except in swearing. Even ministers juggle with it for a jest in church, I suppose. My face isn’t heavenly at all. You know it, don’t you?

“You amused me, however, when you told how you had pillaged my picture from Mother Schuyler’s room to put in your own, feigning that it needed to be retouched.

“Poor Mother Schuyler!

“If she knew your secret!

“Frankly, I fear that such a gentleman as you does commit forgery always. Have you no consanguinity with a convict?

“O such a wretched boy!

“The saddest thing about a woman is that she is glad to fall in love with the worthless.

“Do I love you?

“Give me time to reply to the question!

“Everything is tardy with a Japanese. I was educated by slowness; I bow one dozen times before I speak.

“O Oscar, you got to think of my side a little bit!

“Every girl claims that she has half a population as adorers in her pocket handkerchief.

“You are the only one young American I ever met.

“If I accept your love, I am afraid one may satirise my destitution.

“You’ll write me soon, won’t you?

“Yours, M. G.

“P.S.—I wish I could show you how charmingly I smoke. I learned the art recently. I tap the cigarette with my middle finger to knock the ashes off. It is delightful to heap a hill of ashes on the table edge. When I puff, finding no word after ‘And—’ the smoke seems to be speaking for me.

“But I assure you that I smoked only before my uncle.

“I was a pretty naughty girl at home, but I flatter myself that I can easily be classed among the best in this country.

“White women behave terribly, you know.”

22nd—I passed the afternoon at Mrs. Consul’s. She gave me her “favourite” discourse on Walt Whitman.

I delivered to my uncle what I had learned.

“No newness in it. It is what dear John Burroughs or Mr. Stedman said.”

He overturned my castle with one blow, and lit his cigar with a victorious air.

I was enraged.

“Yes, yes, eraiwa! Oriental gentleman knows everything we poor women know,” I said.

I sulkily drew away to my room with Mr. Whitman’s fat book, that I borrowed from Mrs. Consul.

23rd—A letter from my father arrived.

“O Papa, please don’t! I am tired of such a dirty conference.” I scoffed.

I tore the paper into shreds.

“What a sullen lady! What did Otto San write? Marriage proposal, I reckon!” my uncle intruded.

“Papa threatened me with a list of suitors. He cried, ‘Chance, chance!’ like the gate-man of an ennichi show. Pray grant me for once in my life, Uncle, to say: ‘The marriage lottery go to the dogs!’ How many Jap girls kill themselves from the burden of such a glued union, do you suppose?”

“Then, ‘free marriage’?”

“Of course!”

“It’s very beautiful, Miss Morning Glory.”

“Why not?”

“You are Japanese, aren’t you?”

“Did you ever think I was a Meriken jin?”

“Well, then, how did you come to know young men in a country where familiarity with one is regarded as a crime for a girl?”

“Things all wrong in Nippon, Uncle!”

“I am sorry you were born a Jap.”

“I’ll never go back to Japan, I think. The dictionary for Jap girls comprises no such word as ‘No.’ But you must remember, Uncle, I have the capital ‘No’ in my head. I am a revolutionist,” I proclaimed.

Then I thought much of my dear Oscar.

24th—My worthy labourer upon Gibbon’s work sat before the table for some hours.

I stood behind him and dropped the fluid from a bottle on his head.

“Cold! What are you doing, my little romp?” He looked up in a fright.

“No harm, Uncle! It is only a remedy. Your hair is growing so thin. Do you know it? I think it a shame to appear in Greater New York with a bald gentleman.”

I bought the bottle this morning.

25th—A bamboo table in my room reminded me of a take bush in the neighbouring churchyard of my Tokio home.

(I cannot sound Meriken jin’s curiosity in prizing such a cheap thing. The bamboo was painted. The cross nails glared from everywhere. I never saw such a Jap work in Nippon.)

Dear take, O bamboo bush!

How I used to laugh, breaking the dreams of sparrows by wriggling the bush!

I was so ungoverned.

If I could be a grammar school girl again!

I secured a reader at a bookstall. My mind was made up to present myself in the Lincoln night school and mingle with the girls in “SEE THE BOY AND THE DOG!”

What fun!

I went to see the stooping principal. His tarnished frock-coat—I fancied he was an old bachelor, as one button was off—was just the thing for such a _rôle_.

I seemed to him a regular nenne of thirteen.

He was heartily pleased with my greediness for learning English.

Poor soul!

He ushered me into the class for which I had brought the book.

It was the hour for composition. “Ocean,” the subject.

When I was seated, the girl next me winked charmingly. She threw me a note within a minute, to which I promptly replied, “Morning Glory.” My note was answered “Miss Madge, 340 Mission Street.” I wrote her, “May I call on you to-morrow?” for which she wrote, “As you please.”

I was placed on the dangerous verge of clapping Byron’s poem into my “Ocean.” I manufactured one dozen of spelling errors.

“You should belong to some higher class. Take this slip to the principal!” the teacher said. “You have an imagination.” She wiped her spectacles slowly.

I left the room remarking, “Because I am a Japanese.”

I slipped away from the school altogether.

“One experience is plenty,” I declared.

26th—I went to Mission Street to call on Madge.

From both sides of the street peeped the famous Jewish noses. The second-hand clothing shops parade. How droll to see those noses shrivelling like a lobster!

Madge’s father owns a despicable restaurant with only four eating tables. Mamma cooks, while she sits on the counter.

When I appeared, she shot out, greeting me: “Hello, Morning Glory!”

“Awfully glad to see you! I have come to help you, haven’t I?”

I was ready to strip off my jacket and wind myself in her apron.

Her papa was dumbfounded by my sudden action.

The outside board with the bill of fare was scraped out by this morning’s rain. It looked as miserable as an Italian vegetable wagon under the rain.

My first work was to rewrite it.

I saw a Jew at a neighbouring door striving with one about the value of pants. A shoemaker’s “pan, pan” hammered on my head from the opposite house.

Mission Street is the street of horse-dung.

When my job was over, an honourable Mr. Wagon Driver leaped in, bidding me serve some soup.

I ran into the kitchen to fetch it.

I spilled it on the table.

“That’s all right, honey!” he said in patronising aloofness, and pierced my face with his gummy red eyes.

O Kowaya! Shocking!

I put one five-dollar piece of gold on Madge’s palm when I left her.

Because her shoes were heelless.

Pity the musume!

27th—I bought one book, being captivated by its title. Isn’t “When Knighthood was in Flower” beautifully chivalrous?

I have remarked that every Imperial cruiser anchors at an isle close by Loo Choo, just on account of the enticement in the name “Come and See.”

I found in my trunk an introduction to Miss Rose by my professor friend of Tokio ’versity.

Miss Rose?

My imagination started to move like a watch. I fancied she should be nineteen, since she was a Miss. No Rose girl can be homely.

I went to see her.

Alas!

She was a lady like a beer-barrel. Her finger-nails were black.

I left her like a miner stepping out of a gold mountain with empty hands.

I wonder why the mayor didn’t object to letting an ugly woman be crowned with a pretty name.

Fifty-years-old Miss Rose!

Now I fear to read Mr. Major’s book.

28th—The following is my letter to Mr. Oscar:

“OSCAR SAN! ELLIS SAN!

“I never liked your profession, simply because it is too beautiful.

“I don’t see why you cannot transfer to some other business.

“I have been ever so much fascinated with odd sorts of manual work. If I were a gentleman, I would very likely pursue the calling of grave-digger or sea-diver.

“Yesterday I passed by some labourers breaking massive stones. They lifted their hammers (O Oscar, look at their muscles!) and knocked them down to the sound of ‘Sara bagun!’ They jerked the ‘sara bagun,’ Oscar. Does it mean ‘ready?’ Mrs. Willis’ Century dictionary must be imperfect, since it does not contain such a word. Am I mis-spelling?

“Suppose I marry one of those!

“He will return home awfully tired. He will naturally doze after dinner. When his smoking pipe has slipped from his lips and burned my best tablecloth, isn’t it possible that I will be mad?... I startled him, pulling his hair ever so hard. Now you must think that he grew mad also. He seized my arm, and beat me. O Oscar, he beat me surely!... Then he will repent his conduct, and kneel by my side, begging my forgiveness. He will say, ‘My dear sweet wife—’

“Do you know how interesting it is to be beaten by a husband?

“I well-nigh fixed my mind never to affiance with a man too genteel to hit me.

“Woman is a revolting little bit of thing.

“If you say ‘Yes,’ I am quite ready to slam my ‘No!’

“Oscar San!

“I am afraid that you are too amiable.

“What you have to do for your next missive is to collect every kind of dreadful adjectives from your dictionary, and throw them in.

“You know what to do when I get angry, don’t you?

“Ellis San!

“You are too handsome.

“I am fond of a comely face as anybody else.

“But I fancy often how it would be if I fell in love with a deformity.

“People would laugh at me doubtless. But how dramatic it would be when I proclaimed, ‘Because I love him!’

“What a romantic phrase that is!

“Can’t you deform yourself?

“Sayonara,

“With a thousand bows,

“M. G.

“P.S.—My letter never finishes without a P.S.

“Isn’t that awful?

“My uncle asked me whom I was corresponding with. I mentioned ‘Olive.’

“Old man is jealous always.

“So you got to counterfeit your sister’s penmanship for your envelope.”

29th—I drank the last drop of my coffee.

“Oji San, when shall we go to New York?” I said, pillowing my face on my hands on the breakfast table.

“As soon as spring begins to flicker in the East, my little woman! It’s snow and snow there at present.”

“I love snow, Uncle.”

“Old gentleman can’t bear tyrannical cold, Morning Glory.”

“Don’t you notice how tired I am of Frisco? Aren’t you tired?”

“Yes—frankly!”

“Why don’t you then contrive some novel diversion to pass a month?”

“I’ve a fancy, but——”

“What is it?”

“It may not strike you as romantic.”

“Tell me!”

“I am known to one poet who dreams and erects a stone wall on the hillside. He is unlike another. His garden and cottage are open to everybody. I ever incline to loaf in an irregular puff of odour from his acacia trees. If you lean towards a poetical life, I have no hesitation in seeing him to make an arrangement.”

“Great Uncle, it’s romantic! Is he married?”

“Why?”

“Because a poet is not one woman’s property, but universal. My ideal poet is melancholy. Fat poet is ridiculous. Happy poet isn’t of the highest order. Tennyson? I wish his life had been more hard up. I suppose your friend-poet won’t mind if I sleep all day. Is he particular about the dinner time? Does he look up to the stars every night? Does he wash his shirt once in a while?”

“Stop!”

Then I asked respectably:

“Is the sight from there beautiful?”

“Wonderful! The only place where you can breathe the air of divinity!”

“Very well, Uncle. We will settle there, and hasten to become poets.”

“It wouldn’t be a bad idea, I say, to start again with your honourable ‘Lotos Eaters!’”

“‘Paradise Lost’ shall be my next subject.”

“If nobody publishes it?”

“I will present it solemnly to our Empress. She is a poetess, you know.”

My uncle went to see Mr. Poet.

30th—Uncle said that the poet said: “You are welcome, sir. The cottage for your young lady lies by one willow tree. The waters, the air, the grand view, are God’s. It costs a wee bit of money to provide the best coffee. I tell you that my claret is superb. You shall be my guest as long as you please. Present my love to Miss Morning Glory! Everything will be ready when you come.”

“Isn’t he adorable?” I ejaculated.

I stirred my trunk, and sifted out the things needful for my adventure.

31st—To-morrow!

THE HEIGHTS, Feb. 1st

Let me recline heart-to-heart on the breast of Mother Nature! Let me retreat to a hillside not far from the city, yet verily near to God! Let me go to my poet abode!

We abandoned the Fruitvale car at the hill-foot.

My uncle picked out our destination from the speckles in the distance.

The breeze (how heavenly is a country breeze!) enticed my soul—a Jap girl also is provided with some soul—into “Far-Beyond.”

“I feel myself another girl, Uncle.”

“How?”

“I’m a poet already. The poet without poem is greater, don’t you know?”

We climbed the hill slowly. Every step enlarged the spectacle.

When we attained to one wildly well-kept garden, the whole bay of the Golden Gate stretched before us. A thousand villages knelt humbly like vassals.

I saw a tiny gate with the sign:

“Fruit Grower.”

An old gentleman appeared from a cottage, singing.

“Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go, Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!”

“Poet!” Uncle whispered.

Let me now examine him!

What lengthy hair he wore!

It didn’t annoy me, however, because he stamped himself on my mind as if he were an ancient statue. I imagined him a type of mediæval squire. I thought of him truly as one metamorphosed from the frontispiece of a wholly forgotten volume in a cobwebbed recess of a library.

His courteous voice was simply dignified.

“Nature never hurries. God commands you every happiness and all repose. Here’s your little home, my gentle lady! I am at your service any time. I hope you will find it comfortable.”

He set me at the “Willow Cottage.”

He slipped gracefully away.

There was some time before I heard his “kotsu kotsu” on my door.

I opened it.

“Greeting from the host!” Mr. Heine offered me a tuft of brisk roses.

Heine was the poet’s name.

How loving!

I buried myself in the thought of straying to a fairy isle, and being accepted romantically by the dwellers.

I suspected that I was dreaming.

“Arcadia!” I exclaimed, when the poet announced that supper would be prepared within half an hour.

I spied him through the window, gathering the loppings of trees and leaves. He made a camp-fire. Its soft smoke surged into the sky. Oh, smell it!

How fascinating is the Poet’s life!

I ran out, crying:

“Pray, make me useful!”

2nd—Dream and reality are not marked here by different badges. They waltz round. Dear poet home!

Was it in my dream that I heard the tinkle of bells?

I thought something was going on.

I parted from the bed. I pushed out my face from the window.

Look at the procession of cows!

I have read much of them, but I admit that it was my first occasion to admire them. I am a trivial Jap, only acquainted with cherry blossoms and lanterns. How I wished to knot the bells round my waist, and whisk down the path by the violets!

“Lover’s lane!”

It should be the title for that path, I thought, if I were Mr. Poet.

I finished my toilet. I leaped out upon the grasses smiling up to the sunlight.

I congratulated myself on my new life.

Then I found my uncle sitting by the camp-fire.

“Ohayo!” I said, filling the seat on another side.

I remember one Japanese essay, “The Poetry of a Tea Kettle.” Indeed! The kettle was a singer. Its melody was far-reaching. It was like a harp of pine leaves fingered by the zephyr.

I faced up, and saw my poet moving down from the lily pond. Two frogs in his hand.

“Frogs?” I cried.

“They will complete our table. How did you sleep, my lady?”

“Splendid!”

“Do you love the country?”

“I begin to taste a greater joy in Nature.”

“I’m happy to hear it, my dear. My life is like the life of a bird. I awake when the sun rises. I lay me in the bed at the bird’s dipping into its nest. God made the night for keeping quiet. That is better than prayer itself. I light neither lamp nor candle. I presume that every young lady has certain secret work at night. Let me offer you a few candles!”

We ate breakfast from the table by the fire.

Frogs supplied a special dish.

I couldn’t touch it, thinking of the songs of frogs that I had heard all the night long.

Such a song! It was the muddy-booted song of the countryside. No valuable quality in it, of course. But I should say that they tried the best they could.

Poor Messrs. Frog!

I fancied the leg in my dish was that of one who volunteered to sing my lullaby.

I almost cried in grief.

The poet was ready to wash the dishes. I was quick to snatch his job. My uncle wiped them.

Stupid uncle!

He broke two dishes.

I collected the bones of the frogs, and buried them. On the stone above them I wrote with a pencil:

“Tomb of Unknown Singers.”

What time was it when we were done with our breakfast?

I couldn’t tell.

The first thing I did yesterday was to stop the tick-tack of my watch, and hide it in the lowest drawer.

The watch is a nuisance since I am thrown in THE GARDEN OF ETERNITY.

3rd—I searched for a pen and ink in my Willow Cottage.

Nothing like those.

Foxy Poet!

He hid them from view, I fancied, in the opinion that playing with them for a girl is more jeopardous than swallowing needles.

I say that letter-writing—particularly a decent love letter, if there is one—isn’t half so grave a crime as rhyming.

I was spraying some water on a rose by the gate, when I caught sight of a white quill by my shoes.

“This will serve me perfectly,” I said.

I had not one thing with any tooth except my comb. (Comb? Luckily I have not lost it Ara, ma, my hairpins! Five of them vanished from my head while I was springing amid the rocks. By and by the stems of acacia leaves shall be used in their places. Don’t you know this is quite a remote spot from civilisation?) A kitchen knife shaped my quill as a pen.

Now only ink!

I begged Uncle to run down three miles to fetch one bottle.

4th—We went to “breathe the song of the forest.”

The forest laces the poet’s canyon.

(By the way, poet’s ground spreads over one hundred and fifty acres. Does he pay taxes?)

We climbed the “Road to the Milky Way.” I beseech your forgiveness, it was merely the name I wished for the path to the poet’s hilltop. I felt as if I were hurrying to the “Sermon on the Mount.” You would hardly believe Morning Glory if she said that sublimity vibrated in her soul, because she was just a little Oriental. How grand! We faced toward the Gate of the Pacific Ocean. We were still. Why? Because we were thinking the same thing.

We traversed the poet’s graveyard.

How romantic to put up a tombstone while living!

How romantic to lie in the ecstasy of a marvellous view! We could be nearer the stars here.

We stepped down to the canyon.

The poet said solemnly:

“Lady and gentleman, this is a holy place where you can pray heartily.”

My uncle started to drone Bryant’s hymn:

“The groves were God’s first temples.”

“Did you ever read Thanatopsis, my dear?” Mr. Heine asked.

“Yes, sir!”

“It’s a noble piece. So many thousand Asiatics converted every year to the English alphabet. Wonderful!” he soliloquised.

We seated ourselves by a brook.

“Such a lesson in Nature! We endeavour to transcribe, but fail,” he sighed, looking on the trees.

Then he turned to me questioning:

“Do you hear the silent song of the forest?”

I nodded.

“Silence! Silence!” he muttered.

We walked among the trees. We came back to the same hilltop, when the large red ball of the sun sank heavily from the Gate.

“Bye-bye!” I shook my handkerchief.

The playful breeze carried it away. It glimmered like a silvery inspiration. Who knows how far it sailed?