Part 9

“I lit a candle last night. I hid it behind the cover of such a huge bible which I had borrowed for the purpose. I was heedful of two old men who might disturb me, mistaking the light for a sign that something had happened. Poor Mrs. Heine almost cried, she was so pleased to think that I loved the Bible. Do I love it? Oho, ho, ho——

“Bakabakashi, how sad!

“The whole bunch of letters wasn’t fit for my taste at all, at all.

“I’m sorry that I used up two candles that were all we had in this hill.

“So, my darling, my letter has to be woven from my truest heart.

“Good morning, my sweet lord! How are you? Have you breakfasted? Did you eat a beefsteak? I dislike a hearty morning eater. My ideal man shouldn’t be given more than a cup of coffee and one trembling leaf of bacon.

“Mr. Poet kills a frog every morning. He says that his fancy springs like a pond singer when he tastes it. I should say that his idea bounds too far in his case.

“Do you eat frog?

“I beseech you not to incline toward it.

“What should I do if your thought ran off from me?

“Failure of my life! Love is the whole business of woman, you know.

“Have you any shirt to mend?

“I have been fixing the poet’s.

“Pray, express it to me!

“Should you ask such a pleasure of any other girl, it would be a fatal mistake for you. Remember, Oscar, that the Japanese girl is a mightily jealous thing!

“My sweetheart, I dreamed a dream.

“You were a dragonfly, while I was a butterfly. It is needless to say that we loved. One spring day we floated down along the canyon from a mountain a thousand miles afar. Our path was suddenly barred by a dense bush. We couldn’t attain to the Garden of Life without adventuring in it. So, then, you stole in from one place, I from another. Alas! We got parted forever.

“Isn’t that a terrible indication?

“Do you know any spell to turn it good? I am awfully agitated by it.

“Oh, kiss!

“Kiss me, my dear!

“I have to ascertain your love in it.

“Your

“MORNING GLORY”

19th—A little “chui chui” was building a nest under the roof, by my door.

Dear jovial toiler!

I must help him in some way.

I unravelled one of my stockings, hoping it might be serviceable in bettering his home.

I stood me on a chair, raising up my arms with my gift.

The poor sparrow was scared. He cast a gray “honourableness” on my hand.

O naughty “chui chui!”

He winged away, twittering, “chui, chui, chui!”

20th—The squirrel by my window shows a great fancy for me. He honoured me three times already this morning. He bore a somewhat scholarly air. A retired professor, I reckon.

Is he regular with his diary?

Possibly he is idle with a pen, like any other professor.

Let me scribble for him to-day!

My one bottle of ink has some time to dry up yet.

I will name it “The Cave Journal.” I will leave it to the Professor for a souvenir upon my sayonara to this hill.

A

Where are my spectacles?

B

Upon my soul, I believe that some mischief is raging. I can never trust even the poet abode. Who stole my two-cent stamp?

God bless you, my precious daughter at Sierra Nevada!

By and by I will erect my private telegraph between us.

C

The idea of an idiotic spider tying his net across my front gate!

How ever could he be so ambitious as even to incline to arrest me!

He may very likely be a detective. A railroad brigand is hiding in these Heights, I suppose.

The world is running worse every day.

How shocking!

It was a fundamental error of God, to create that adventuress Eve. The offspring of a crow can’t be other than a crow.

Our squirrel history is not blotted by any criminal. I feel a bit conceited in speaking about it. How can I help it?

The trouble with God is that he was awfully vain to express his own ability by so many useless things.

Rifle, for instance.

My poor wife!

D

To-day is the anniversary of my beloved. She was shot by one two-legged barbarian.

I appealed to the police. American police are rotten, through and through. The murderer bribed them, I fancy.

I found my wife, but she was only a skin.

How often did I tell her that she was risking too much in sporting around! But she didn’t mind me, insisting that sight-seeing was a better education.

I carried her skin into my home.

I cleansed it, and altered its form a trifle, because it was a lady’s. I am still keeping it for church-wear.

I feel dreadful, thinking of her.

E

A butterfly passed by my cavern, a hundred times.

Each time she threw me a vulgar laugh.

Her face was thickly powdered in yellow. Does she think herself charming? I should say that I would prefer a girl in tights from a saloon-stage to her indecency.

Such a flirt!

I suppose that she wanted me to marry her.

No!

Am I not old enough to avoid running into such foolishness?

F

Rainy day!

I sat in a memorial corner of my cave, with an unfinished novel of my wife’s.

I do judge she had flashes of genius. She was so deep, like the sky. I never suspected that she could gracefully have beaten George Eliot, if she had only survived.

Poor girl!

One tenderly loved by God passes away young.

I have fallen into the habit of crying unmanfully nowadays.

I cannot help it, can I?

G

One thing I must furnish is a bathroom.

Cleanliness is the first rule of heaven, I am told.

I went to the lily pond to take a gracious bath.

O such water gamins! Dirty-handed frogs!

How could I dip me in the turbid water?

The frogs ought to go to a reformatory school. They have no culture, whatever.

H

Camera hunters are thick as fogs.

To-day I came near being a victim.

No, sir!

I can’t permit my picture to be seen with those of cheap matinee idols. I must keep some dignity.

Americans are too commercial altogether. The pictures of our race are in demand, I imagine.

I

Beautiful moon, last night!

I filled my stomach with the divine water from a creek.

My face waved in the water. I flattered myself that I was a pretty handsome gentleman.

I sang an ancient Chinese song:

“Come ’long, to-morrow moon, Carrying a harp!”

J

Stop your empty noise, meadow-larks!

Silence is the first study of this hill and the last, don’t you know?

I am absorbed in my grave work, “The Secret of the World.”

K

My neighbouring Jap girl is rather attractive, isn’t she?

I heard a few scratches of her native bubbling.

The pagan speech is not so bad as I thought.

L

If there is one thing I cannot endure, it is ignorance.

What is the state of your roses, old boy?

The poet Heine is utterly alien to rose culture. Shall I order “How to Raise Roses” from a London publisher?

M

I went up the hill to pray to God. The higher the nearer.

When I came back, my honourable vestibule was blocked, I found, by the dirt. The poet was ditching close by my residence.

I couldn’t blame his conduct, however, because no one could see my home. I don’t hang out a sign like a quack doctor.

It occurred to me that I would strike into his cottage, and snatch the best poems from his drawer, and sell them with my name.

“I must secure the international copyright,” I said.

But I couldn’t dare it, my impulse being thwarted.

I am no wicked reporter, don’t you see?

I hid me in his historical iron pot all day.

N

Heine was posting around the following card:

_No Shooting._

I venture to say that he is the only one civilised Two-Legged in the whole world.

O

Where is my napkin?

Chinese laundry isn’t punctual in delivery.

P

I think I must learn how to swear for a pastime.

Q

My fellow brother Mr. —— was shot this morning.

The paper says that there is a possibility of war between Russia and Japan. A preacher prophesies the disappearance of the universe.

Everything is precarious in the extreme.

I will not poke around outside during the day. I will loaf in the poet’s orchard under the breezy moonlight.

Poetical existence is just enough. I will withdraw me to the sanctuary of the Muses.

R

Heaven be with my soul! Amen!

S

Good-bye, my dear old world!

21st—A Chinaman passed with a weighty load of washing on his shoulder.

“Friend, stop a minute! Take a glass with me before you go!”

The poet rolled out with a claret bottle.

Did you ever see a Chinee in love? Did you ever see one smile?

Mr. Charley smiled a serene smile of the Flower Kingdom pattern.

“God bless the Empress Dowager!” Mr. Poet said. Both raised their wine.

“The load is too heavy for you. You are killing yourself. I can’t bear to see it. My friend, obey me! Let me help you! Don’t leave till I come back!”

The poet, hurried for his questionable buggy and horse. He cracked his whip—he never whips the horse, but he carries it for fashion’s sake, as he remarks—when Mr. Charley protested, “Me oll-righ, you savvy!”

The Chinaman was dumbfounded, for the poet was unknown to him.

Mr. Heine pushed him in.

When he leaped up, he noticed his horse in tender tone:

“Go on, baby!”

“What a goody-goody! His act never parts from poetry, however,” I said.

I was simply dying for an opportunity to explode my good heart, when I invited one tramp to my Willow Cottage.

I fed him with one dozen eggs.

I emptied out all my change for him.

“Don’t you feel cold, lying outdoors?” I said.

“Yes, Miss!”

“Don’t you need an overcoat?”

“Yes, Miss!”

When Mr. Tramp left me with an overcoat in his hand, looking like a proud Mayor of Tokio, my uncle was coming from Mrs. Heine’s.

“Uncle, you do want to be good to a poor man, don’t you? You have made yourself a great philanthropist with your overcoat.”

“What have you done?”

“I presented it to a tramp.”

“Morning Glory!”

“Never mind, Uncle! I will buy a swell coat in New York. You have some more, haven’t you?”

“It cost me forty yens at ’Hama. You really are a foolish girl, Asagao!”

(Asagao is my humble name in Japanese.)

Then I kissed his hand most pathetically—in fun for my part, of course.

22nd—My superstitious Mamma!

She mailed me an o mikuji from the holy box of the Akiwa god.

The number written on the slip was fifty-one. The divine will read as follows:

“Faith in the Well-God will result fortunately.”

Mamma bade me make my prayer long (not mixing it with any laughter whatever).

I wondered whether there was any well around here.

I explored. I came across one (such a doubtful well) by an apple tree.

I hastened to my cottage to cut a paper flag.

The poet gave me one cup of claret for the Well-God.

I sat by the well.

What did I pray?

I pried into the well for the fin of a fish. Well without a funa fish isn’t holy to a Jap mind.

23rd—Uncle left the Heights for Frisco.

I have encountered somewhere one picture, “Stolen Kiss,” symbolising sweetness.

I dare say the sweetest thing in the world is to steal into a gentleman’s room and over-turn his things.

The gentleman smell is provocative.

My uncle?

I can only say that he is more desirable than an old woman. Old woman is sad as a dry persimmon.

I stole into his room.

God will overlook my petty crime—how lovely to be scratched by guilt!—in consideration of the fact that a Jap girl never profanes.

I turned his pillow. Pillow is a fascination for me ever since I have read of a poet who hid his diary under it.

Look at the book, “A Random Note!”

He was working to beat me with his journal, I derided.

I sat on his bed, opening it.

“How original!” I exclaimed.

Uncle, you are a cynic, aren’t you?

Let me pick a few pieces from his pen!

* * * * *

“Unfortunately! Japanese are accustomed from babyhood to depend on another’s back. The hereditary fashion of nursing the baby on the back has thoroughly taught them dependence. Independence is only a coat of arms to distinguish man from the beasts—that is all. I urge that Emerson’s essays be adopted in the Nippon schools. His ‘Self-reliance’ should be the first of all.

“Most unhappily! I have observed the Japanese fad in America for years, and it has not yet reached its culmination. Each month the books on Japan are placed before the public. It is verily sad even to cut their edges. (The practical Americans prove themselves unpractical in leaving the leaves of books uncut.) I say that our Japan is entitled to regard for worthier things than geisha girls or a fashion in bowing. We should decline your love, Americans, if it is rooted merely in your fancy for our paper lanterns. I have frequently come to conclude that Americans are eminently the freakish nation. I feel not only occasionally that they lack the reasoning power. I do not assume the phenomena of the yellow journals as my proof.

“A year or two ago, one Japanese theatrical troup roamed. They are not catalogued at home as actors. They chose to skip on the stage, simply because a bit more money is in it than in the calling of ‘lantern-carrying for politicians.’ Any wild animal can skip. I am now confronted with the question whether American generosity is not without sense. They piled up their money for them. Even the first-class critics struggled to find out something from such poor art. I am bound to be thankful, however, for the Americans saved these poor players from bankruptcy in Japan. It reminds me of a story. Our Nippon government many years ago appointed a certain loafing sailor as an English instructor, giving him a monthly pay of three hundred dollars. Sailor with an anchor-tatoo on his hand! Three hundred dollars are no small coin in Japan. Our sailor professor said, I am told, that he had not heard of any Milton. Ignorance can easily be a philanthropist, if it can be anything.

“Japanese love Nature? They do. But how sad to glance at Japanese garden! It is painful to notice the dwarf trees. Japs never permit one thing to grow naturally. Country of deformity! America, most natural, most manly nation!”

24th—My uncle didn’t come back yesterday. Mr. Poet condescended to the town.

I am alone.

I spent the entire forenoon with Grandma, peeling potatoes, strewing sweet pea seeds on the ground.

I ascended the hill with the root of a white rose—believing in the Nippon idea that blossoms for the dead should be white—and set it by the grave.

Then I stole into the canyon.

I amassed the dead leaves of redwood by the brook for a camp-fire.

The smoke rose like a soul unto heaven.

I watched its beautiful confusion.

When I left, a snake obstructed my path, flashing its needle of a tongue.

Snake, one of my greatest foes! (The others being cheese and mathematics.)

I turned pale.

But I bravely faced it, hoping that it would speak a word or two, as one did to Eve. I placed my eyes on it, though in fear. Perhaps it wasn’t as intelligent as the one in the garden of Eden. Maybe it thought it nothing but a waste of time to address a Jap poorly stored in English. It crept away.

I ran down the hill.

A storm of laughter struck me from within when I came to my Willow Cottage. I examined it from the window. Half a dozen young ladies were biting pie. (Pie! Rustic pastry I ever so hate!)

“Picnic!” I murmured.

My blood gushed up. I was on the verge of denouncing their irruption. The cottage belongs to any one, I said in my afterthought, as it does to me.

I slipped away.

I found myself in the plum orchard with a hoe.

I began to root the weeds. I waited silently for their departure.

25th—The spring hills were coquetting like a tea-house maiden, singing:

“The air is lovely like wine; Come, Lord! Come, Lord!”

The curtain for the spring comedy has not yet risen.

Already the picnic band invades.

To-day I will make myself mistress of a hillside coffee-house.

The poet—the eternally sweet poet—hastened to borrow a tent from a neighbour.

He set it on the greenest spot of grass before my cottage. I must excuse his conceit, he entreated, in showing his skill by baking a cake for me.

“Accept my hundred arigatos!”

I bowed demonstratively.

I pasted a paper—such a bashful brown piece from a butcher’s table—with the sign of

“BISHOPS’ REST.”

The poet tacked “Ten Cents for Coffee and Cake” on the fence by the tent.

The cups (what a shame that their arms were all off) were rinsed, when he showed me an imperial poundcake, declaring it his own manufacture.

At three o’clock I was fully prepared for an honorable guest.

The coffee on the oil-stove was surging, when two parties went by, not spending even one look at my sign.

“Times are awfully hard, I think. People have not luxury enough to spare even a dime,” I murmured sadly.

I said that I would have no business, if I didn’t make the next party my victim.

I appeared before the tent, when a few girls—who were born for laughing, but not for thinking—came close by.

“Will you rest and taste the cake that the poet made, ladies?” I said.

“That’s nice,” they said, rolling into the tent.

I served them with coffee and cake.

“Is this surely the poet’s cake? It looks like baker’s cake,” one girl said.

“Mr. Poet assured me it was of his own making,” I replied in cool reserve.

After they left, I scrutinised the cake. Oya! A little bakery mark was seen.

“Mighty liar!” I grumbled.

Abrupt clouds clouded the sun. The winds scolded bitterly. I decided there was no business remaining.

I called Mr. Heine and uncle into the Bishops’ Rest.

“Your cake was fine, Mr. Poet.”

“I know it, Miss Morning Glory. I’m a pretty good cook, you see. I cooked once in a Sierra camp for fifty miners. I was paid twenty dollars a week. Alas! It was the biggest money I ever earned.”

“By the way, Mr. Heine, the bakery sent a bill for you.”

I placed before him a slip that I had prepared for the purpose.

“Ha! Ha, ha, ha!”

His open laughter was as from a simple Faun.

I noticed, afterward, a black mass heaped in a ditch. The whole situation grew plain to me. He couldn’t bake, but only burn, in the oven, and had despatched his neighbour for the cake.

Dear Poet!

26th—We pressed the poet to receive some money as just a sign of our gratitude.

Mr. Heine despised our thought.

Honourable gentleman!

I found a tin box. I put the money in—ask me not how much!

I dug a hole by the willow tree beside the lily pond, and buried the money box. I tumbled a stone over it to mark it.

“I’ll write him about it from New York. See, Uncle! Isn’t it unique?” I said.

Uncle wasn’t enthusiastic in approving my idea. He couldn’t check me, however, as the money was mine.

He said he would order an elegant vase from Tokio.

27th—I intended to keep a sweet fashion of old Japan in presenting a poem at my sayonara.

We will take leave to-morrow.

O gracious graceful poet abode!

My farewell poem in seventeen syllable form is as follows:

“Sayonara no Ureiya nokore Mizu no neni!”

“Remain, oh, remain, My grief of sayonara, There in water sound!”

28th—Mrs. Heine kissed me.

Dear old Grandma!

“Do you know what this is, Miss Morning Glory?” the poet said, plucking a leaf from a tree by his door.

“Fig-leaf! Isn’t it?”

[Illustration:

MY SAYONARA POEM IN JAPANESE AUTOGRAPH. ]

“Yes, my child! It is a fig-leaf. Do you know the fig tree? It is the shyest tree in the world. Classical tree, indeed! It has no blossom, being so modest of display, but it has the fruits. Remember, my young lady, its teaching of ‘Modesty! Modesty!’”

“Sayonara, Mr. Poet!”

“One minute, Uncle!” I said.

I ran into the Willow Cottage to get a cupful of water. I watered my friend Miss Poppy with love.

Bye-bye, little girl!

SAN FRANCISCO, March 1st

Civilisation again!

The first thing was to buy a cake of the best soap.

Because my hands had perfected their transformation into worthless leather while I dwelt on the hill.

What kind of soap did I use, do you suppose?

Laundry soap.

2nd—Delightful Ada!

We drove to the Cliff House, Ada to laugh at the stupid song of the seals, I to say my adieu.

Good-bye, Pacific Ocean!

We cried in hugging.

We shall not see each other for some time,—maybe never again!

Ada!

O Ada San!

3rd—This afternoon!

Eastward, ho, ho!

OVERLAND TRAIN, March 4th

“Madame Butterfly” lay by me, appealing to be read.

“No, iya, I’ll never open! I erred in buying you,” I said.

I dislike that “Madame.” It sounds indecent ever since the “gentleman” Loti spoiled it with his “Madame Chrysanthème.”

The honourable author of “Madame Butterfly” is Mr. Wrong. (Do you know that Japanese have no boundary between L and R?) Undoubtedly, he is qualified to be a Wrong.

Authorship is nothing at all, nowadays, since authors are thick as Chinese laundries.

Well, still, it can be honourable, if it is honourable.

Japanese fiction penned by the tojin!

It is a completely sad affair. I wonder why the author (God bless him) didn’t fit himself for brooming the streets instead of scrawling.

The characters in his book—I am grateful I see no lady writer of Japanese novels yet—remind me of the “devils of mixture” swarming in Yokohama or Kobe, whose Jap mother was a professional “hell.” It is lamentable to set the verdict on them that they have inherited the art of framing lies from their mamma.

Do I vex you, gentleman, when I say that your Japanese type could only be an unprincipled half-caste?

Your Nippon character eyed in blue, and hairy-skinned always. Isn’t it absurd when it puts a ’Merican shoe on one foot and a wooden clog on the other?

And if you insist on registering it as a Jap, I shall merely laugh loudly.

One heroine I have read of placed a light summer haori over her heavily padded mid-winter clothes.

Your Oriental novel, let me be courageous enough to say, is a farce at its best.

Oh, just wait, my sweet Americans! A genuine one will soon be offered to you by Morning Glory.

I stepped out to the platform, and threw out “Madame Butterfly.”

Poor “Madame!”

I trust in the mountain lions of high Nevada to cherish her lovingly.

5th—

“Matsuba Sama, the following letter creeps ‘under your honourable table.’

“How is yourself?