Part 5

They were silent as they made their way homeward. Even Billy, the garrulous, found he could not speak with such a great lump choking his throat. When they reached the house they found all the blinds drawn. Suspecting that the “females,” as Taro called them, had retired to weep in their rooms, Taro drew Billy towards the pond.

“Let’s play,” said he.

Billy shook his head.

“Play fight,” urged Taro. “_I_ will be Admiral Togo—you be the Lussian admiral.”

“_Me_ a Russian!” cried Billy, fiercely.

“Yaes, because you loog jes’ same.”

At the insult Billy became purple. He shouted:

“I don’t. Father says when I wear your old kimono I look Japanese. _I’ll_ be Togo. I’m the oldest.”

Taro shook his head.

“I tell you what,” said Billy. “Juji can be the Russian. See how sleepy and lazy he looks. Let’s just duck him in the water and wake him up.”

“He’ll cry too much.”

“Oh, the Russians all cry and pray and make a big noise, but they can’t do anything after a Jap gets them. We won’t really hurt Juji. He’ll groan like a wounded Russian, and you can be a Red Cross Japanese doctor and make him better.”

“All lide,” said Taro.

So they began to play.

XV

SUMMER, with its flowers, carnivals, moonlight fêtes and banquets, is a season of unalloyed bliss to Japanese children. It seemed as if all nature took a holiday, and bade the children and the grown folks, too, come forth from their houses and rejoice at her beauty and happiness.

Never before had the Japanese held so many celebrations. But this year their festivals were not in honor of the beauty of the flowers or the glory of the moon. They tossed their fans, their parasols, any article, above their heads. They marched the streets of the towns at night with swinging lanterns and torches in their hands, sometimes singing and always shouting, “Banzai! Banzai!” Impassive faces turned ruddy with excitement and pride. Even delicate-faced ladies leaned from their jinrikishas in the public streets and waved the sun flags in their hands. Never had a flower festival drawn forth such enthusiasm and excitement. On all sides people spoke the word, breathlessly, with smiling lips:

“Victory! Always victory for Dai Nippon.”

The Kurukawa family caught the spirit of the country. There was not a member of the little flock that did not feel a personal pride in Japan’s achievements. Even Mrs. Kurukawa, after the first shock of the actual sense of loss had passed, refused to be oppressed by her sorrow. By this time her husband’s friends in the town were hers. She became a member of a society which had for its aim the succor of the town’s poor families whose wage-earners had been given to the war. No Western women’s club or society ever worked harder than did these little Japanese women when they took upon themselves the actual support of the poor of the town. Mrs. Kurukawa found a wonderful comfort in the work. All the little girls assisted. Immediately after the departure of her husband the grandmother had come to her with a suggestion that at first she could not understand.

“Now that the master has gone,” had said the old woman, “shall we not dismiss all the servants?”

“But why?” she had inquired, astonished. “We can afford to keep them, can we not?”

Madame Sano could not make her reasons understood. For a time she went about the house very gloomy and unhappy, shaking her old head as the servants waited upon their mistress and the children. She herself refused to be waited upon. Her own meals she cooked herself. It was shortly after she had become a member of the Aid Society that Mrs. Kurukawa learned from another member that most of the war families had dismissed their servants, or kept at most but one scullery maid. The little Japanese lady told her at the same time that none of them had bought new clothes since the beginning of the war, and that some of them had refused fire, food, and luxuries. The reason was this. Their husbands, sons, fathers, and brothers were suffering hardship and peril. It would be unseemly for them to live in luxury. Since they could not share that hardship at the front with their men they would deny themselves at home.

“But what of the servants?” Mrs. Kurukawa had asked. “They would be without employment.”

The answer was prompt. “The men-servants belong to the war service. Some of the women receive reduced wages. The money saved is devoted to charity. The servants themselves understand that they, too, must make sacrifices. Some of them are sent by their mistresses to the homes of the poor and the sick, there to work.”

When she returned home Mrs. Kurukawa called the family together to tell them of her resolve. They would keep but one maid-servant and Norah, the nurse. The maid-servant would do the cooking and the scullery work. Marion, Plum Blossom, and Iris were to do all the chamber work and keep the second floor clean and sweet. Madame Sano would do the sewing. The boys must take care of the garden and draw the water. Mrs. Kurukawa would see to the rest of the house. As the average Japanese family of similar circumstances kept a great many servants—in fact, any number of “assistants,” cook’s assistant, scullery assistant, etc.—the Kurukawas had in all fourteen, including the men who worked in the garden and the rice-fields. Of these, one old man’s services were retained. The younger men were advised to enlist if they could. If not, they would receive reduced wages and be employed in caring for the poor. So the work previously done by the servants was now done cheerfully and happily by the members of the Kurukawa family.

No chamber-maid ever cleaned a sleeping-chamber with more pleasure than did the little girls. Their hair wrapped about in white linen, their sleeves rolled up, they made the bamboo brooms fly across the floor.

“If one liddle bit of dust be in corner even,” said Plum Blossom, “I shall die of shame.”

That was the spirit of all.

They who had never known what it was to wash their own bright faces, now joyfully did all such services for themselves and for one another. They were always so busy that they found no time for sadness. They arose with the sun to busy themselves in the house throughout the mornings. The afternoon was given to more pleasurable work. They would sew and embroider in the garden, or write letters to their father and Gozo. Often all of them would go on missions of charity to the town. Japan has no actual slums in her smaller towns. Asylums and “Refuges” are scarcely needed. The charity work done is all personal, and perhaps, better.

XVI

OCTOBER forced the little family in-doors. It was a bleak month, cold and chilly this year. There is a general superstition in Japan that this desolate month, when the gods are all absent, will bring disaster to all who observe events connected with home joys. The Kurukawas were Christians, and had no faith in these childish superstitions; nevertheless, they instinctively felt the contagion of the general feeling of dreariness everywhere. Nearly every afternoon they were wont to gather together in the great ozashiki, and there they would talk of the war, or listen to tales of their ancestors’ valor told by the grandfather, a garrulous story-teller when once upon a theme that pleased him. It is true his English was at times almost unintelligible, and he chose the most gory subjects for his tales, but he held his listeners spellbound. Indeed, Marion, high-strung and excitable as she had been, became quite hardened and used to stories of bloodshed.

“I believe, mamma,” she said, “_I_ could see a great fight now without closing my eyes.”

The gloominess of the month was broken by a great letter from the father. It had been written September 5th, during the action at Lyago-yang. He told the family little or nothing of the war itself beyond simple descriptions of his companions and of Russian prisoners he had seen. There was no word of the hardships, no word of the battles fought, and he was now a veteran. He wrote that at night when he closed his eyes he could see them all so clearly, as they had looked in their cherry gowns on that day of the flower festival. It seemed now so far away that he sometimes wondered if he were the same man who, covered with cherry-blossom petals, told them the foolish story of “The Widow of Sanyo.” There were messages for each child individually. Finally he wrote that he had not seen Gozo, but that he knew of his whereabouts. Soon he hoped to be with him.

The children rushed for their little writing-desks. Soon, heels doubled under, all of them were busily engaged in writing to father. Mrs. Kurukawa, too, writing at her desk, described the absorbed group about her. After a time the various epistles were read aloud by their authors. With her little lisp Plum Blossom read her letter:

“HONORABLE FADDER,—We got you proud ledder. Oh, how happy we feel! I kees this ledder ride this one place. Please kees me bag agin. I lig kees. I am now chamber-maid and Marion she also chamber-maid and Iris also. House never so clean before. We keep light all time burn for you and Gozo. Juji burn his liddle finger with match. When we hear of grade victory we blow plenty fire worg and Juji burn match. Thas something for him. I am now soon 13 years ole. Kees agin that spot as I do.

“Your most obedient and filialest

“daughter foraver,

“P. B.”

As soon as Plum Blossom ceased, Iris began reading. Her letter proved to be, however, an almost exact copy of her sister’s, for, sitting close to Plum Blossom, she had simply copied her sister’s letter bodily, thus saving herself the labor of composition. They all laughed when she re-read Plum Blossom’s letter. Marion read hers shyly.

“DEAR FATHER,—Please come back soon. I pray for you every night. Have you got my Bible still? I hope you read it. Do you remember Miss Lamb in Chicago? She used to be my Sunday-school teacher, and when you became my papa she told me to be sure to urge you to read the Bible, for that was the way to convert the heathen, and I told her you were not a heathen, but my own dear father, and the best man in the world. But I don’t know why I condescended to write about Miss Lamb at this time. It makes my letter so long.

Dear father, I do love you. Mamma cries for you at night.”

She was interrupted here by a protest from the family. Father ought not to be told of tears. So she scratched that sentence out laboriously, and then continued:

“I know she cries at night, because her eyes show it, and it’s because she loves you so. So please come back to her at once and—”

Billy interrupted this time. “How much longer is it?” he asked, gruffly. Marion continued, her face flushed:

“—and this is all, dear father, and I hope you will win the fight, only please, please don’t kill anybody or let any one kill you. Your own little ‘Yankee girl,’

“MARION.”

“P. S.—Give my best love to Gozo, and tell him I pray for him, too, and, please, also, would you lend him the Bible I gave you sometimes?”

It was Taro’s turn. He began reading in Japanese, put was forced to translate:

“AUGUST FATHER,—I would like much to be with you and fight. I could kill ten Russians now for Samurai Komatzou has taught me some great tricks. Billy says I would make a giant Russian look like ‘30 cents.’ Billy also wants to be Japanese soldier. We hope war lasts till we grow up so your two dutiful sons may enlist. I sign myself now your unworthy son,

“TARO.”

Billy’s letter was characteristic.

“DEAR FATHER,—Are there any drummer-boys our age? Have _you_ killed any Russians yourself? How did you do it? Did you shoot him or run your sword through his bowels like that ancestor you told us about did? Do you use my jack-knife any? I hope it’s useful. I wish I was grown-up. Say, would you ask Gozo, when you see him, to send me some Russian buttons. He sent one to Marion. It was all rusty, and she gave it to me, as Taro told there was blood on it. Taro and I worked very hard this summer in the garden, but it’s great sport. We pretended we were digging trenches, and whenever we found stones we said they were bullets, and we piled them up together, and after a time had lots of ammunition. Say, there’s a French boy living out here, and he told Taro that after a time there’d be no Japs left, because Japan was so small, and he said we’d all be killed off, and he said that the regiments would have to have boys in them soon, because his father said so. Is it true, and if so, can’t Taro and I come at once? Taro licked the Frenchy till he squeaked for mercy, and his father came out and jabbered a lot of gibberish, and he got terribly excited and said, ‘Insoolt to France!’ and everybody laughed at him. Well, this is all. We want the French boy to play war with us, but he’s like Rojestvensky, he bluffs—but we’ll catch him yet. Say, father, write something about the fight and if you’re wounded anywhere. Aff., “BILLY.”

“Talk about long letters,” said Marion.

“Oh, well,” said Billy, “_I_ had something to say. Besides, if it’s true what the Frenchy says, Taro and I will be soldiers soon, too, and father ought to know.”

XVII

THERE was a long silence from the soldier in Manchuria. The Kurukawas, like many other families in Japan, watched for the mail each day with greedy feverishness. But the autumn passed away and there was no further word from Kurukawa. He had told his wife she must expect these long silences. There were reasons that she must understand for such interludes. A soldier’s letter cannot be had every day. And so she waited with the patience worthy of a brave woman. But when December was ushered in with a little drift of snow, and she knew that winter was coming, her thoughts wandered unceasingly to that one out there in the frozen Manchuria, and, brooding over it, her strength gave way. Nights passed; alone with a terrified imagination further exhausted her. Suddenly she decided that she must go at once to Tokio and make inquiry of the Minister of War of the fate of her husband. Leaving Juji and the baby at home, she took the three little girls and two older boys with her. She told the children nothing of her fears. They believed the trip to Tokio was made for the purpose of making purchases for the Christmas and New-Year’s season.

“When you come back,” had said the smiling old grandmother, “the honorable house will be quite new and fresh for New-Year’s.”

The children were excited by the prospect of a visit to Tokio. The Japanese children had never been in the large town. Thus it actually fell to Billy and Marion to describe Tokio to them, for they had passed two days in the city.

The little party arrived at the Shinbasi Station, where they took jinrikishas and rode through the bewildering streets to the Imperial Hotel. As it was past six o’clock, the children after dinner went straight to bed, thoroughly tired out. But Mrs. Kurukawa sought to see some one who could allay her anxiety. There were only two clerks left in the War Office at this hour. They were excessively polite and even sympathetic, going over all the lists of the dead and wounded they possessed. There were two Kurukawas among the wounded, but neither was her husband. She felt that a great load had been lifted from her, and with a happier heart she drove back to the hotel. For the first time in many days she slept in peace.

Early in the morning she was awakened by the children. They were crowded at the windows, looking out upon the streets and chattering.

“I’m going to buy all my gifts to-day,” announced Marion, “because if we don’t buy early all the best things will be snapped up,” she added, wisely.

Taro said, reflectively: “I’m going to wait till second January.”

“Second January!” cried Billy. “Why, that’s after Christmas!”

Taro nodded.

“I nod give Christmas presents. I give only New-Year’s gift.”

“Oh, Taro!” cried Marion. “Why, we’re going to have a Christmas-tree! Who wants to wait till January second?”

“But thad is day the otakara (treasure-ships) are on streets,” explained Plum Blossom.

“Yes,” said Iris, “and in Tokio he has beau-tee-ful presents.”

“Mother says we’ll be home for Christmas. So how can you wait till January second?”

The little Japanese children’s faces fell.

“Tha’s true,” admitted Iris, dejectedly.

“Oh, well,” said Plum Blossom, consolingly, “the toshironschi is open in December, and I wan’ take home wiz me plenty mochitsuki” (nice pastry).

“Are you dressed, children?” asked Mrs. Kurukawa, coming into the room.

They were in their quaint blue linen Japanese night-dresses, a queer little group, all barefooted.

They dressed quickly, busily talking and planning as they did so. The day was to be spent in the stores of Tokio. Never were there more enticing stores to shop in, the children thought. They got out their little savings, rolled up in paper handkerchiefs in their sleeves, and counted them over and over.

Billy had the most money, nearly twenty dollars in all. He had not saved a penny, but becoming desperate as the Christmas season advanced, he had sold nearly all his American clothes to various susceptible Japanese youth of the town. One paid him two dollars for a sailor hat. A young man of eighteen years now wore the twelve-year-old Billy’s short trousers under a kimono. Three of his shirts had been purchased by Miss Summer, which she proudly wore on festival occasions. Even his suspenders had proved marketable, and also his heavy shoes and rubbers. When he had asked his mother’s permission to “give” his clothes away she had laughed and told him that by the time he ceased to wear kimonos again he would be too large for the American clothes he now possessed, and so had lightly given her consent. But she was quite distressed when she learned he had sold them. Billy, however, was equal to the occasion, and soon persuaded her that he had done right. “It would have been wrong to make the proud Japanese accept second-hand American clothes as charity.” So Billy was now rich, and accordingly avaricious. He wished he had a hundred dollars instead of twenty dollars; then he could buy cameras and guns and such things which cost plenty of money, but since there was such a large family, and since the Japanese had to have presents at New-Year’s as well, he couldn’t afford costly ones. In any event he wanted them all to know that he was not going to spend more than half his money, as he was saving the other half for something for himself—he wouldn’t tell what.

Ten dollars was Taro’s total, but he had in addition an unopened bank half full of sen (pennies). He had been saving all summer, and would have had a larger sum, but he had generously contributed two yen to the support of an old coolie whose sons were at the war and whom his mother was befriending. Billy, too, had made a like contribution, though he said nothing about it now. Taro, however, could not forget that two yen.

“If I had thad two yen more I could buy fine present for you, Billy, but I have only liddler got—I gotter buy for girls first. Mebbe I buy you something if I have aeny left.”

“Well, you’d just better,” snorted Billy, “and you know what I want.”

Taro grunted discontentedly, but made no rash promises.

“How much have you got?” Billy asked Plum Blossom, who had her money arranged in a neat row.

“Three yen and—” she began counting the sen again.

“And you, Iris?”

“Jus’ same Plum Blossom,” said Iris, who had not bothered to count.

“Why, no, you silly, you haven’t. I’ll count for you.” Iris possessed three yen and seventy-five sen, about two dollars and a quarter.

Marion had seven dollars; two dollars she had saved, and five dollars an aunt had sent her “to buy a pretty kimono with.”

“But I have lots of kimonos,” said Marion, “so I’ll buy Christmas presents instead, as it’s more blessed to give than to receive,” she added, piously.

“All right,” grinned Billy. “You must not expect to _receive_ much, sis.”

XVIII

WHEN the little Kurukawa family started for the shopping district the streets were bathed in the beautiful early winter sun. In a city where the distances are very great, where large parks and actual stretches of bare country exist in seemingly the centre of the town and where the streets zigzag in every direction, it is a matter often of hours to reach certain points. But the children enjoyed the long ride. They would have laughed aloud at the average foreigner’s complaint against the “jerking jinrikisha.” What child does not prefer a vehicle that bumps up and down a bit to one that runs inanely and smoothly?

Taro and Billy occupied one jinrikisha, Marion and Plum Blossom another, while Iris rode with her mother. They called across merrily to each other. When one runner, swifter-footed for the moment than his fellows, sped on ahead, the pair in advance would cheer in delight.

The speed with which the jinriki-men ran, Billy thought wonderful.

“They would beat anybody at our Sunday-school picnic races,” he told Taro.

It would be great fun, suggested Taro, if some time they could come to Tokio alone and apprentice themselves to jinriki-men. Then they _would_ learn to run! The suggestion thrilled Billy. He saw in it glowing possibilities of easily earned money; the opportunity to own a jinrikisha and learn to run like the wind. But, then, how would they be soldiers? Certainly their military ambitions came first.

At the end of two hours’ running they drew up before a tea-house which stood within a little park of its own. Smiling and bowing the jinriki-men suggested that their patrons must be thirsty, as they, the runners, were. Would they not condescend to refresh themselves with tea and sweetmeats? The suggestion went to the hearts of the children. They had no idea how hungry they were, and so “mother” smilingly nodded to the little, begging faces. In a few moments they were within the tea-house. At that season of the year the tea-house is not well patronized, but as it was close to the noon hour, a number of Japanese business-men sat at the various tables eating their luncheon.

A maiden with roguish black eyes came running over to the Kurukawas to help the children into their seats. Her rosy mouth slipped open as she saw that her visitors, despite their dress, were not all Japanese. For a moment she stood perfectly still staring at Marion, but when Mrs. Kurukawa addressed her she slipped to her knees, bowed very deeply, and inquired what they might command her to bring.

All of them wanted tea and sweetmeats except Billy, who insisted upon having a piece of rare steak with fried onions. When Taro translated this astonishing order the little maid shook her head and laughingly declared that they were too poor a house to serve such extraordinary luxuries.