CHAPTER XVI.

AN AMERICAN CLASSIC.

The day before Orito was to arrive home Nume had crossed the rice fields and gone to the American lady's house.

"I have felt so nerviss," she said, with her pretty broken English, "that I come stay with you, Mrs. Davees."

"What are you nervous about, dear?" Mrs. Davis asked, kissing the girl's pretty, troubled face.

Nume slipped down from the chair Mrs. Davis had placed for her, and sat on the floor instead, resting her head against the older woman's knee.

"Orito will return to-morrow," she said, simply. "I am so joyed I am nerviss."

The American lady's sweet blue eyes were moist.

"Do you love him, sweetheart?"

The girl raised wondering eyes to her.

"Luf? Thad is so funny word--Ess--I luf," she said.

"And you have not seen him for eight years? And you were only ten years old when you last saw him? My dear, I don't understand--I can't believe it."

The girl raised a wistful face to her.

"Nume nod unerstan', too," she said.

"Of course you don't, dear. Nume, I wish your father would let me take you away for a time. It is a shame to tie you down already, before you have had a chance to see anything or any one, hardly. You aren't a bit like most Japanese girls. I don't believe you realize how pretty--how very, very lovely and dainty and sweet you are. Sometimes when I look at your face I can't realize you are a Japanese girl. You are so pretty."

"Bud the Japanese girl be pretty," Nume said, with dignity; "pretty more than Americazan girl," she added, defiantly.

Mrs. Davis laughed. "Yes, they are--I suppose, some of them, but then an American can't always understand their _style_ of beauty, dear. You are different. Your face is lovely--it is a flower--a bright tropical flower. No! It is too delicate for a tropical flower--it is like your name--you _are_ a wild plum blossom. Sometimes I am puzzled to know _when_ you look best--in the sweet, soft kimona or--or in a regular stylish American gown; then I couldn't tell you were anything but an American girl;--no, not an American girl--you are too pretty even for that--you are individual--just yourself, Nume."

"The Americazan lady always flatter," the girl said, rising to her feet, her face flushed and troubled. "Japanese girl flatter too; Japanese girl tell you she thing' you vaery pritty--but she nod mean. Tha's only for polite. Thad you thing me pretty--tha's polite."

This speech provoked a hearty laugh from a gentleman reading a batch of letters at a small table.

"There's a lesson for you, Jenny. She can't jolly you, eh, Nume?"

"Nume nod unerstan' to jolly," the girl answered.

"Come here, Nume, and I'll tell you," he called across to her. She went over to his side, her little serious face watching him questioningly.

"A jollier is an American classical word, Nume--a jollier is one who jollies you."

"Nume _nod_ unerstan', still."

Mrs. Davis drew Nume away from him.

"Leave her alone, Walter," she said, reprovingly; and then to the girl: "Nume, you must not believe a thing he tells you."

Walter Davis laid his paper-cutter down.

"Madam, are you teaching that young girl to lose faith in mankind already?"

Mrs. Davis answered by placing her little hand over his mouth and looking at him with her pretty blue eyes so full of reproach that he pulled her down beside him. They had been married only a little over eighteen months.

"Here is the literal translation of the word 'jolly,'" he said to Nume. "Now, I want Mrs. Davis to be in a good humor, so I squeeze her up and tell her she is the darlingest little woman in the world."

Still the girl's face was troubled. She looked at the husband and wife a moment; then she said, very shyly: "Nume lig' to jolly, too."

Mrs. Davis pushed her husband's arm away.

"Don't use that word--it is ugly. Walter is full of slang."

"Ess, bud," she persisted, "_if_ thad the 'jolly' means to be _luf_, then I lig' thad liddle word."

"But you must not use the word, dear."

When Nume had gone to bed for the night, and husband and wife were alone together, Mrs. Davis reproached her husband.

"Really, Walter, I wish you would not teach that poor little thing such--a--a--wicked things--or--or that awful slang. First thing we know she will be using it seriously. You have no idea how quickly she catches on to the smallest new word, and she will ask more questions about it, if it catches her fancy, than a child of three."

"That's her charm, my dear," the man answered. "Ought to encourage it, Jen."

"She does not need _that_ kind of a charm. She is a charm all by herself. Every movement she makes is charming, every halting word,--her own strange, sweet beauty. She is irresistible, Walter. You remember that Englishman who stayed over at the Cranstons'? Well, you know what a connoisseur of beauty every one thought him. You ought to have heard him after he had seen Nume. He was simply wild about her--called her a dainty piece of Dresden china--a rose and lily and cherry blossom in one."

"Did he tell Nume so?"

"No, he didn't get the chance. He made the _awful_ blunder of telling her father so. _He_ (Mr. Watanabe) disagreed very politely with him--said his daughter was augustly homely, and wouldn't let the poor little thing out of his sight for a month after. Really, Walter, you needn't chuckle over it,--for Nume suffered dreadfully about it. If you won't laugh I'll tell you what she said to me afterwards, though I believe it was you, yourself, you wretch, who taught her the words. I told her how sorry I was that the Englishman had been so stupid; because she had told us never to praise her to her father--and at any rate not to let any gentleman do so. Well, I half apologized to her, because, you know, I had taken him to their house, and she said, 'Nume not lig' Egirisu' (Englishman)--'he cot-tam.' I _know_ she did not know what the word meant, poor little thing, and I spent half a day explaining to her _why_ it was not proper to use such an expression. Yes, you can laugh--you wicked thing--but really, Walter, I won't let that child listen to you any longer."

Mrs. Davis left her husband almost in convulsions over this, and stole on tiptoe to the girl's room. She was sleeping without a pillow under her head. Beside her on the bed was a small English-Japanese dictionary. Mrs. Davis picked it up and glanced at a page which was turned over. It was a page of the letter J. Towards the bottom of the page was the word "jolly," with the interpretation, "to be merry--gay."

Her husband's definition had been unsatisfactory to Nume, and she had looked it up in her little dictionary.