Part 4

“One gape more, Uncle, to count up one dozen!” I said, and pulled his mustache in the car.

It was lucky that no one saw my act.

Poor Oji San! Playing chaperon is not a very promising occupation, is it?

I stood by the “happy family” of monkeys. I tried to descry their point of view in orations.

I gave it up.

The vain Miss Polly worked hard to bring everybody to an understanding with one eternal “Hello, dear!”

I found such grace in the elephant when he waved his honourable trunk.

The stupid Mr. Elephant wasn’t stupid a bit in accepting my present.

How philosophically he gazed at me! Very likely I was the first Jap girl to his audience.

What respectable eyes!

“You’ll bankrupt yourself in peanuts,” my uncle warned.

26th—A white apron on my black dress makes me so cute.

I am just suited to be a chambermaid. Shall I volunteer as a servant?

I bought an apron.

To-day is house-cleaning day.

I kept busy a good while arranging my theatrical costume as a maid.

Wasn’t it fun?

I was ready to scrub the floor, when I heard “kotsu kotsu,” on my door.

It was Annie with a broom.

“I’m your help. Just a moment! I have forgotten the finishing glance in my mirror.”

27th—I have been studying the catechism.

I am afraid to go to church, for the minister may put many a question to me.

Is Miss Ada a dutiful church-goer?

I don’t think so.

She would rather mumble a nigger song than a chapter from the Bible.

I will ask her a few things from the catechism at my first opportunity.

28th—“Hand me your cup after you are done with your tea!” Mrs. Browning requested. “I will ponder on your fortune.”

“How delightful!” I said.

My fortune?

I remembered how I used to scatter my pocket money among the fortune-tellers, pleased to be informed of a lot of nice things.

What meaning she could find in a cup!

I felt like a mother with her children already in bed, when I dropped my spoon into my tea.

I felt mistress of the situation.

Was there ever anything more welcome than to learn your fortune?

“A young American (rich, very rich—indeed) will win your affection. The marriage will be a happy one,” she prophesied.

Is that so?

Life is becoming very interesting.

I wonder where my would-be husband is seeking me.

Shall I advertise in a paper?

How?

If my first-rate picture by Mr. Taber were printed, it would be a whole thing in such a business.

I thought the picture beautiful enough to sell at any stationer’s of U.S.A.

How many thousand could I sell in a week?

Could I make money out of it? Some decent fortune, I mean, of course.

29th—Ho, ho, such a day!

I was aroused by the roar of a milk-wagon early in the morning.

I sought a pin in vain.

I tore my skirt on a sneering nail at the door.

I upset my flower-vase.

I sat by my window. A vegetable pedlar howled to me, “Potatoes? Potatoes?”

I couldn’t recall a sweet dream I had last night.

The clamour of a Chinese funeral passed under my room. The carriages were packed with hired “crying women.” Isn’t it a farce?

I went out. My street-car ran off the track.

A fire-engine deafened me.

I passed by an undertaker’s. It was cold like a grave.

The sight stunned me.

30th—Is my nose high enough?

I bought a pair of “nose spectacles.”

Those with wires to circle the ears, which are Oriental (that is to say old-fashioned), would suit even a noseless Formosa Chinee.

But how many Japs could show themselves ready for nose spectacles?

The Optician asked if they were for myself.

He was a trifle uncertain about my nose, I suppose.

“No! For my friend,” I said.

It was a white lie.

I blushed as if I had committed a heavy crime.

I hoped I had not.

I put my new spectacles on my nose, as soon as I returned to my room. Very well they stayed. Mother Nature was specially kind to me.

But what a depression—also what torture—I felt from their clutch!

I was pleased, however, seeing myself somewhat scholarly.

Aren’t spectacles an emblem of wisdom?

The first requirement to be a critic should be spectacles. The second is a pessimistic smile, of course.

My mirror told me that I looked quite modern.

“Book!” I exclaimed.

I must see what effect I could produce with a book on my lap.

I leaped from the chair to fetch one.

My spectacles dropped from my honourable nose on to the hearthstone. My nose was exceedingly stupid.

Alas, and alas!

The spectacles were crushed to pieces.

I was broken also.

I buried my face in the pillow for some time.

Then I said: “I’m not short in my sight. I have no use for them except for fun.”

I wiped my disturbed eyes with a handkerchief. My finger felt the rude marks printed on both sides of my nose.

Dec. 1st—I bought a Louisiana lottery ticket through Annie.

Like any other domestic girl, she has no key to her mouth. She is like a sentence that has forgotten to add the period.

I begged all sorts of gods to drop the capital prize on me.

Thirty thousand dollars! Think!

How shall I manage with them when I have won?

2nd—If I were a painter!

My eyes were fixed upon the dying sun. Its solemnity was like the passing of a mighty king.

Some time glided by.

My thought was pursuing the sun.

The twilight!

Oh, twilight pacifying me as with the odour from a magical palace!

Hush!

The melody of a piano effused from my neighbour.

The best thing in the world is to play music. The very best is to listen to the profuse melody evoked by a master.

Was it a superb execution?

My soul was dissolved, anyhow, in the rapture.

I left my uncle’s room where I saw the grand sun pass away.

I put me in my bed, because my visionary mood was not to be stirred for the world, and because I wished to dream a romance without the delay of a moment.

But I could not slumber.

And I missed my dinner.

I petitioned my uncle to step out into the street for my beloved chestnuts.

Dear Italian chestnut vendor!

I never pass by without buying.

3rd—We start to-morrow for Los Angeles of Southern California.

Mr. and Mrs. Schuyler have invited us to spend some weeks with them.

The gentleman was the former consul at Yokohama. My uncle is his intimate friend.

My new trunk was brought in from the store.

It bears my name in Roman of commanding type.

I stared at the characters as upon an ancient writing whose meaning could only be imagined.

“Doesn’t ‘Miss Morning Glory’ suggest that the owner is a charming young lady?”

My little smile smiled, as I thought that it would, of course.

A new trunk, I am sorry to say, lacks a historical look. An old one is more gratifying, like old brocade or an old ring.

Au revoir, my Ada!

South-bound train, 4th—I was lavish of my art of “bothering.”

My poor uncle—my eternally “poor uncle” was the victim. I wanted some diversion at any price.

His face scowled as I bored him with my successive questions.

I thought his irritated face fascinating.

When I presented another question, he was droning a genteel snore.

I twisted an edge of a newspaper into a roll. I thrust it into his nose.

There was no doubt about his starting.

“Bikkurishita!” he exclaimed.

Then he begged to be allowed some chance to rest.

This is a “bad year for cucumbers” for him. He made a mistake in accompanying me on Meriken Kenbutsu.

Honestly I have to behave nicely.

My opening question to Uncle was: “What’s the derivation of ‘damn’?”

“Imperialism” was my last.

I have a high regard for the people dignified by using the capital “I” for the personal pronoun.

But if I were the President I should not wish to be addressed with that hackneyed, unromantic “Mr.”

The cartoonists making sport of the President shock me.

How big-hearted the President is!

Those “devils” would be beheaded in the Orient.

Los Angeles, 5th—No one bangs the door at Schuyler’s.

The servants drop their eyes meekly before they speak.

A well-bred atmosphere circulates.

A woman over forty-five is nothing if she isn’t motherly enough to let one feel at home. Mrs. Schuyler’s silence is a smile. I loved her from my first glance. I thought I could ask her to wash my hair some sunny day. I could fancy how pleasant it would be to immerse myself in her chat—such sort of talk as an old-bonneted “how to keep house”—while I was drying my hair in the indolence of a sea-nymph. Modern topic is like black coffee, it is too stimulating. There is nothing dearer than a domestic subject.

I have no hesitation in accepting her as my Meriken mother.

I am positive I would feel more comfortable if I had one in this country.

How good-naturedly she was fattened!

A somewhat stout woman looks so proper for a mother.

I wished I could lean on her plump shoulder from the back in Japanese girl’s way, and play with her hair, and ask a few innocent questions like “What have I to eat for dinner?”

She talked about the Japanese woman, principally praising her shapely mouth.

I felt conceitedly, because I was given one classical little mouth, if I had nothing else to be noticed.

Mr. Schuyler grasped my hand ever so hard. My hand was buried in his palm. His manner was courteously boyish.

His body is erect like a redwood.

Such an old gentleman gives me the impression of another race from the divine realm of everlasting youth. A Jap after fifty is capped with “retired.”

But the work of the American gentleman is only finished when he dies.

Great Meriken Jin!

Mr. Schuyler shows more civility to his servants than to his wife.

Here I can study the typical household of America’s best caste.

6th—“Anata donata?”

I rubbed my dreamy eyes, scanning my room.

Who was the Japanese speaker?

I crept to the door, and opened it slightly.

Not a soul was there.

I heard the trivial clatter of the kitchen stepping up.

I dipped into my bed again. I smiled sceptically, thinking that I must have been dreaming.

“Gokigen ikaga?”

I was addressed again by the same voice.

I said that there was positively some mischief in my room.

I leaped down from the bed.

I inspected my slippers. I made sure there was nothing strange under the pictures on the wall. I tugged at the drawers. I tumbled every blanket. I pried in the pitcher.

I sat on the bed wrapped in fog.

The blind rustled.

The sunbeams crawled in marvellously.

Then I was frightened by another speech, “Nihonjin desu.”

I declared that it flew in from the outside.

I rolled up the blind.

Oya, oya! There was a parrot perching in a cage by my window!

He adjusted his showy coat first, and then sent me his inquisitive eyes.

“Anata donata?” he repeated.

“Morning Glory is my insignificant name, sir,” I replied.

A trifling toss of his head showed his satisfaction in my name. I thought he was trying to set me at ease with his smile.

“Gokigen ikaga?”

“I feel splendidly, thank you, Mr. Parrot!” I said.

Then pressing his head backward he looked haughtily at me with fixed eyes, and announced:

“Nihonjin desu.”

“I’m also a Jap,” I muttered.

He was the most profound Japanese scholar, Mrs. Schuyler said, in all Los Angeles. Mr. Schuyler Jr. brought him from Kobe last spring.

I told her the incident of this morning.

She laughed, she said she expected it.

Bad Mother Schuyler!

17th—Dear Baby! Kawaii koto!

I hugged the baby of Mrs. Schuyler Jr. and kissed it.

Her husband is away in Japan for the tea business.

It was the darling baby, I thank the gods, who received my first kiss.

It’s heavenly to stamp love with a kiss. Lips are the portal of the human heart.

Kiss is sweet.

I say that it marks an epoch in the spiritual evolution of the Japanese when they learn what a kiss is—but not how to kiss.

The baby crawled like a sportive crab. It orationed. It! I felt sorry that “It” would soon be changed to “He” or “She.” It caught sight of a piece of burnt match in the course of its expedition. It turned its way and clinched it with its fingers. It hastened to the mother to exhibit it, and waited patiently with its great game for Mamma’s praise.

I nearly cried in my excitement at such a pathetic revelation.

Lovely thing!

The baby had blue eyes.

My preference wasn’t for blue eyes. I often snapped at them, saying that they were like a dead fish’s eyes.

But how long can I keep up my ill-will, when I look with delight upon the blueness in water, sky and mountain?

Isn’t it precious to see the blue pictures on china?

A blue pencil is just the thing to mark on the margin of a pleasing book.

Blue is a poetical hue.

Robert Burns was blue-eyed.

I recalled the first American I met in Tokio, who seriously questioned whether it was a fact that Japs butcher a blue-eyed baby.

Bakabakashii wa!

Japan has no blue eye.

And Japanese are worshippers of any sort of baby.

If American babies were like Chinese girls!

I would pile up all my coins to buy one.

Meriken baby understood how to smile before how to cry. It is a lady or gentleman already.

I will serve as baby’s nurse if I must support myself.

It’s a high task to be useful to the baby, and watch its growth as a silent astronomer watches the stars.

I wish I could roll the baby’s carriage day after day.

How sweetly the world would be turning then!

Shall I hire Schuyler’s baby for one day?

8th—Is there any more gratifying word than dinner?

I had a “hipp goo’” dinner. (Permit a Chinese-English expression for once.)

Its inviting heaviness was like an honourable poem by Milton.

Schuyler’s house has a Miltonic presence.

Electric light is too imposing.

Candelabra are like a moon whose beams are a lenitive song.

The nude shoulders of Mrs. Schuyler, Jr., crimsoned in the rays from the candelabra.

The exposure of some part of the skin is the highest order of art. How to show it is just as serious a study as how to clothe it.

If I had such supreme shoulders as hers, I would not pause before displaying them.

What falling shoulders are mine!

The slope of the shoulders is prized in Japan. Amerikey is another country, you know.

I appeared at the dinner in my native gown.

The things on the table had a high-toned excellence.

I will not forget to have my initials engraved if I happen to buy any silver.

Coffee was served. I felt that an old age had returned, when eating was only a dissipation.

I’m growing to love Meriken food.

I am glad that I don’t see any musty pudding at Schuylers’, a sight that makes me ten years older.

And another thing I hate is the smell of cabbage.

How pleased I was to see a “chabu chabu” of shallow water in my finger bowl! Just a glimpse of water is tasty.

Our taciturn butler retired from the dining-room with graceful dignity.

The butler has ceased to be a common servant. He has advanced, I suppose, to the rank of an ornament of the Meriken household.

The sister of Mother Schuyler and her husband dined with us.

The funniest thing about her was that she kept a few long hairs on her cheek. They grew from a mole.

It may be good luck to preserve them.

Her husband was surprised when he heard that we do not use knife and fork at home.

Bamboo chop-sticks! How dear!

9th—I have no belief in the earring.

It is a savage mode, like the deformed feet of the Chinese woman.

But why did the Meriken lady discard her veil?

Her face behind the veil would appear like a rose through the Spring mist. It is a charming thing as ever was fashioned for woman.

I have seen no lady with a veil in this town.

I suppose the Los Angeles women confide in their faces.

They strew more liberty in their grace than the San Franciscans.

Their beauty is informal.

The city is enchanting.

I am pleased that I am not shown here so many a “To Let” as in Frisco.

Even the barefooted Arabs, those street sparrows, are quite a picture.

10th—I promised Mrs. Schuyler, Jr., good care of her baby for half an hour.

I carried it firm on my arms.

I jogged out to the garden.

The baby faced toward me and said:

“Bu, bu! Bu, bu, bu!”

I felt grateful, thinking that it counted me among its friends.

I laid its head on my breast.

I sang a little Japanese lullaby:

“Nenneko, nenneko, Nennekoyo! Oraga akanbowa Itsudekita? Sangatsu sakurano Sakutokini! Doride okawoga. Sakurairo.”

(Sleep, sleep, sleep! When was our baby made? Third month, when the cherry blossoms. So the honourable face of our child is cherry-blossom coloured.)

The breezes billed and cooed upon the grasses. An imperial palm cast its rich shadow.

The affectionate sunlight made me think of a “little Spring” of the Japanese September. Everything inclined to a siesta in the yellow air.

A tropical touch is the touch of passion.

Can you fancy this is the month of December?

I cannot.

After I put the baby to its nurse, I paced around a bronze statue upon the lawn, losing myself in Greek beauty.

Then I snatched a rose.

I pressed it to my nose-tip.

12th—Where’s my painstaking description of Echo Mountain?

I made a pleasant trip there yesterday with Schuyler’s party.

I lost my writing penned last night.

Such a heedless tomboy!

I idled, watching a spider from my window. It was framing a net amid the garden trees. An awfully dignified tom cat glared from under a bush. I was sorry no game came upon the scene to his honour. My profound Japanese scholar was not discouraged by the lack of an audience. He was busy presenting his polite “Gokigen ikaga?”

Then I found what I did with my yesterday’s diary.

Areda mono!

I wiped my oily hands with it and buried it in a trash basket.

I fixed my hair this morning.

Morning Glory San, you have to keep your Nikki in a safe!

Great Carlyle wrote his “French Revolution” twice.

I wish I had been given a slice of his persistency.

13th—A Bishop visited and lunched with us.

Bishop! How I desired to meet one!

It had been my fancy, ever since I read of the venerable Bishop who threw out candle-sticks to Jean Valjean in Hugo’s book.

His name was Myriel.

What is my friend’s name? After a man reaches the bishop’s see, his own name should retire from actual service. People call him “Bishop! Bishop!” as if it were a nickname.

My bishop had a holy face.

“Who is this good man who is staring at me?” I said to myself at first sight, as Napoleon said when he saw Myriel.

A young churchman is unnatural.

The customarily pessimistic face of the Japanese priest causes aversion.

I got what I wanted in my new friend.

If I were his daughter, I would comb his silken hair before he goes to church on Sunday.

I was glad he was not thin.

Ho, ho, ho! He ate meat like anybody else.

He would seem holier if he merely bit a crust of bread, and sipped three spoonfuls of tea.

After luncheon we strolled through the garden arm in arm.

Not a bit I blushed. I was as completely at ease with him as with my papa.

He told me of the beauty of Christ. His soft, deep voice was as from a far-away forest.

I plucked a few stems of violets. I fitted them to his buttonhole.

Such a little thing pleased him immensely.

Dear, simple Bishop!

I digested what he spoke. I declared that Christianity was the sun, while Buddhism was the moon.

The sun is day and life, and the moon night and rest.

How can we live without the sun? The moon is poetry.

14th—The sky became low, its colour frowning gray.

The winds snarled.

December was suddenly calling us.

We sat by a snug fire at evening.

Its yellow flame suggested a preacher uplifting his hands in prayer. The fire flickered in jollity.

“Pachi, pachi, pachi!”

The parlour was not lighted.

The pictures on the wall were impressive in the firelight.

Any woman looks charming at night and by the fireside. I felt happy imagining that I must appear lovely.

The fireplace is so dear, like mamma’s lap.

Mr. Schuyler brought a chess-board and challenged.

I offered me for a fight.

I used to play American chess with a Meriken missionary who lived in my neighbourhood. I thought it fun to beat an old man.

“Namu Tenshoko Daijingu!” I repeated.

The gentleman asked what I muttered.

“Never mind! Only a little spell!” I replied in the lightest fashion.

The chess-board was placed between us.

“Mr. Schuyler, can you sacrifice anything for the game?”

“Whatever you please, my little woman!”

“Well!”

“Well, then!”

“Suppose you make Mrs. Schuyler your stake! My uncle will be mine.”

“Ha, ha! Very well!”

He was a tactician. I fought hard.

Alas, my game was lost!

My second stake was myself.

“It means that I may marry you, doesn’t it?”

“As you please, sir!”

Iyani natta!

He was far superior.

Oya, oya, I was a loser again!

I looked sadly on my uncle, and said:

“Uncle, you cannot return home! We are the property of Mr. Schuyler. Isn’t it really too bad?”

15th—Shall I make a little kimono for Schuyler’s baby?

It would be a souvenir of my visit.

The crape kept in the Jap stores of this town isn’t appropriate for a baby’s “bebe.” My flower-dyed under-kimono should be utilized.

I opened my trunk.

Mother Schuyler brought in a young lady. She was her niece, that is to say the daughter of Mrs. Ellis. Mrs. Ellis is the one with the long hair on her cheek.

I told them of my new drift.

They were surprised at my determination.

Miss Olive applied to be my pupil in Japanese sewing.

What a southern name! Olive perfectly fits for a girl born in the passionate breeze.

Her “Is that so?” or “Don’t you?” fluttered affectionately like golden sunshine.

Mrs. Schuyler bade her servant to move in the machine.

I objected.

Machine-clicking is not Oriental. The “bebe” has to be done in pure Japanese.

16th—I found a hammock on the veranda.

It is the thing for summer, of course.

I never laid me in it before in my life.

I thought that I would see how I would feel.

I hanged it.

I romped in it.

It was delightful. I fancied that we—I and who?—hammocked among the summer breezes. Then a star appeared. He said, “How beautiful the star is!”

What did I fancy next?

Oh, never mind!

I tossed my feet. The skirt fluttered. My new satin slippers—number one and a half—were all seen. I drew up my skirt a little, and made a whole show of my honourable legs.

I prayed that somebody would pass by to fling an adoring glance at them.

No one roamed along. I scorned my frivolity.

The Bible by me wasn’t open at all.

I decided to read it to-day, although religion isn’t so becoming.

My Bishop sent it this morning. Dear old Bishop! He thought me quite a docile “nenne.”

I stretched my body in the hammock.

Alas, ma!

My hana kanzashi with the butterflies was caught by the meshes. The wings of one butterfly were tortured. Yes, I had put a Japanese pin on my hair this morning.

I hoped I could pay a bit more attention to my head all the time.

I was sad for a while.

17th—Good Annie wrote me from Mrs. Willis’.

What a scrawl!

But woman’s bad grammar and infirm penmanship are pathetic, don’t you think so?

It might look better on a thin blue tablet.

But poor Annie chose such thick smooth paper.

Oya! What?

A five-dollar check?

My goodness, I had forgotten all about my lottery! Even the ticket I have lost. It drew out five dollars.

Why not thirty thousand dollars?

It was better than a blank, anyway, I said philosophically.

Now let me send a little present to my home!

A little thing is a deal sweeter.

I ordered fourteen packets of N. Y. Central Park lawn seed from a nursery.

New York Central Park!

Doesn’t it sound grand?

And other flower seeds also.

The dwarf sweet pea is named “Cupid.”

It will be no wonder if my father mistakes it for a kibisho.

Cupid is a handsome boy, not a bullfrog-looking teapot, funny papa!

He is garden crazy. I can imagine how conceited he will be showing around his western sea flowers when they are in bloom.

I asked my uncle to translate the directions.

Isn’t it handy to keep a secretary?

I’ll not miss signing my name on the translation.

My daddy may think it was done by myself.

Woman is a snob.

Now what for mamma?

18th—Mother Schuyler took me to her church.

Such a heathen me!