Part 5

I felt that I was “sitting on needles,” when I slipped into the Meriken church without glancing at even one page of the Bible. It was as risky a venture as to face an examination before fitting.

The service hadn’t begun.

Many ladies were introduced to me by Mrs. Schuyler.

They talked about—what?—anything but religion.

I was fanned continually by an offensive odor. Some one had left her perfume at home.

Honourable arm-pit smell!

Amerikey cultivates many a disagreeable sort of thing, doubtless.

The ladies seemed to regard the church as another drawing parlor.

My mind was calmed within ten minutes.

Ureshiya!

The Meriken church is not a difficult place at all.

A Japanese church is ever so sad-faced. No woman under thirty is seen there. I laughed at the thought of an “incense-smelling” young girl.

Isn’t it strange that Meriken girls love the church?

Is it because they cannot marry without it?

Sunday amusement doesn’t begin before noon. What would girls do if there were no church where they could burst into song?

How classically the bald head of the minister shone!

There is nothing more pleasing than a sweeping sermon on a bright day.

But my mind strayed, wondering why all those ladies were so homely.

I snatched my hat off, wishing to be different from the rest.

I fancied the reason why their hats were eternally glued to their heads was because their hair was never in first-rate order for exhibition.

Many years ago I used to steal into a Buddha temple, being a little “otenba,” and tap an idol’s shoulder, saying: “How are you getting along, Hotoke Sama?”

Not one idol here!

No incense!

How uninteresting!

How silly I was inventing some clever thing for the occasion when I should be forced to confess! The church was not Catholic.

When we returned home, Mrs. Schuyler asked me what was the text.

“Let me see——”

I made as if I had been a listener to the sermon.

“Dear Mrs. Schuyler, what was it?” I exclaimed as if I had accidentally forgotten.

19th—Miss Olive offered to show me how to play golf.

I went to her home at Pasadena.

Pasadena is a luxurious Winter resort of cheerful aspect.

Its water is blessed.

Even the street cars run like a well-bred gentleman. The dog never growls around. It only wags its tail. No beggars.

America’s outdoor diversion demands a great deal of strength.

What an imbecile “anego!”

After fifteen minutes I found two bean-like blisters on each palm.

I gave up the game.

I bought a golf outfit, nevertheless, in a store on my way home. The sight of a lady carrying it once stamped itself on my mind as so charming.

What attire would be becoming to me?

I said that my waist should be of deep red wool. Skirt? It must also be of wool, of course, with a large checkerboard pattern. Silk isn’t gamesome, is it? And the hat should be a mouse-coloured felt, which must be thrust carelessly by my big gold pin with a coral head.

I well-nigh decided to dye my hair red.

What will my uncle say?

20th—Schuyler’s cook wasn’t acquainted with the art of rice-cooking.

Mother Schuyler said explanatorily that she had never tasted properly cooked rice since the day at Yokohama.

The rice was pasty.

I thought I would boil the rice according to Japanese prescription for to-day’s dinner.

I stepped down to the kitchen.

I put three cupfuls of rice in a saucepan, and dipped my hand in it, and supplied water as much as to my wrist.

I placed it on the splendid fire till the agitated water pushed up the lid. Then I moved it on to a gentle fire. The cooking was done after twenty minutes.

I was honoured by everybody at the dinner. The rice was singularly fine. The grains kept their own perfect shapes.

After the dinner I approached Mrs. Schuyler with ink and paper.

“Will you write your recommendation of my rice-cooking?” I said.

She gazed at me questioningly.

“What a funny girl! What shall I say?”

Then I dictated solemnly thus:

“_To whom it may concern:_

“I highly recommend Miss Morning Glory with her honourable art of rice-cooking. Her method is Japanese, that is to say, the best in the world.

MRS. SCHUYLER”

21st:—Without a nephew Mother Schuyler wouldn’t be a complete old dear.

She has one fortunately.

Olive San told me a whole lot about her great brother.

He is a promising artist.

Artist?

Doesn’t an artist affect boorish hair? I was anxious to know how his hair was, because I hated anything long except a frock-coat.

Miss Olive declared him one handsome boy. (I thought how ridiculous is the American girl to praise her brother. It is Japanese etiquette to undervalue one’s relatives in describing them.)

I finished my imaginary sketch of his face before we intruded in his studio.

Olive presented me to him.

He was a comely young man.

What gratified me most about him was his shapely shoes, well-polished.

He knew how to talk with girls.

I was instantly put on unceremonious terms.

How beautifully he once slipped “Miss” in addressing me! His gracefully-sounding “Pardon me, I mean Miss Morning Glory!” pleased me enormously.

I told him that it was a regular humbug to be particular.

“I will call you Oscar, shall I?” I said, winking.

I felt some fervid water oozing down my cheeks. I was blushing.

I was glad that he was not Mr. Ellis, Jr. The word “Jr.” appears to me like a ragged papa’s old coat which is dreadfully out of fashion.

“Will you let me paint you?” he requested.

“Am I beautiful enough, do you think?” I said, dropping my eyelids.

“Only too charming!” he said bravely.

I always think every gentleman whom I meet falls in love with me.

I regarded Mr. Oscar Ellis already as an adorer.

O sentimental Morning Glory!

When I returned to Schuyler’s my mind was completely occupied with an absurd fancy.

I was thinking what I shall do when he proposes to me. Shall I say yes?

For a girl to fall in love with one while she is staying at his aunt’s isn’t romantic a bit, is it?

I don’t care, anyhow, for an artist lover.

It is a worn-out hero in old fiction.

Doesn’t the word “artist” ring like a synonym for poverty?

22nd—Mrs. Ellis invited me to dinner.

I went to Pasadena with Mrs. Schuyler, Jr.

The evening was fragrant.

After the dinner we stepped out to the garden. It was dusky.

By and by, twenty Japanese lanterns were candled among the trees in my honor.

I was in a sprightly bent.

I was whispering a little Jap song, when Oscar led out two donkeys.

Olive sprang upon the back of one in gracious audacity.

“Jump, Morning Glory!” she exclaimed.

I was wavering about my action, when I felt Oscar’s firm arms around my waist. My small body was lifted on to the donkey’s by his careless gallantry.

What a sensation ran through me! It was the first occasion to put me into so close contact with a Meriken young man.

My skirt was caught by the saddle. I made a whole exhibition of my leg.

But I was glad the stocking was beautiful.

Oscar held my bridle, pacing by my side.

Alas!

My donkey acted awfully.

Did he take it as a degradation to be whipped by a Jap?

Suddenly it dropped its honourable rump. I should have been pitifully thrown out, if my arm had not seized Oscar’s neck. I looked apologetically at him. He turned his delighted face.

I could not stay a minute longer.

When I got me off from the donkey, I observed the new moon over my right shoulder.

“Good luck!” Olive San said.

Why?

Mr. Oscar began to whistle somewhat as follows:

“Ho pop pop pop, ho pop pop pa!”

23rd—To-day is Mrs. Schuyler’s reception day.

She set two Japanese screens in the drawing room, moving them from her chamber. She sprinkled a great lot of exotic bric-a-bric about.

She opened a regular Chinese bazar which expressed every poor taste. Such confusion!

I fancied she wanted the callers to recollect that she was Mrs. Ex-Consul of the Orient.

Japan teaches nothing but simplicity. Simplicity is the philosophy of art.

I wondered how she lived there without learning it.

Every inch of Schuyler’s parlour means a heap of money.

But is there anything more displeasing than tasteless luxury? Sufficiency is grateful, but superfluity is nothing but offence.

I thought that Americans buy things because they love to buy, not because they have to buy.

Meriken jin has to study the high art of concealing.

The brown people look upon the scattering of things (however costly they be) as lower than barbarity. Japs believe in the sublimity of space.

Isn’t it delightful to sit on the new matting of a Japanese guest-room? Its fresh whiteness used to cure my headache.

Isn’t it taste to place just one seasonable picture on the tokonoma?

So many a Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Smith called.

They surrounded me.

I asked myself whether they paid a visit to Mother Schuyler or to me.

They incessantly threw the following questions at me:

“How do you like America?”

“How long do you expect to stay?”

Such an inquisitive Meriken woman!

I wished I had been bright enough to print a slip with my reply.

Each lady wore four rings at least.

Are they real things?

Diamond is hardly my choice. Haughtily cold, isn’t it?

I declared that their shapeless fingers were not fit to show without embellishment.

If I had money for a ring I would use it for 365 pairs of silk stockings. Isn’t it a joy to change every day?

Schuyler’s baby made a hit with its kimono.

All the ladies kissed and kissed.

The baby wondered at their act, rolling its eyes.

Mother Schuyler was quite fussy with a little speech about the history of its Japanese gown.

Funny old dear!

24th—Mr. Oscar Ellis came to paint me.

Dear Oscar!

I have never before left my face alone for such a close scrutiny.

I was restless at first, fancying that he was gathering all my flaws.

Then it happened in my thought that his absorption had something of religious devotion in it.

I grew easy.

I began to feel like a star with all the admirers in the earth.

A garden tree sent its shadow through the window. The time passed as gracefully as a fairy on tiptoe. The air was purple.

Oscar San chatted freely.

I never took the part of a listener before in my life. I found listening honourable.

“So you like the Oriental woman?” I said.

He said American beauty was rather external, like a street shop window. He would like to know, he said, if there was any word more pathetic than “sayonara.”

“Isn’t the Japanese woman like it?” he asked.

I thought he was correct.

He continued:

“I read in a modern poet the following lines:

‘ .... full of whispers and of shadows, Thou art what all the winds have uttered not, What the still night suggesteth to the heart.’

Such is the vague Japanese beauty in my idea.”

“I am not so nobly sweet, am I?” I exclaimed.

He cast a strong look, as if he were trying to put his final judgment upon me.

He moved his brush slowly on the canvas.

I bowed a profound bow.

“Gomen kudasai!” I said.

And I laid me on the floor, stretching out my legs.

25th—I bought two dolls.

One for Schuyler’s baby, as my Christmas gift.

I slept with the other last night. I squeezed my ear to the dolly, fancying I might hear a few scratches of human voice. I kissed it. I laughed, saying that the doll was the thing for my starting to learn how to kiss.

“Sleep till mamma comes back, darling!” I said in the morning when I stepped down for my breakfast.

I left the table before I had half-finished, on account of my anxiety lest the upstairs girl might tattle of my childishness, if she found the doll in my bed.

Thank Heavens!

The girl hadn’t come around yet.

I locked it up in my trunk.

What name shall I give it?

Charley?

I was disgusted at the thought, because every Chinee—ten thousand Mongols in all—is named one Charley.

Merry Christmas, all of you!

26th—It rained.

I implored Mother Schuyler to select a book from her library.

All the literature was packed in there, beginning with Socrates, sane as a silver dollar.

Every book was without finger-marks. Book without finger-mark is like bread without brown crust. Dear finger-mark!

The fashion is to buy books and to glance at their covers, I suppose, but not to read them. Modern publications aren’t meant to be read, are they? The authors have degenerated to the place of upholsterers. Isn’t it a shame?

Mrs. Schuyler picked out for me “Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.”

My uncle said: “American woman can’t keep away from Omar and chicken-salad.”

I began to peruse it.

The raindrops by my window tuned:

“Tap, tap, tip, tap, tap!”

I thumped the book on the floor, and exclaimed:

“Mr. Khayyam!”

Rubaiyat is a menace against civilisation.

Americanism is nothing but the delight in life and the world.

I wonder why the wise government of Washington does not oppose its pagan circulation.

It is leprosy.

But I thought how truly true was his “I came like Water, and like Wind I go.”

I took up the book and opened it again.

Then I shut it.

I listened to the “Tap, tap, tip!”

Doesn’t it sound like a wan voice of Omar?

Yes!

27th—A lady whom I met at Mrs. Schuyler’s reception sent me a mass of distinguished roses.

Loving American!

I said I would arrange them in Japanese cult.

My style is the enshin.

Amerikey is destitute of flowers.

Nippon is known as a paradise of botanists. The “scientists” of flower decoration (if I may call them so) are given a great advantage in their craft of delineating beauty.

The rose is not much of a flower to the Jap mind.

They never employ it in their work. It has no grace of line. Its perfume cannot indemnify for its being thorny. Things not qualified to convey charm are declined from the tokonama.

I love roses awfully well myself.

I will make the best of them in my art.

Is there any proper vase in Schuyler’s house?

Mother Schuyler fetched me two pieces.

One was a silver vase and the other a china one.

I couldn’t use them, I was sorry. Silver was commercial-looking. The painting on the china a hodge-podge of a joss house.

Then I was seized with a thought.

I ran down to the kitchen.

I borrowed an old scrubbing bucket.

“Such a soft antique hue!” I exclaimed with delight.

I elected one imperial rose and one little one for a “retainer.”

I fixed them in the bucket.

I thought it was verily the simplicity of the illustrious Mr. Rikiu.

I presented the rest of the roses to Mrs. Schuyler, Jr.

She stared at the bucket without a word. I knew that her silence was the most forcible irony. She didn’t approve of setting such a bucket on the table.

“Meriken jins don’t know any art!” I said, when she left.

My uncle begged me not to act so fantastically.

28th—“Here’s a shamisen, Morning Glory!” Mother Schuyler cried from the hall.

I darted out of my room.

“Well!” I exclaimed.

Shamisen?

It is a three-stringed guitar of Japan.

Mr. Schuyler, Jr., had sent it from Yokohama, as she explained.

She wished me to tinkle a little gamboling music in the parlour before dinner.

It is a hard implement to handle. It has no notation. Attainment is through unending blind practice.

I was compelled to learn by mother, many a year ago, but I soon gave it up for an English spelling-book.

But I daresay I can play.

I regulated the key to begin with.

“Ting, ting! Chang, Chang, ting!”

“What to hum, Uncle?” I asked, facing aside.

“Love ditty is desirable,” Oji San considered.

“Don’t fancy me a geisha!” I said in defending laughter.

Then I murmured an old hauta, “Haori kakushite,” which was Englished by some one.

“She hid his coat, She plucked his sleeve, ‘To-day you cannot go! To-day, at least, you will not leave, The heart that loves you so!’ The mado she undid And back the shoji slid: And clinging cried, ‘Dear Lord, perceive The whole world is snow!’”

29th—We went to a theatre last evening.

Dear, classical “flower path”!

How I missed it in the Meriken stage!

Flower path?

It is a projection into the auditorium used to represent when one starts out of the house or returns.

So the American stage has no front gate scene! Every one enters very likely from the kitchen door.

The stage never turns round like the Japanese stage.

Oh, dear, iyadawa!

American play has too much kissing. Each time I was electrified.

The pit was filled with a well-behaved throng. All the ladies took off their hats. Do they pay more respect than in church? The gentlemen never whiffed smoke.

Japan theatre is a hurly-burly.

The “boys” roar up “Honourable tea—O’cha wa yoroshi? Honourable cake?” The attendants of tea houses bow around to the beneficent habitues, like inclining puppets.

Women sob. They laugh, stuffing their sleeves into their mouths. They are ready to put themselves in the play. They are sentimental.

Meriken women place themselves above the play.

I doubted whether they were criticising or enjoying.

Some lady even used a spy-glass to examine the face of a player.

I thought it decidedly an impertinence.

What a pry!

I will not act to such an assembly, if I ever happen to be an actress.

What was the title of the play?

I could hardly understand half of it.

I tried hard to swallow my gape.

30th—Mr. Oscar Ellis came to put the finishing touch to my picture.

The execution was subtle sureness.

He said that he would offer it to his beloved aunty—Mother Schuyler, of course—begging to let it ornament the wall of my room.

My room?

It is “my room” for a few days yet.

I thought it exceedingly sweet.

The wall is duskily red. The effect would be superb.

When I announced to him that our leave would take place on the approaching fourth, he started as if he had received a stroke.

“So soon?” he said.

“Yes,” I said, turning my uneasy face.

“We are only beginning to understand each other.”

“I am a bird of passage, as you know. I have to fly on my road.”

The air grew tragic.

Then Oscar said:

“What will you do when you tire of flying?”

“Sah!”

“Well?”

“I’ll return to Los Angeles and induce you to marry me with my honourable Oriental oratory. Will that do?”

We interchanged our nimble look. We laughed afterward.

After he left Schuyler’s, I said to myself that I would not mind positively if he would kiss me. The kiss must be on my brow, however. Lips are too personal.

I wrote a note, beseeching him not to forget to kiss me at my farewell.

Then I chewed the note.

I reviled my folly.

31st—Street walking is a delight.

I’ll mirror my face in the glass of the shop windows ambling by.

I dropped a handkerchief to-day.

A gentle gentleman—man behind me should be young and good looking always—picked it up. His respectful “Pardon me—” made me feel as if I were living in the silver-armoured age of chivalry.

Shall I drop something again?

I observed a variety of form in raising the skirt.

One lifted a bit of the left by her finger-tips. Another pulled up the right edge of her front. Another clinched out the centre of her back, showing a significant fist. A corpulent one stepped, holding up both sides of her front. The miserable underskirt revealed itself in red.

Which mode is becoming to me?

Jan. 1st, 1900—Is to-day the opening of another century?

Happy New Year!

I will send a lot of “Shinnen omedeto” to Tokio.

Isn’t this a queer New Year?

No shimenawa along the façades with flitting gohei!

No “gate pine tree”!

No sambow for an oblation unto the gods in any room!

No rice-bread! No golden toso for the cup!

I mingled with a neighbour’s girls for a “rope-jumping.”

We played hide-and-seek. I offered ten cents reward to the one who detected me. I abandoned the unprofitable job after emptying out all my change.

Miss Olive called on a bicycle.

I persuaded her to let me try on her bloomers. She exchanged them for my walking skirt which was four inches shorter.

We hurried to the garden.

She helped me on the wheel.

Such a bad Meriken girl!

She slipped her hand from it. I fell on a bush. The touchy rose thorned in my hand.

2nd—I made a discovery.

Mother Schuyler’s teeth are all false.

I have no chance to explore whether her hair is a wig.

She chains a big bunch of keys to her waist. Its rattle sounds housewifely.

She forgot it, laying it on the sitting-room table.

I knotted it to my waist-strap.

I jiggled it.

“Jaran, jaring, jaran, jaran!”

3rd—The sayonara dinner was given. Mrs. Ellis’ folks joined us.

Mother Schuyler repeated every ten minutes her query, “when would I visit them again?”

Mr. Oscar set his depressive look on me. I wasn’t brave enough to encounter it.

I slid away from confronting him.

I found him an elegant young man. He impressed me as an image of Apollo.

Only God knows when I will reprint my footsteps on the soil of Los Angeles!

I felt awfully sorry in leaving such an agreeable company.

“Fold your tent like the Arabs, And silently steal away.”

How sad!

4th—Good-bye, Mr. Parrot!

SAN FRANCISCO, 5th.

I am again at Mrs. Willis’.

San Francisco!

Such miraculous San Francisco water!

I will taste bliss again in drinking the midnight water, stretching out my arm from the bed.

6th—I tied Dorothy’s hair in Nippon style.

She pleased me much by remembering the Japanese words I taught her.

She is a cute dear.

The mode had been the “O’tabaco bon.”

I straightened her hair with my wet hand.

I added a tiny bit of crimson crape.

She looked a lovely fairy.

7th—Rainy day!

The heavily reserved weather confines me in the pose of genius.

My hair lounged down my shoulders. Disorder is the first step in being a genius, I fancy. My eyes should be rolled up to the sky in divine tragicalness.

I have had a greediness for the name of novelist.

To-day I found myself in the crisis where I must scribble or die.

I regret to say that mine is a love story also, as every beginner’s book has been. I hope everybody will be contented with “The Destiny,” a respectable title for my fiction. Who says it is the style of name employed one hundred years ago?

The book will be concluded with three hundred pages.

Now I wonder whether a long story is in demand.

Chapter I, is as follows:

WHEN THE MOON ROSE.

This story begins when the moon rose.

Its silvery rays—it was six P.M. of April—fell on the Shiba park in laughter.

My heroine jogged along into the park, singing a light song.

“Miss Honourable Moon, how old are you? Thirteen and seven, you say? You are young enough to marry——”

Let me explain about her a bit!

Her name is O Hana San.

Thirteen years old. Thirteen? It is the age when the flower of girlhood starts to bloom.

Bewitching Hana!

Do you remember a well by the glorious cherry tree in the park? The ’rikisha men moisten their parched lips at the “Heaven-Sent.” That is its name, sir.

Miss Hana looked down into the well.

She began to adjust her hair. The first worry of a girl after thirteen would naturally be about her hair.

She gazed up to the cherry blossoms and exclaimed:

“Utsukushii nah! Lovely!”

Then she found her face again in the well-mirror, thinking what a charming O Hana San it would make with the flowers on her hair.

My worthy readers, I suppose it is the time some one must enter.

He came.

He was a little boy.

I will not mention his name just yet.

He came close to her and pinched her little back. Both blushed, facing each other. They were quite strangers.

The evening zephyrs stirred the cherry blossoms. They planted themselves silently among the falling petals, as ethereal as snow.

“I delight to stand in the storm of petals, don’t you?” Hana inclined her head a trifle in speaking.

The woman always speaks first.

“Let me see your school book!” again she said.

“Why?”

He put it in her tiny hand.

“Thanks! Arigato!”

She bowed low. When she put the book on her shoulder, she was running away, singing:

“Miss Honourable Moon, how old are you?”

The boy stood aghast.