Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice

“ Though I am poor, I live like a gentleman. See, I have a bed and chairs and a table!"
June looked about the shabby crowded room, at the dusty flag of France that was draped over the window, at the map of France that was pinned on the wall beside the bed, at the cheap pictures and ornaments and the soiled curtains, then he remembered Seki San's room, clean and sweet and airy with nothing in it but a vase of flowers. ”

“ At every station a crowd of curious faces gathered about the car window eager to catch a glimpse of the little foreign boy, and June, always ready to make friends, smiled at them and bobbed his head, which made the boys and girls look at each other and laugh.
"We bow with our whole self, so," Seki explained, putting her hands on her knees and bending her body very low, "and we never shake with the hands nor kiss together!"
"Don't the mothers ever kiss the children good-night?" asked June incredulously. ”

“ Since then June had sat at a front window too engrossed to speak. Just below him lay the Bund or sea-road, with the wall beyond where the white waves broke in a merry splash and then fell back to the blue water below. Out in the harbor there were big black merchant steamers, and white men-of-war, there were fishing schooners, and sampans with wobbly, crooked oars. But the street below was too fascinating to see much beyond it. Jinrikishas were coming and going with passengers from the steamers and the coolies laughed and shouted to each other in passing. ”

“ After Seki had put out the light and joined the rest of the family in the garden, June would lie very still and the thoughts that had been crowded down in the bottom of his heart all day would come creeping up and whisper to him. "Mother is a long way off; suppose she has gotten lost and never comes back again. Perhaps I haven't got a father any more, maybe the soldiers have put him in the ground as they did Teddy's papa. Suppose I have to live here always and grow up to be a Japanese man, and never see the ranch in California nor my pony any more?" ”

“ But when June picked himself up and turned about, he found a very curious looking man sitting up glaring at him. He had a long pointed nose, and fierce little eyes that glowed like red hot cinders, and a drooping white mustache so long that it almost touched the lapels of his shabby French uniform. ”

“ Sometimes when they were very good, Seki San would get permission for them to play in the daimyo's garden and those days were red-letter days for June. The garden was very old and very sacred to the Japanese, for in long years past it had belonged to an old feudal lord, and now it was the property of the Emperor.
[pg 28] From the first June had cherished a secret belief that somewhere in its leafy bowers he would come across the Sleeping Beauty. It was all so old and so still that even the breezes whispered as they softly stirred the tree-tops. ”

“ The paper was soft and thin and took the ink like blotting paper. June watched with dismay as the lines spread into ugly blots, and when he tried to make the letters plainer he only made the blots bigger until they all seemed to join hands and go dancing over the envelope in fiendish glee at his discomfort. ”

“ June had never felt so important in his life. To be going out all by himself in a jinrikisha was quite like being grown up. The only thing lacking to make him quite happy was a pair of reins that he might [pg 65] imagine he was driving a horse instead of a little brown man with fat bare legs and a big mushroom hat who looked around every few moments to see if he was falling out.
They trotted along the sunny streets, passing the temple grounds where the green and red Nio made ugly faces all the day, and where the greedy pigeons were waiting for more corn. ”

“ He is not a good man, I made mistakes in letting you go."
"He is a good man!" cried June indignantly, "he told me stories, and gave me lots of things."
"I tell you 'bout him, June," said Seki San. "One time Monsieur very skilful smart man in Tokyo. He write pictures of the forts and show the Japanese how to find coast in time of war. He know more plenty than anybody about the coast and the mines. Then he is not behave right, and get sent out of the service, and he get sick in the hands so he can make no more maps, and he come down here and live all alone by himself. ”

“ All times he think it over to himself how he can serve his parents. One night the wind blow up from the south and bring a thousand hundred ka, mosquito you [pg 45] call him, and they bite very much. So good little boy takes off all his clothes and lies at the door of his house so mosquitoes bite him and get so full of boy that they have not room more for father and mother." At which point June would never fail to laugh with delight, and Seki would look hurt and puzzled and say, "Not funny, June, very fine, kind, and noble of good little boy." ”

“ And Seki had laughed and told the others and everybody laughed until June thought he had been impolite.
"I like it," he hastened to add, "it's the nicest house I ever was in, 'cause, don't you see, there isn't anything to break."
It was quite wonderful to see how easily one can get along without furniture. After one has sat on his heels, and slept on the floor and eaten off a tiny table no bigger than a footstool, it seems the most sensible thing in the world. June did hang up one picture and that was a photograph of his mother. ”

“ The whole world seemed strange and unfriendly, and even the sun tried to see how hot it could glare down on June's bare head.
When he reached the parade ground, he stopped to rest, but no sooner had he sat down than a circle gathered around him, two jinrikisha men, four boys, a girl with a baby on her back and an old fish woman. There was no chatter, they were all too interested to talk, they just stood and looked and looked until June felt that their eyes were pins and that he was the cushion. After a while he turned to one of the men and said: "Do you know where Monsieur Carré lives?" ”

“ When they first boarded the train, June [pg 15] had sat very quiet. If you wink fast and swallow all the time, you can keep the tears back, but it does not make you feel any better inside.
"If God has got to take somebody," June said at length gloomily, "I think He might take one of my grandmothers. I have got four but one of them is an old maid."
"Oh no," said Seki, "she isn't."
"She is," persisted June, "she keeps every thing put away in little boxes and won't let me play with them. Seki, do you guess God would jes' as lieve for me to have a horn as a harp when I go to Heaven? ”

“ Tanaka had gone to take a bath after his warm run and to drink tea at the little tea-house across the road.
Monsieur lay propped up in bed with his bandaged hands lying helpless on the cover-lid. But his eyes were soft and kind, and he had so many interesting things to talk about that June found him a most entertaining host. After he had shown June his sword and told a wonderful story about it, he returned to the goldfish.
"Alas, there are but twenty-one now," he sighed. "Napoleon Bonaparte died on Sunday. Have you seen the Grand Monarch? He is the great shining fellow in the crystal bowl. ”

“ Tomi very bad little dog, makes a cross bark at all big peoples, but loves little children. When Tomi very little his nose stick out, so—Japanese think it very ugly for little pug-dog's nose to stick out, so we push [pg 22] it in easy every day. Now Tomi has nice flat nose, but he sneeze all the time so—kerchoo, kerchoo, kerchoo."
June laughed at the familiar story, but suddenly he sobered:
"Say, Seki, I don't think it was very nice to push his nose in; I wouldn't like to have my nose pushed in so I would have to sneeze all the rest of my life." ”

“ Seki San smilingly shook her head.
"It's a matsuri, a festival," she explained; "this is the boys' day and wherever a boy live, they put out a big paper fish with round mouth open so——, and when the wind flow in, the fish grow big and fat and make like swim in the air."
"'It's a Matsuri—a festival,' Seki explained."
"But why do they put out fishes?" persisted June.
"'Tis the carp fish," said Seki San, "because [pg 51] the carp very strong and brave, he swim against the current, fight his way up the waterfall, not afraid of the very bad discouragings, like good boy should be." ”

“ Monsieur's eyes flashed suspiciously. "Who's waiting?" he asked.
"Toro, he is Seki's brother, he knows how to build awful nice houses and blockades too."
"Blockades?" repeated Monsieur, "what kind of blockades?"
"Like the soldiers make, we watch them all the time; come on, I will show you."
The two made their way down the steps slowly, for Monsieur could go only a little way at a time. Toro looked mildly surprised when June came back with a companion, but he did not give a second glance at Monsieur, who was evidently a familiar figure about the town. ”

“ My prince who found the Sleeping Beauty." Then he began to laugh so hard that it started up all his rheumatic pains, and he had to sink back and rest before he could speak again. "I am very bad since I saw you last," he said; "these dogs of Japanese will let me die here. One day in France will make me well. I may have it yet—I must get back some way—some way!" His eyes looked excitedly over June's head out into space as if trying to span the miles that lay between him and his beloved country.
[pg 59] "My papa will take you home when he comes," said June; "he's a soldier." ”

“ It was a terrible trial to June not to be able to ask questions. He was brimful of curiosity and everything he saw and heard had a dozen questions hanging to it. Usually Seki San supplied the answers but to-day Toro was in command, and while he was a very careful little guide, keeping tight hold of June's hand, pointing out all the interesting sights, and trying to explain by sign and gesture, still he did not know a single word of English.
After passing through many gay streets they came to a tall red gate which June had [pg 53] come to recognize as the entrance to sacred ground. ”

“ Climbing up on the stone he fingered the pebbles that filled Jizo's lap, and touched the red cotton bib that was tied about his neck. He knew what it all meant for Seki San had told him many times. Jizo was the guardian of dead children, and the red bib and the pebbles had been placed there by mothers who wanted the kind god to look after their little babies who had passed away into another world. There were hundreds of pebbles about the statue, in its lap, about its hands and feet, [pg 99] and even on its bald head, and June was very careful not to disturb any of them. ”

“ Go home? Mon Dieu, do you suppose there is a waking hour that I am not thinking, longing, praying to be back in France? Do you suppose I have left any stone unturned? Any plan unmade that might take me away from this hateful place? ”

“ The life, interesting as it was, might have proven lonely, had it not been for Seki's younger brother, Toro, who was two years older than June. Although neither could understand a word the other said, yet a very great friendship had sprung up between them. "We understand just like dogs," June explained to Seki San. ”

“ He had written many letters to his mother and father, but always in pencil, and Seki hesitated about giving him ink.
She said: "Our ink not like your American ink, live and quick as water, it hard like paint. We not use pen, but brush like which you write pictures. I sink it more better you use pencil."
But June insisted and when he gained his point, he carried the small box into the garden and took out his letter. The jar containing his goldfish was close by, so he dipped his stick of paint into the water and rubbed it vigorously on the paint box. ”

“ I want a presser horn like they have in the band."
"But you will not go for many long times!" cried Seki, catching his hand as if he were about to slip away. "Look out of the window. See! They are giving the cow a bath!"
In a field nearby an old man and woman were scrubbing a patient-looking cow, and when the creature pulled its head away and [pg 16] cried because it did not want to get its face washed, June laughed with glee. After all, one could not be unhappy very long when every minute something funny or interesting was happening. ”

“ These are our Nio or temple guardians that frighten away the evil, bad spirits."
"What makes the pilgrims throw at them, then?" asked June.
[pg 56] "They throw prayers," answered Seki San very seriously, "they buy paper prayers from the old man at the gate, and throw them through the grating. If the prayer sticks, it is answered, if it falls down it is not answered. Come, I will show you!"
They went very close, and looked through the bars; there on the grating, on the floor and even on the ceiling above them were masses of tiny paper wads, the unanswered prayers of departed thousands. ”

“ He wished he had something to give the good god, but he was too tired to go down and look for a pebble. He searched through his pockets but nothing seemed to suit. Finally he separated one object from the rest, and placed it gently in Jizo's upturned hand. It was the old sword hilt that Monsieur had given him. ”

“ June's father was a young army officer stationed in the Philippines. June was born there but when still a baby he had been desperately ill and the doctor had sent him back to the States and said he must not return for many years. It was a great grief to them all that they had to be separated, but Capt. Royston had gotten two leaves of absence and come home to them, and now this summer June and his mother had come all the way from California to meet him in Japan. ”