Kakemono

It lay on the matted floor, a little brown thing that cried, and Yoné sat on her heels and looked at it.

Huddled over the brazier in the corner, her skinny hands stretched out to clutch the warmth from the sticks of glowing charcoal, the old grandmother dozed and grumbled.

And Yoné did not move. The Ijin San for whom she worked had told her she ought to take care of her dead daughter’s child and bring it up; but Yoné’s conscience, the conscience of her race, the inherited upbringing of her dead fathers, made her instinctively turn towards the O Bā San in the corner. She could not feed two mouths. Life was hard for Yoné; and the O Bā San had a good appetite though she was so old.

So Yoné sat on her heels and sullenly listened to the quavering wail without moving.

“If the gods wanted the child to live, why had they let its mother die? Why had its father divorced the little wife ‘for temper’ before the baby was born? It was Fate. And after all the baby was very small and ugly, a little, cross sickly thing that cried. No, it had much better die, much better.”

And Yoné got up, and went to get ready the evening rice for the O Bā San. As she did so the shadow of the Ijin San herself fell across the floor, and her voice, in very English Japanese, asked after the baby. Yoné was down on her knees in a moment, drawing in her breath through her teeth in long whistles of politeness.

“The baby was not well, as the Ijin San could see. It did nothing but cry; and after all what was the use? It had much better die.”

The Ijin San sat down on the little platform, the shōji pushed back between her and the room, in consternation. After all she had said the day before, all she had urged, Yoné still clung to that awful idea. The Ijin San had a shrewd suspicion that the old lady in the corner had something to do with Yoné’s idea “it was better baby die.” It would be quite easy for “baby to die” too, and that without much active doing on Yoné’s part. So she sat there perplexed, the baby cuddled up in her arms. Moral persuasions she had tried, and appeals to Yoné’s conscience, her love for her dead daughter, her duty—all in vain. And she looked down at the queer little atom in its bright red kimono, with the wide flapping sleeves, wondering whether it would look quite so odd dressed like other babies, her own for instance, and she smiled. It was a last chance any way.

“Yoné,” she said, holding up the baby. “How would you like to see him dressed like the Bot’chan.”

“Hē,” cried Yoné, turning round, her vanity awake in a moment.

“Well, if you’ll take care of him, I’ll dress him in foreign clothes, and he’ll look just like the Bot’chan.”

Yoné’s strangled “h’s” of admiration grew deeper and deeper. Her admiration for the Ijin San’s Bot’chan knew no bounds; and then the pride of having a foreign-dressed baby of her own! Why, not one of her acquaintances, not even the rich saké merchant at the corner, dressed their children “foreign fashion.” It was a height beyond their ambition, a dizzy pinnacle only reached by the samurai and the Court! And Yoné’s strangled “h’s” of admiration and her indrawn whistles of politeness knew no bounds. Even the O Bā San in the corner turned her head round and showed some signs of interest. And the baby stopped its feeble cry and lay back on the Ijin San’s lap—and smiled.

With a sudden swoop Yoné caught it up. “I take care, I take care,” she said, “let the Ijin San bring the clothes.”

And from that day she went about her work with the quaintest little brown morsel in a foreign pelisse and a white bonnet nodding over her shoulder. And neither the O Bā San nor the baby ever went hungry whatever Yoné might do.