Although Jack's escapade was the talk of the hour, the excitement it brought died away in a day or two, while Jean's experiences continued to be discussed for a longer time. Every now and then would crop up something funny or, at least, interesting, which she had to tell about.
"I found out why the people here make such a noise in that piggy way when they eat," she told her family. "It is to show appreciation of your food. It is particularly desirable to do it when you are dining out, the more succulent the sound the more polite."
"Oh, Jean," protested Mary Lee.
"It is a fact, really it is. Ko-yeda told me and I noticed it myself."
"Let's all do that way the next time we go over to Jo's," proposed Jack. "She won't know what to make of it, but after a while we will tell her it is a custom we learned in Japan."
The girls laughed and agreed to try it. "Poor old Jo," said Jean. "She is out of it this time. I really miss her once in a while. She has always been around when we were having our good times."
"Don't you believe but that she would a thousand times rather be where she is." Nan spoke with conviction.
"I wonder if I shall feel like that ever," said Jack thoughtfully. "I can't imagine myself so devoted to a husband as Jo is to Dr. Paul."
"I wouldn't trust you," returned Jean. "You will quite as likely outdo her in your abject devotion."
"I hope I shall at least not be abject," retorted Jack stiffly. "That is one thing I shall not care to learn from the Japanese."
"Is Mrs. Sannomiya abject?" inquired Eleanor.
"Well, she is a little bit, but I have seen American women with big bullies of husbands quite as much so," Jean replied. "Not that Mr. Sannomiya is a bully, far from it, but I suppose it is the Japanese woman's prerogative to be humble as it is the man's to be lordly. The girls are all trained from the beginning to be meek and gentle, to exercise self-control under all circumstances, to smile and be agreeable no matter how mad they feel inside."
"Humph!" ejaculated Jack. "I'd like to see me."
"You would have to if you were a Japanese," insisted Jean.
"I think we will leave Jack here for a year in a Japanese household," remarked Mary Lee.
Jack made a face at her. "I'd run away," she said.
"Where?" said Mary Lee teasingly.
"Oh, I would throw myself upon the mercies of the American legation and get the chief to let me marry one of his nice attachés," returned Jack.
Mary Lee did not pursue the subject, but turned to Jean to ask, "Does Ko-yeda do anything about the house?"
"Oh, yes, though there isn't so very much to do; not near so much as in our homes. She always serves tea when there is extra company, and when her father has a particular guest she waits on them, not because there are no servants nor because they don't know how, but because it is considered the thing to serve the two, or three, or whatever number of men with their meal separately, and it is more hospitable and courteous to have it served by one of the ladies of the family."
"That is something the way they do in provincial districts at home," remarked Nan.
"What do the maids do?" inquired Mary Lee.
"Oh, they roll up the beds and store them away for the day in the closets, take down the mosquito nets, sweep and dust the rooms, wash the porches, and the dishes, maybe. The market people come with baskets to the door sometimes. Ko-yeda or her mother or grandmother used to go to the go-down and select what was to be the decoration for the day and one of them spent a long time arranging the flower vases. Then there always seemed to be some kimonos or something to be ripped up or dyed, for they use them over and over while there is anything left of them, and whenever they are washed they must be taken apart."
"Again like the primitive methods of our grandmothers and our thrifty New England women," said Nan.
"Just what class do the Sannomiyas belong to?" asked Mary Lee.
"I think that they must have been in the daimio class," Jean told her, "for they showed me some wonderful embroidered robes that had been in the family for years. I asked Ko-yeda why she didn't wear them, and she said that there was no class distinction nowadays, that the castles were done away with, for Japan is quite democratic."
"What has that to do with the robes?" asked Jack.
"The handsome embroidered robes were worn only by nobility," Jean told her. "The daimios were proud as Lucifer and their establishments in their castles must have been very much like those we read of in old feudal times. I believe there are still very exclusive households who keep up many of the old traditions."
"And the samurai class?" interrogated Nan.
"They were the military who had their special lords, and served them and the Shogun to the death. They were what we might call retainers, and they were the class between the upper nobility and the common people."
"And what were the ronin? Don't you know we are always hearing that tale of the 'Forty-seven Ronin'?"
"They were the masterless samurai, who wandered about, owing no special allegiance to any master."
"Oh, I see. This is all very interesting," declared Nan. "You certainly have learned something from your stay with the Sannomiyas, Jean. Tell us some more. What about the classes below the samurai, the common people, 'po' white trash' as it were?"
"So far as I could learn, the peasant class are called either eta or heimin, though it seems to me that the eta is lower than the heimin, for they are the ones who are considered very unclean, as they slaughter animals, tan skins, and are sometimes beggars."
"But tanners are quite respectable persons at home," put in Jack.
"They are not so here, for the having something to do with dead animals puts them quite without the pale. The samurai would be disgraced if he married into an eta family and would be considered an eta himself, although they maintain that there is no such thing as any difference in class nowadays. Mr. Sannomiya told me, through Ko-yeda as an interpreter, that the samurai despised trade and all that. The merchant class is considered, or used to be so, below the farmers; in fact they were not up to the mechanics, and were very low down in the social scale. That partly explains why there is so much talk of the dishonesty of tradespeople in Japan; it is the lower class who carry on the shops and all that, or so it was. The samurai try to keep to the professions and such employments, for it was formerly thought very low down indeed to barter in any way. All this is passing away, Mr. Sannomiya says, and many of the samurai are going into mercantile life, adopting Western standards and trying to establish a reputation for honest dealing which the merchant class have not always had."
"Did you make any dreadful mistakes?" inquired Jack.
"No, I don't think so. I wasn't quite as bad as the lady who wanted onions for dinner and told the cook to serve up a Shinto priest. The two words are almost the same, only one has a very different meaning from the other. The worst thing I did was to sit in front of the tokonoma when I went in. It was like planting yourself at the right hand of your host without being asked."
"How did you find out it was not the thing to do?" asked Mary Lee.
"I begged Ko-yeda to tell me if I had made any mistake. She was overcome with confusion at the idea of saying anything to the discredit of a guest, but I just insisted and she told me that."
"It was like Nan's taking her seat on the sofa in Germany," remarked Jack.
"Just about the same thing," Jean answered. "I imagine that American free and easy manners often shock the Japanese. Ko-yeda says that when she first came to Rayner Hall she was overwhelmed by the rudeness of American girls, and I can well believe it when you consider her point of view. I think you can set it down as a safe rule that it is well to apologize to a Japanese for anything and everything, that is, if you are using their language."
"Dear me," Jack sighed, "I suppose I have said dreadful things when I have tried to speak the language."
"I haven't a doubt of it," Jean was ready to agree. "When you are speaking of doing anything yourself you must say 'I humbly do thus and so,' but when you speak of another's doing the same thing you must say they do it honorably. If you give a present it is poor and insignificant, but if you accept the same thing it at once becomes magnificent."
"Well, I don't see how a foreigner ever learns," said Jack. "I shall never become a missionary or a teacher or anything that leads me to study the language."
"They insisted upon my entering the bath first," Jean went on, "and I soon saw that it would be very much out of place if I didn't. It may be the family all used the same water; I didn't inquire; I only know that it is the custom, the servants coming last, and they all do it in the frankest way. At the Sannomiyas' they were quite as particular as we would be, but I know it is not always so. The Sannomiyas are becoming quite Americanized. I am sure Ko-yeda has been teaching them our manners and morals. She thinks she may become a teacher; it was with that idea they sent her to us to be educated, but I have a notion that she will marry, though she said she meant to keep on with her studies here."
"Don't you wish she would have a wedding while we are here so we could see how it is done?" said Jack.
"I don't imagine it would be very different from our own ceremony," Jean rejoined, "for you know they are a Christian family, and her father says she shall marry none but a Christian. He is devoted to her and thinks we treat our women so well that she must have the same consideration."
"I am glad he thinks that," said Jack heartily.
This ended the conversation for the moment, for Nan, who had been looking up the attractions, announced that they must certainly see Lake Biwa. "It is the largest," she said, looking up from her guide-book, "and must be very beautiful."
"I heard some interesting things of Fuji," said Jean. "A beautiful goddess is supposed to make her home there. She has such a pretty name, 'The Princess who makes the Trees to Blossom.' I think a great many people think that the mythological stories are wicked because they are those of a false religion, but I really don't think that they ought to be frowned upon any more than those of the Greek heroes."
"I suppose," said Nan reflectively, "that the reason some persons condemn them is because the temples and the old rites are still present, while the Greek ones are a thing of the past."
"Well, they certainly can't hurt us," declared Jack, "and I want to hear them all."
"If you were to do that you would spend most of your time listening, for their name is legion," Jean told her. "I think they are perfectly fascinating, and so are the rites, and many things the people still do. I don't see why we shouldn't study all these things as curiosities, not as a religion."
The rest quite agreed with her and as Nan began to hurry them off, they went to get ready for their trip to Lake Biwa.
This, however, was interrupted in a manner entirely unlooked for. It was decided to take jinrikishas, as the country through which they would go was exceedingly lovely and they could enjoy the journey quite as much as the final view of the great lake. Past palaces and temples, long rows of gray-roofed houses, gay shops, parks and gardens they were carried to where the high hills arose above them on each side. In this warm weather and beyond the limits of the big city, little naked babies, and larger children scarcely clad, rolled about in play in the village streets through which they went. Jack and Nan were in the first jinrikisha, behind them came Jean and Miss Helen, while Mary Lee and Eleanor occupied the third. Mrs. Corner had decided to stay at home being rather afraid of the heat. Generally when the runners gave their call of "Hi! Hi!" the little ones scattered but there was one little youngster who, if hearing, did not heed and was bowled over completely, directly in the path of the runners. These stopped short nearly upsetting Jack and Nan who looked out to see what was the matter.
"What in the world are they jabbering about?" asked Jack looking out. "We seem to have stirred up the community, for, see, the people are coming running."
"We'd better get out," decided Nan, "and see what is wrong."
They suited the action to the word and presently found themselves on the edge of a group where there was much talk and gesticulating going on. The two tall girls could easily see over the heads of the nearest bystanders and discovered that the centre of interest was a small chubby little lad whose plump brown body bore evidences of having been hurt in some way, for blood was streaming from his head and he was quite limp and helpless. A woman was kneeling on the ground holding him while the coolie who had been the unfortunate cause of the accident was squatting near looking most unhappy.
"Oh, dear," cried Jack, "the poor little tot is hurt." She pushed through the crowd and reached the child. "What is the matter?" she asked the runner who knew a few words of English. But his vocabulary was not equal to the occasion and Jack could learn but little. However she made out that the child was hurt, and when the man took him in his arms to carry him to the nearest little cottage, she followed with the rest.
By this time the occupants of the other jinrikishas had alighted and, as one of their runners knew more English than the rest, they were able to get at facts. The little boy had been knocked down, had hit his head against a stone, was slightly stunned but was recovering.
"Where are his parents?" Jack inquired.
"He have none, honorable lady," replied the man addressed, who was the runner speaking English.
"Poor little rabbit!" exclaimed Jack compassionately. She stooped to pick up the little fellow and to set him on her knee where he sat looking at her unblinkingly with his queer little slits of eyes. Whether it was surprise or fear which made him so still she could not tell. She smiled down at him, but not a quiver passed over the little face. Jack took a coin from her purse and put it in his chubby fingers but he only looked at it gravely and made no response.
"He is like a graven image," remarked Jean who stood by. "Did you ever know such immovable gravity?" Presently Mary Lee who wore some flowers in her belt drew them forth and held them out to the little fellow, and then he smiled.
Jack gave him an ecstatic hug. "Isn't he the cunningest ever?" she cried. "I wish we could take him home. I would so love to have him."
"Oh, Jack, what an idea!" exclaimed Jean. "What in the world would you do with him?"
"I'd train him to be a cracker-jack of a servant and when I am married, I would take him into the house and he could live with me always."
"I never heard such nonsense," returned Jean. "I think he is all right. We must go on or we will never get to the lake."
Jack was very unwilling to give up her little brown boy, but knew that she could not keep the entire party there any longer, so after seeking out his proper guardian, who proved to be an aunt by marriage, they gave her some money and went on their way. But all the beauties of the lake and the mountains were of small interest compared to the little naked child they had tumbled over on their way.
Jack talked of little else. She had a baby bee in her bonnet as Nan expressed it and it was like her to become completely possessed with the idea of taking him home, once she had decided that she wanted to. "I am going to talk to mother about it," she declared, "and I am going to hunt up Miss Gresham and get her to come out here again with me to talk to the aunt. No doubt they would be only too glad to get rid of him, for you see they are such a poor looking set of people. We upset him and we ought to do something for him. Besides," she added after using all other arguments, "we could do some missionary work and make a Christian of him, so I am sure it would be worth while."
She was so in earnest that Nan did not laugh, but it was a habit of Jack's to make her duty wait upon her desires, and Nan knew that the missionary spirit was aroused for the occasion.
However, in some way or other Jack did get around her mother to a degree sufficient for her to give consent to a second visit to the village in Miss Gresham's company. Whether Jack had pictured the child's condition as so pitiful as to arouse her mother's commiseration or just how she had managed no one could exactly tell, but sufficient to say that Jack and Miss Gresham did go a day or two after and to the dismay of every one came back with the little lad, whose brown nakedness was covered by clothes fitted to his estate. These Jack had bought, with Miss Gresham's help, and the two had very much enjoyed their mission.
Miss Gresham had a way with children and, knowing Japanese fairly well, could manage the conversation without difficulty. She found that the child had no special claim upon any one. Both his parents were dead. His mother's sister had taken him but she, too, had died and those who now cared for him were no blood relation, but were too charitable to turn him away.
"Miss Gresham says she can keep him at the school as well as not," Jack informed her mother eagerly, "so we need not be bothered with him while we are traveling, and when we are ready to go she can find a way to send or bring him to Nagasaki when we sail for home."
"You seem to have bewitched Miss Gresham completely," said Mrs. Corner.
"She is the nicest kind of missionary lady," returned Jack heartily. "She is so different from my idea of such. Her brother is a medical missionary, and she has been out here ten years. She has been home but once in all that time. She has told me the most interesting things about her work. I shall always be interested in missions after this; I used rather to think them a bore, but after seeing the work in her school, and hearing what has been accomplished by the medical missionaries, I have changed my mind."
The small boy continued to remain under Miss Gresham's care, and was the loadstone which drew all the girls to the mission school more frequently than any one of them could have prophesied. Little Toku was quite placid during this change, the only objection he made being to clothes, which, in the state of the weather, seemed perfectly reasonable to every one. He was serene, well cared for and happy.
"At all events," Jack said to Miss Gresham, "if I can't take him home with me I shall see to it that he is provided for. Nan says she will help me, and I know you will see to it that he is brought up properly."
"I will certainly do that," Miss Gresham promised. "He is a dear, bright little fellow, and the girls all make a great fuss over him. He is the youngest in the school, you see."
"I hope to persuade mother to let us have him," Jack went on, "but if I can't I shall feel a stronger interest in Japan than ever."
And so the small Toku remained at the school while the Corners went on with their sightseeing.
"Time is growing short," said Jack one morning in August, "and we have not seen the Inland Sea nor Kobe nor have we climbed Fuji."
"There is a Japanese proverb which says that there are two kinds of fools," remarked Nan; "one has never climbed Fujisan and the other has climbed it twice."
"Set me down for the first kind," said Jean, "for I don't intend to do any such fool trick as to climb a mountain nearly thirteen thousand feet high."
"If we are going to do a lot of other things, I don't see how any of us are to undertake that stunt," said Eleanor. "I vote we pick out the things we cannot reasonably pass over and then take the leavings as we can."
"Good girl," cried Jack. "That is the ticket. Tell us, Nan, oh, honorable lady of the guide-book, what is it up to us to see?"
Nan spread out her map, propped her two elbows on the table before her and began making investigations while the others chattered away about Fuji, Lake Biwa and other things that had lately interested them.
"I wish I could remember all the stories about Fuji," said Jean looking at her neat note-book. "I know that Biwa is called the Lake of the Lute on account of its shape. There is a legend that tells of its having been formed by the sun-goddess at the time of a great earthquake. The rice-fields of the poor people were all destroyed but in their stead was seen this lake full of fish."
"It was at the same time that Fujisan was formed," Mary Lee went on with the tale. "It has so many pretty poetical names; one is the Mountain of the White Lotus, because it rises, all snowy white, from out the stagnant fields at its base."
"And Japan is called the 'Islands of the Dragon-Fly,'" put in Eleanor; "I wonder why."
"There is a story of that, too," said Jean. "I have it somewhere in my note-book. It was when the god Izanami shook from his spear bits of sand and mud that stayed among the reeds of a watery place and became dry land. It was in the form of a dragon-fly that the dry part spread out and so the god called it the Land of the Dragon-Fly."
"Fuji is called the Holy White Mountain, too," put in Jack.
Here Nan looked up. "I think I have puzzled it out," she announced; "we can go from here to Osake, and then to Kobe. We must see Miyajima and Sakusa; they are so interesting. There is a great tori-i at Miyajima which is fine. They say the beauty of the Inland Sea is beyond anything, so we can stop along its shores and get to Nagasaki in time to sail when we have planned to."
"What is at Susaki, or whatever the name is?" inquired Eleanor.
"It is Sakusa, and it is not very far from Matsue; we ought to go to Matsue, for it is a very old and very interesting city. We could go to Kitzuki from there. Let me see how it would work out." She turned again to her map. "From here to Kobe and then to Matsue. I think we could manage it, but there would be some cross-country going. It would make a tremendously interesting trip. I will see what Aunt Helen says. For my own part I should like the cross-country trip, but perhaps mother wouldn't."
"She might take an easier route and one of us could stay with her," suggested Mary Lee.
"I would be perfectly willing to," spoke up Jean, who loved her ease and was not so keen for variety as to sacrifice comfort to it.
"I don't care a rap about those old stuffy places. Just because they are old doesn't recommend them to me. I would really rather stay in a pleasant bright city and go about in a 'riky when I want to see anything."
"Very well, that lets us out," remarked Jack. "I am in for anything, Nan, the wilder and queerer, the better."
"So am I," responded Eleanor.
"Me, too," put in Mary Lee.
"Then if Aunt Helen will go, we shall be all right," rejoined Nan closing her book with satisfaction.
As a result of all this, Kyoto was left behind and the party turned toward the south. At Kobe they left Jean and her mother while the rest went on to the marvelous temples at Nara, then back to pick up Mrs. Corner and Jean and to travel on along the shores of the beautiful Inland Sea to arrive at last at the sacred island of Miyajima, where a wonderful tori-i rising out of the water appeared mysterious and strangely picturesque under a sunset sky. A little further on, they left Jean and her mother, the others taking the trip across country to the ancient city of Matsue.
"Well, it was something of a jaunt, but I don't believe we shall regret it," said Nan looking from her window upon a fair lake and a range of mountain peaks which made a background for the queer old town. "I am crazy for a short turn about the place, a view of Daisen, which they say is much like Fuji."
"You certainly are enterprising, Nan," said her aunt. "Aren't you tired?"
"A little, but not so much but I can walk more. The city looks quite flat, Aunt Helen, but the hills beyond are beautiful. It was a feudal stronghold until quite modern times and it must still show remnants of its use-to-be-ness. There are three special quarters, the shopkeeping part, the temple and the residence section. There is a great castle, too, about which there are the grimmest kinds of legends. There are ever and ever so many temples. I wonder if we shall have time to see them all."
"Not if we do all the other things your energetic mind has planned."
Miss Helen was quite right, for a fierce typhoon came sweeping up the land that very night, and before it every one trembled and thanked heaven to be under shelter. The day had been so depressingly hot as to be most uncomfortable in the lowlands. By evening all were gasping for breath and then came a queer sensation as if one were unsteadily trying to keep his balance. The girls arose from their beds, groped their way to one another and sat huddled together in Miss Helen's room to which they went with one consent.
"Do you suppose it is an earthquake?" queried Eleanor shakily.
"I shouldn't be at all surprised," returned Miss Helen. "There!" As she exclaimed, the whole house seemed to rock from side to side, then came a sweep and rush of rain, a perfect deluge, which threatened to engulf everybody and everything in its furious attack. There had been much running back and forth before the storm broke. The wooden shutters were secured, the doors bolted. There were weird sounds outside, gusts that went shrieking up the hills, thunderous sounds of lashing waves and roaring streams, heard once in a while between the dashing rain which never ceased. At intervals was felt the alarming tremor which made the girls all huddle closer together with white faces and nervous clutchings of one another's hands.
"There is one thing," whispered Nan trying to be encouraging, "if we go we shall all go together."
"But I wish mother and Jean were here," said Jack chokingly.
Mary Lee gave a convulsive sob, and Eleanor broke down completely. "I wish I had never come," she wailed. "I wish I had stayed home with my mother, and I wish Neal were here. Oh, dear, why did I come to this dreadful place?"
"My dear children," spoke Miss Helen from her bed, "don't get hysterical. I imagine the worst is over. Do try to calm yourselves. No doubt they have had storms like this before and the house has stood, as you see. It sounds dreadful, but I do not believe we shall have a truly upheaving earthquake. Some slight unsettling always accompanies a typhoon, I have been told."
"Do you think this is a typhoon?" asked Eleanor trying to stop her tears.
"I imagine so; it seems very like the descriptions of such storms as I have read about."
"I verily do believe it is not quite so furious," remarked Nan.
"But we can't be sure." Eleanor was still apprehensive. "I could never go to bed this night."
"Nor I," came from one and another.
They all sat in silence till Jack spoke. "I wonder if poor little Toku is all right. I expect he is scared to death," she said mournfully.
Eleanor giggled hysterically. "I don't believe he knows anything about it. He is probably sleeping the sleep of the innocent," she said.
Somehow Jack's remark relieved the tension, and, as it was evident that the gale was less violent, they all began to be more cheerful though there was no sleep for any of them that night. At last only the lashing waves and the rush of water along the streets remained of the noises of earth and sky, and by daylight the girls crept back to their beds to sleep uneasily till it was time to get up.
The typhoon had left its mark behind in the overthrow of trees and the snapping of wires, the tearing down of signs and the wrenching off of roofs. Later on came accounts of damage in the hills, of the washing away of bridges and the complete demolition of paths.
"So we shall have to give up Kitzuki altogether," Nan announced after an interview with the proprietor of the hotel. "It would not be safe, they say. But it is not so very far to Sakusa, and if we wait long enough we may be able to get there, though we shall have to walk even then."
"You don't catch this child walking." Jack spoke with decision.
"Well, we don't want to go to-day anyhow," Nan answered, "and as it is pretty bad everywhere after the storm we'd better just hold our horses till we can decide what is best. There are enough excursions to satisfy us, probably, though I am awfully disappointed not to go to Kitzuki."
"What is its particular vanity?" inquired Eleanor.
"It is first of all a very holy place, according to Japanese creeds, then it is a very fashionable seaside resort."
"The latter appeals to me more strongly than the former," Eleanor declared, "but I can resign myself to leaving it out of our itinerary if there are any dangers. What is this Sakusa that you are so keen about?"
Nan hesitated before she answered. "There are some interesting ceremonies take place there, and there is a temple."
"A temple!" said Eleanor scornfully. "I have seen temples till I am worn out with them. What are the ceremonies?"
"I know," spoke up Jack as Nan again hesitated. "I have been reading up. Sakusa is the place where lovers make a pilgrimage and tie wishes on the trees. The wishes are supposed to come true and there are queer charms sold there and all sorts of funny doings."
"Oh!" Eleanor gave Nan a swift look, which Nan, seeing, resented.
"Oh, I am not so very anxious about it," she said nonchalantly, "though I think those odd customs are always interesting to see. If you all don't care about going or if there is anywhere else you prefer, why just let us leave it out."
"I am crazy to go," said Eleanor. "I suppose we can join any band of pilgrims that we see going up and down the breadth of the land. They really have a pretty good time of it, I fancy. The old folks particularly. I haven't a doubt but some of those old ladies get no other outing; you always see them moseying along as cheerful as the next, although they may have walked far and have not had much to sustain them on the way. You get up the excursion, Nan, and we will be your happy band of pilgrims."
"I'm going out to see what it looks like after the storm," announced Jack. "Come along, any one who wants to go."
Mary Lee and Eleanor decided to accept this invitation and Nan was left to her guide-books. "You'd better join us," were their parting words.
"Tell me where you are going and perhaps I will come and hunt you up," returned Nan.
"We shall go to the great bridge," Jack told her. "It is always interesting there."
So they passed out and it was a couple of hours before they returned. In the meantime Nan had occupied herself in various ways, but had found no time to go to the bridge to meet the others. They came in hilarious from their walk.
"Why didn't you come, Nan?" asked Eleanor. "We waited for you ever so long. Neal wanted to come back for you but Jack said he might miss you, as you would probably be on your way."
"Neal!" Nan looked up startled. Then she recovered herself. "Oh, your brother," she said with too great a show of indifference. "What is he doing here?"
"He came to see if we were all alive after the typhoon. The papers reported a great deal of damage in this part of the country and so he rushed over to see whether we were sound in life and limb."
"And where is he now?" inquired Miss Helen, to Nan's relief asking the question she would have put but for a self-consciousness she could not overcome.
"Oh, he has gone off with Jack. She is showing him the town, but we were tired and wouldn't go."
Gone off with Jack, very willingly of course, thought Nan. He was so little eager to see her that he had not even returned for a moment's greeting. She wondered how many letters Jack had received from him during this interval, and again she began to build up the altar of sacrifice upon which she would lay her heart. "Was it worth while going out to see the havoc?" she asked.
"Oh, I don't know. Yes, it was rather interesting to see what was going on down by the wharves. We saw a good many funny things."
"Suppose we go, Aunt Helen," proposed Nan suddenly. "We have been cooped up all morning and I have been reading about a little temple of Jizo which they say is worth while. These others don't care about temples, so we won't insist upon their going. What do you say?"
Miss Helen agreed to the proposition and they began to make ready.
"Aren't you going to stay for lunch?" queried Mary Lee.
"No, we will get something at a tea-house on the way," replied Nan, and was off without further remark.
As Nan disappeared from view, Eleanor turned to Mary Lee. "Well," she exclaimed, "what do you make out of that?"
Mary Lee shook her head. "It is beyond me. I really thought she cared, but it looks as if she didn't. I wonder if, after all, she likes Rob Powell. There may have been a misunderstanding or a quarrel or something like that."
"Maybe, but I'll stake my best hat that she is in love with some one, and I really did hope it was Neal. Do you suppose by any accident that she has gone off in this way because she is jealous of Jack, is miffed because Neal didn't come back with us?"
"She would have some reason to, it seems to me."
"It seems so to me, too. You don't suppose Jack has been putting notions in Neal's head, do you?"
"What kind of notions?"
"Oh, making him think Nan has a single steady at home or something of that kind."
"I am sure Jack wouldn't do it with any malicious intent, but she may have done it inadvertently. You see we are rather in the dark ourselves and cannot swear to anything. Nan is expansive enough about some things, but she is the most elusive person when it comes to an affair of the heart. I have been puzzled a score of times myself about her. She gets very high-flown romantic ideas about sacrifice and all that kind of thing, and if she took it into her head that Jack must be interested in Neal she would go the whole length. I know she did have some such fancy a while ago, but I said enough to disabuse her mind of it, I thought."
"Well, I must talk to Neal," decided Eleanor.
"What will you tell him?"
"Goodness knows. What can I tell him? That Jack is fond of Carter and that Nan is not pledged to any one?"
Mary Lee shook her head doubtfully.
"What we do must be done quickly," declared Eleanor. "Once you are all out of this country, good-bye to Neal's chances."
"How long is he going to be here?"
"Don't know. I haven't had a chance to ask him. He can often stay till he is recalled, but no one knows the hour or minute that may be. This much is certain; he was certainly more interested in Nan than I have ever known him to be in any one. He didn't say so in so many words, but he said enough to make me sure of it, and I am convinced that he wouldn't have been so eager for opportunities of getting her off to herself if he hadn't been pretty far gone."
"Then why under the sun did he march off with Jack to-day without a word with Nan?"
"That is where you have me, my child. There is something queer and we have to find out. Suppose you tackle Jack and I will get at Neal. Between us we may be able to find out the truth."
Mary Lee agreed to this, but her opportunity did not come that day nor the next. Nan and Mr. Harding met with a polite greeting, much less effusive than that which had passed between the young man and Jack on his arrival. But for the furtive glances which he gave Nan, when he thought no one was looking, Eleanor and Mary Lee would have been convinced of his absolute indifference. Nan, herself, did not once look his way unless compelled to.
"There is this about it," confessed Eleanor, when the two conspirators got together. "They are entirely too deadly indifferent for it to be altogether natural. It is my opinion they have quarreled. Have you noticed how Neal watches Nan when he thinks no one is looking?"
"And how she never looks at him at all?" returned Mary Lee. "I have not seen them exchange a dozen remarks since your brother came, and Nan has scarcely mentioned him to me. When she has, it has been because I dragged his name into the conversation."
"It is vastly more suspicious than if there were not this studied ignoring the one of the other."
"Of course it is," agreed Mary Lee.
"Poor old Neal; I hate to have him unhappy," said Eleanor.
"Poor old Nan; I can't bear to have her unhappy."
They both laughed. Then Mary Lee exclaimed, "I have just thought of something that makes me sure it is all on account of Jack and that Rob isn't in it at all."
"Do tell me."
"Nan asked me a while ago upon a certain occasion, don't ask me when it was, please, Nell, but she asked me then if I didn't think it was almost as hard to give up one whom you loved to another as to have him taken from you to another world. You know, Nell, I can't talk of such things very much, and this was a sacred hour, but I thought I would tell you."
Eleanor put her arm around her friend. "It is dear of you to tell me. I understand, Mary Lee, and because it was a sacred hour you can be sure that Nan spoke from the very depths of her heart."
"That is exactly it. It doesn't prove anything, but it meant more than I realized at the time, of that we can be sure. Yes, we must get some light on this subject and do it soon." Here Nan herself came into the room and the girls, in a very lively manner, tried to appear as if they had been talking over their days at college.
Mary Lee's opportunity came sooner than she expected and in a manner she had not looked for. Jack brought a pile of mail to her one morning and then went off to distribute other letters, but she had espied one letter whose contents she much desired to know, although she did not show the least curiosity at the moment. Later in the day she took pains to seek out Mary Lee at a moment when she knew she would be alone in her room. "Well," began Jack, "what did the mail bring you to-day?"
"Oh, a lot of letters," returned Mary Lee. "One from Jo, and Cousin Mag's usual nice fat one, and one from Rita; she doesn't often write to me because Nan is generally the favored one."
Jack waited, but Mary Lee did not mention the correspondent in whom she was specially interested.
"Rita say anything of Rob Powell?" queried Jack to make conversation.
"No, not to me; she may have mentioned him to Nan. I notice that Nan had a letter, too."
"What do you think Mr. Harding asked me the other day?" said Jack suddenly. "He wanted to know if Nan were engaged."
"What did you tell him?" Mary Lee asked quickly.
"I told him I didn't know. I knew there was some one greatly interested in her and in whom we thought she was interested, but she had never told any of us that she was actually engaged."
"Why did you tell him that?"
"Oh, because I wanted to let him know that blessed old Nan could have attention even if she were getting on."
"Oh, Jack, you ridiculous little goose; as if a girl only twenty-three could be said to be getting on. Nan is a mere child."
"Oh, Mary Lee, she doesn't seem so to me."
"She does to every one who has any sense. Just because she is the eldest you have fallen into the habit of thinking of her as an elderly person; the sooner you get out of it the better. Did Mr. Harding ask if you were engaged?"
"No."
"What would you have told him if he had asked?"
"I would have hedged."
Mary Lee determined to press the question home this time. "But aren't you?" she asked.
"Has Cart been telling you anything?" queried Jack with a quick glance at the pile of letters on the table by her sister's side.
"I know what his feelings are without his telling me. Is there something to tell, then?" she asked diplomatically.
"Nothing for him to tell, nothing he has any right to. If he should tell, there would cease to be anything existing to tell."
"What a very mystical remark. Japan has laid its spell upon you. If there were anything he should not tell it oughtn't to exist, of course. I can make that much out."
"Oh, there is nothing so very dreadful about it, only——" Jack paused.
"About what, Jack? You might tell your own sister."
Jack shut her lips resolutely and shook her head.
"Poor old Cart," said Mary Lee reaching for the letter which lay on top of the heap.
"Why 'poor'?" jerked out Jack.
"I've just had a letter from him."
"It's more than I have had, then," returned Jack.
"I imagine he believes you don't care for one. When did you write to him last, Jack?"
Jack answered reluctantly. "Not since we left San Francisco to come here."
"Why, Jack Corner, I think that is cruelty to animals. Why haven't you written?" Mary Lee spoke indignantly.
"Oh, just because."
"That's no reason. Have you quarreled with Carter?"
"Not exactly. He is so tiresome about some things."
"What special thing?"
"Oh, just a soft, silly thing."
"Well, I think you ought to write. He is mightily discouraged. He is ill and wretched, poor boy."
Jack leaned forward, her eyes fixed on the letter which Mary Lee did not offer her. "It isn't—it isn't—his old trouble, is it?" she questioned, a note of anxiety in her voice.
"No, I don't think so, but he seems tired and heart-sick, somehow as if the world were all awry. I never had such a doleful letter from him, and Nan's is about like it. It isn't Carter's way at all to be bitter and talk of giving up and going to the uttermost parts of the earth."
"Very likely he doesn't mean it," said Jack regaining her hard manner.
"We might think so if Mrs. Roberts hadn't written to Aunt Helen that Carter was looking wretchedly and that he had overworked and they were urging him to go abroad, and to spend next winter in Egypt."
Jack made no reply but left the room and a moment later was at her Aunt Helen's door. "May I see Mrs. Roberts' letter, Aunt Helen?" she asked. "Mary Lee said you had heard from her."
"Why, yes," was the answer, "you can see it, of course."
Jack took the missive which her aunt hunted up and went over to the window, keeping her back turned. She stood some time pretending to be still reading when she had really come to the end of the last page, but the truth was, her eyes were full of tears. She did not see a body of gallant troops go marching bravely by, nor did she notice a band of pilgrims carrying staves, girt about the loins, and wearing great straw hats. She presently wiped one eye in a manner as if a mote were in it, then after a while she furtively did the same to the other, and when she considered that all undue moisture must be removed, she handed back the letter saying cheerfully, "She writes quite a newsy letter, doesn't she? Too bad Cart isn't feeling up to the mark." She made a few more light remarks and then went back to Mary Lee.
"Do you mind my seeing Cart's letter?" she asked meekly.
"Certainly you can see it," Mary Lee responded. "I would have offered it to you before but I didn't gather from your manner that it would interest you."
Spunky Jack made no reply to this, but took the letter and sat down. Once or twice Mary Lee glanced at her, and noticed that by degrees Jack had swung her chair around so that her face was almost hidden. "She cares a lot more than she pretends," Mary Lee commented inwardly.
After a while Jack returned the letter with a backward movement of her arm, her face being more turned away.
Mary Lee got up to take it but did not stop there. She came around to face her younger sister, whose eyes were wet and whose lips were trembling. "Jack," said she, "suppose you should never see Carter again."
Jack started up with a cry and pushed her sister from her. "Don't, don't," she said fiercely. "How can you say such cruel things?"
"But if you don't care, Jack, and if you make Carter think you do not, it is you who are cruel." Then her voice became very gentle and sad as she went on. "Jack, you poor little child, you don't know what it means to lose one you love very dearly. I do know, and so I can tell you this that it is my greatest comfort to remember all the loving things that were said to me, and to feel that Phil knew that I loved him as dearly as he loved me. If he had died without knowing, I couldn't have stood it. We were separated all those last months but his letters to me are my life now and I know mine were the greatest joy to him. I was no older than you when he told me what I was to him. We kept it a secret because we were so young, but, oh, Jack, think what I should have lost if I hadn't my memories."
By this time Jack was crying softly, but with no effort at concealment, her head buried in her sister's lap as she sat on the floor. "I am all you say, a wicked, cruel girl," she sobbed. "I do love him, and I told him I would marry him when I was through college, but I wouldn't let him mention it again because he wanted to kiss me. That was what made me mad, and this last time he wanted to kiss me good-bye and I didn't write just to punish him for it. The first time it was because I thought he took too much for granted, and the last time it was because I wanted to show him he couldn't break the compact."
"What was the compact?"
"He was not to say a word of love to me or mention that I had made him any promise. If he did, I said I wouldn't marry him."
"And has he?"
"No, but he did ask me to kiss him good-bye."
"I think it has been pretty hard on him, for it gave you a chance to do as you please and yet it bound him."
"I know, and I was very selfish, but I didn't want it known, Mary Lee."
"No, of course not, and it needn't be known now, although I wish you would tell Nan."
"Why?"
"Because she thinks you like Mr. Harding, and I am pretty sure if it were not that she believes she must not stand in your way, she would like him mightily herself."
Jack lifted her tear-stained face.
"Oh, Mary Lee, have I been twice a selfish pig? Poor, dear old Nan. I never once thought of her in the matter. I was mad because Carter didn't write and I told myself I would have a good time and I would go back and tell him about it. I never thought of hurting Nan. Of course I will tell her, and what is more I will tell him, if you say I ought."
"I don't think you need do that, but I do think you ought to show the same grace Nan has shown you whenever you walked off with Mr. Harding."
"You don't think then that it is Rob Powell whom Nan likes?"
"No, I am pretty sure she doesn't care a rap for him except as a friend."
"What a blundering idiot I have been, to be sure. Well, I will make up for it to Carter, and to Nan, too, if I can. Thank you, Mary Lee, for bringing me to my senses. You don't really think I shall never see Cart again, do you?"
"I hope you will, and I think the very best way to cure him will be for you to write him a letter such as you know he is longing for."
"I will, I really will, and what is more I will do it this minute."
Jack never did anything by halves, though it must be confessed that she made it an excuse to write that she wanted to interest Carter and the Robertses in Toku. She wanted him trained as a good servant so that when she had her own home he could live with her. What did Carter think of that? Wasn't she far-seeing? They had been telling her that he was not well. He must hurry and chirk up for her sake. She was looking forward to seeing him on her return and then——The rest was left to the imagination, but at the end of the letter there was a funny little scalloped character which was not explained at all, and away down in one corner of the page was written in very fine letters, almost microscopic, "If you love me you may tell me so once when you next write." Altogether it was a very Jack-like document, yet never before had Carter received one which gave him such assurance of Jack's real feeling for him.
Her letter finished, Jack proceeded to hunt up Nan whom she found quite alone in the garden. "I've just been writing to Carter," she announced cheerfully. "Why didn't you show me his letter, Nan?"
"Because it was so dispirited and I didn't want to spoil your good times," returned Nan.
"Poor old Cart," said Jack. "Do you think he is really ill, Nan?"
"I think he is more heart-sick than body sick."
"All because of wicked me, do you reckon? I am a beast, Nan. I am free to confess it, but I am not going to be so any more. When Carter and I are married, I am going to have Toku for our very best servant."
"When Carter and you are married?" exclaimed Nan. "I thought that was all over and done with, Jack, that it was only a childish idea."
"It isn't," returned Jack with decision. "I shall never marry any one but Carter, and he knows it, or he will know it by the time he has read my letter. I know I seem like a skittish, heartless creature, and I do like to jolly around with the boys, but Carter is my single steady and always will be. I wanted you to know, Nan, because I know Carter writes to you oftener than to any of the others, and I don't want you to tell him things that are simply figments of your brain, as I might give you reason to do sometimes if you didn't know the bona fide truth. You mustn't always trust appearances, you know. They are deceptive. Are you glad, Nan, you old dear?" She looked at her sister mischievously, so that Nan checked her impulse to hug her.
"Of course I am glad," she returned. "You know that Cart is already just like a brother, and I have felt so awfully sorry for him of late that I could almost have cried. I did want you to be happy," she said wistfully, "even if Carter were sacrificed, but it seemed pretty hard on him."
"You blessed old thing," cried Jack, herself giving the caress Nan had withheld. "You are about the most loyal and faithful darling out. I don't deserve such sisters."
With this remark she walked off, leaving Nan uplifted and yet at the same time strangely apprehensive of facing her own future. She had driven Neal Harding from her by her coolness and indifference. Would he ever return? Had he not already learned to prefer Jack? She shook off these doubts at last and went back to the house with a determination not to interfere with fate again.
In the meantime, Jack had continued on with her performance of duty. She had met Mr. Harding, and had asked if he didn't want to go with her to mail a very important letter. He acquiesced, of course, and on the way she let it be known that the letter was to an especial somebody who must have it by the very earliest outgoing mail, and then craftily she let him know that Nan was sending no such letters, and that she, Jack, had discovered that Nan's interest in a certain individual was purely a friendly one. Then with a virtuous feeling of having done all that could possibly be expected of her, Jack returned to the hotel not even hinting at such a proposition as extending the walk.
"You won't say anything to Eleanor, will you?" said Jack to her sisters. "It is a family secret, remember. Of course I shall tell mother and Jean as soon as I see them. I suppose I ought to have told them before, for it isn't nice to have even one secret from your bestest mother and your own twin."
"Yes, you must tell them," agreed her sisters, Mary Lee adding, "Mother was the only one I told when I had my secret, and she never so much as hinted it to any one."
Jack sighed. "I think we'd better be getting back to those two pretty soon, and I don't care how soon we sail for the States." Her sisters understood that she could not reach California too soon, and that she would not mind in the least a little delay there before starting for her own home.
"You'll not tell Eleanor," she repeated.
"Oh, no," promised the others, "but we cannot help her forming her own conclusions."
What these conclusions were, Mary Lee found out that very evening when Eleanor enticed her off into the garden. "I have tried to pump Neal," she said, "but he is mute as a clam, and I can get nothing from him but that he has no right to poach on another's preserves."
"He knows there is no other and that there is a free way to the preserves," Mary Lee told her.
"What do you mean?" cried Eleanor.
"Jack has taken it upon her contrary little self to inform him that nobody has any claim on Nan."
"What made her do it?"
"Oh, she took the notion after my having impressed it upon her that Nan was not thinking about Rob. To give Jack credit she assumed that Nan was, and moreover," Mary Lee laughed, "she thought Nan quite too antique to form any new attachments."
Eleanor laughed too. "The point of view of eighteen. Isn't it funny?"
"I don't suppose she would have looked upon Nan as such a fossil if she were not the eldest of the Corners," Mary Lee went on, "but all her life Jack has been accustomed to look up to Nan and to have it dinged into her that she must regard her eldest sister as second only to her mother."
"I see, and what do you suppose will happen now?"
"Don't know. It is getting a trifle exciting, isn't it?"
"I shall lose all my respect for Neal if he doesn't take advantage of his opportunities," Eleanor went on. "We must consent to that walk to Sakusa to-morrow if we fall by the way, for it will be such a great chance for confidences. I want to tell you something, Mary Lee. Mr. Montell is coming to-night."
"He is? Aha, my young miss, so there will be chances for more than those other two."
"Oh, I didn't mean that," said Eleanor in confusion. "Don't allow your unbridled fancies to roam too far afield."
Mary Lee shook her head sagely. "I think my own thoughts," she remarked.
She and Jack contrived to interest Miss Helen in such a way that Nan was not missed that evening. Jack made her confession which Miss Helen received as they knew she would. She was very fond of Carter who was the son of one of her old school friends, and she had long ago formed her own opinion of the affair.
"I couldn't ask for a dearer nephew than Carter Barnwell," she told Jack, "but you are nothing but a baby yet, Jack."
"I have been so informed more than once to-day," returned Jack. "I knew you would all think I was too young, and indeed, Aunt Helen, I haven't a notion of being married till I have left college. I wouldn't have told only Mary Lee thought I ought."
"You certainly ought if there is really an understanding between you," said her aunt.
"I suppose there is," Jack responded, "though I had intended to keep Cart guessing for some time yet, but now that he is so miserable I can't do it. I had to give him just a wee little twinkling of encouragement in thinking I meant what I said, but it must be a dead secret to all but the family."
In spite of her cheerful exterior, Jack was the least happy of the group that night, for while Nan lay blissfully making plans for the morrow and Eleanor was beginning to ask herself searching questions which her evening with Mr. Montell had created, Jack was wondering if Carter were really ill and would he be worse before her letter reached him. Alas! that it took so long for the mail to span the distance between them. If she could but visit him in spirit to whisper all that her heart would say. That night Jack's chickens came home to roost if they never had before, and of all who were to make the pilgrimage to the sacred grove on the morrow no wish more fervent than hers would be offered up at the shrine for lovers.