“Oh, my little girl! My dear little girl! But he did not die! He did not die!”
I lifted my head, but I did not wipe my eyes.
“The war had ended, and the new Government had pardoned all political prisoners,” I said, calm again. “The decision was already known to the officials, and the messengers were on the way; but, until they came, the forms had to be carried out to the very end.”
“Yes, I have known of things like that in the days when messages were carried by galloping horses and running men,” said Mother sadly. “And no one was to blame. If laws could be changed by unproved knowledge, the country would soon be guided by guesswork. And that would never do! That would never do!”
I looked at Mother in surprise, for with red cheeks and misty eyes she was clutching tight the army coat on her lap and looking straight at me.
“How close together are the countries of the world,” she went on. “Your old nurse was right, Etsu, when she said that the earth is flat and you are on the other side of the plate, not far away, but out of sight.”
Then we both smiled, but Mother’s lips were trembling. She put her arm around me gently, and—I’ve loved Mother ever since!
Another “memory stone” in my life was the day that I entertained the club. Mother belonged to a literary society the members of which studied about different countries and wrote essays. The meetings were held at the homes of the members, and early on the morning of the very day that it was Mother’s turn to entertain she received a message calling her to the city for a “between trains” visit with a dear friend who was passing through the city on her way to a distant land. Mother would be back before the meeting was over, but I was dismayed to be left with the responsibility of arranging the rooms and receiving the guests.
“There is nothing for you to be worried about,” said Matsuo who was just starting to his business. “I heard Mother tell William to bring more chairs from upstairs and you have only to see that he places them like in a church. Clara knows how.”
“But Mother meant to have flowers, and she said something about a little table for the president and—Oh, the piano has to be pushed back! Mother said so. I do wish she were here!” I cried, in real anxiety and distress.
“Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill! Clara is equal to anything”; and Matsuo ran across the lawn in response to the waving hand of a neighbour who was waiting in his buggy at the iron gates.
I knew he was right, for Clara had cleaned the rooms the day before, and everything really necessary had been done; but, nevertheless, I felt lost and helpless.
In the midst of my hour of woe I saw walking up the path around the lawn an old lady of the neighbourhood who sometimes came in for an informal chat with Mother. I ran out and welcomed her most cordially, eager to ask her advice.
“The piano is not in the way,” she said. “These rooms are large enough as they are, even if everyone comes. You won’t have to do a thing except put in more chairs.
“But”—and she looked around the big double parlours with the lace-curtained windows and the long mirror with gilded frame—“the rooms do look empty with the centre table taken out. Why don’t you scatter about some of those Japanese trinkets that you have upstairs? They would add wonderfully to the general effect.”
As soon as she was gone I brought down several Japanese things and placed them here and there about the room. Then I arranged a few iris blossoms in a vase according to the graceful, but rigid, rules of Japanese flower arrangement, and stepped back to view the effect.
From the flowers my eyes went slowly around the room. I was disappointed. What was wrong? The Japanese articles were each one of rare workmanship, and the vase of blossoms was beautiful; but for some mysterious reason Mother’s parlours never before had looked so unattractive. Suddenly my eye fell on a little bronze incense burner, which had been given me in my childhood, by one of the Toda children, for my doll festival set. It looked oddly out of place on top of the American bookcase; and when, lifting my eyes, I saw above it an etching of a dancing faun, I almost hysterically snatched it away. With lightning swiftness my mind flew to the cool, light rooms of my Nagaoka home—to the few ornaments, each in the place designed for it—and I began to understand. My Japanese treasures would be beautiful in their proper surroundings, but here they were neither beautiful themselves, nor did they add to the attractiveness of our stately rooms. They were only odd, grotesque curios. Hurriedly putting them away and removing my carefully arranged vase of iris to the kitchen, I ran to a field back of our carriage house and gathered an armful of daisies and feathery grasses. Soon I had all the vases in the house, regardless of shape or hue, loosely filled with the fresh, wild blossoms. The rooms looked beautiful, and they were in perfect harmony with the broad lawn outside, stretching in rolling waves of green down to the gray stone wall.
“West is
