I did not criticize the judgment of the hostess. Her superior taste in all things artistic was beyond question, and in America the magonote was an object of art only. From that viewpoint it was properly placed. I realized this, and yet, whenever afterward I entered that room, I persistently kept my eyes turned away from the ebony cabinet. It was only after two years of close friendship with the hostess that I had the courage to tell her of my shocked first visit to her home. She laughs at me even yet, and I laugh too; but there is a warm feeling of satisfaction in my heart this moment as I remember that the rosary and the magonote no longer hang side by side.
There was another thing in Mrs. Hoyt’s home which was removed at the same time the rosary and the “hand of grandchild” parted company. It was a large coloured photograph of a scene in Japan—not an ancient print, but a modern photograph. It was an attractive picture in graceful arrangement and delicate colouring, and my hostess had placed it in a conspicuous place. Her ignorant eyes beheld only its artistic beauty, but my heart turned sick with shame. That picture would never have been allowed in any respectable house in Japan, for it was the photograph of a well-known courtesan of Tokyo taken at the door of her professional home. “Oh, why do Japanese sell those things?” I shudderingly asked myself; but immediately came the puzzling response, “Why do Americans want to buy?”
One day I went into the city with a friend to do some shopping. We were on a street car when my attention was attracted by a little girl sitting opposite us who was eating something. Children in Japan do not eat on the street or in a public place, and I did not know then that it is not the custom in America as it is with us never to eat except at a table.
My friend and I were busy talking, so for a while I did not notice the child, but when I chanced to glance at her again, I was surprised to see that she was still eating. Two or three times afterward I looked at her, and finally I turned to my friend.
“I wonder what that child is eating,” I said.
“She is not eating anything,” my friend replied. “She is chewing gum.”
Again I looked at the child. She was sitting, drooped and weary, her loose hands lying in her lap, and her feet spread around her bundle in a very awkward and difficult position. As I watched her tired face, suddenly I remembered something that had happened on the train on my trip across the continent.
“Is she sick?” I asked,
“No, I think not. Why do you ask?”
“I think I took that medicine on the train,” I replied.
“Oh, no!” my friend said, laughing. “Chewing gum is not medicine. It’s a sort of wax, just to chew.”
“Why does she do it?” I asked.
“Oh, most children of her class chew gum, more or less. It’s not an elegant thing to do. I don’t allow my children to touch it.”
I said nothing more, but a partial light began to dawn upon my experience on the train. I had been uncomfortably carsick, and Mrs. Holmes had given me a small, flat block of fragrant medicine which she said would cure nausea. I put it in my mouth and chewed a long time, but I could not swallow it. After a while I got tired, but Mrs. Holmes was still eating hers, so, concluding that it must be a medicine possessing wonderful merit, as it would not dissolve, I wrapped it carefully in a piece of white tissue paper and put it in the little mirror case that I wore in my sash.
I never heard what originated this peculiar custom, but I think I never found anything odd in America for which I could not find an equivalent in Japan. Gum-chewing reminded me of hodzuki-blowing, a habit common among some Japanese children; and also much practised by tea house girls and women of humble class. The hodzuki is made from a little red berry having a smooth, tough peeling. The core is very soft and with proper care can be squeezed out leaving the unbroken peeling in the shape of a tiny round lantern. This little ball is elastic and though it has no special taste, children love to hold it in the mouth and by gently blowing the hollow shell make what they call “mouth music.” It sounds somewhat like the soft, distant croaking of a pond frog. Hodzuki-blowing is not beautiful music, nor is it a pretty custom, but it is neither harmful nor unclean. The worst that can be said of it is what many a nurse calls to her charge:
“Take that squeaky thing out of your mouth. It will make your lips pouty and ugly.”
XIX
Thinking
At the broad corner where our front and side porches joined was where my hammock swung. It was shaded by a big apple tree, and I used to put in a big cushion and sit Japanese fashion while I read. I could never get used to lying in it, as Mother sometimes did, but I liked to imagine that I was in an open kago—a quiet, not a swaying one—and watch for glimpses between the trees of carriages and
