“And how about the cherry?” asked Mother.
“Oh, that has an important meaning,” I quickly replied.
“The quick-falling cherry, that lives but a day
And dies with destiny unfulfilled,
Is the brave spirit of samurai youth,
Always ready, his fresh young strength
To offer to his lord.”
“Bravo!” Mother cried, clapping her hands. “This is a real, albeit a second-rate, poetry contest that you and I are having. Do you know any more flower poems?”
“Oh, yes—Morning glories!” And I rapidly recited in Japanese:
“In the dewy freshness of the morning, they smile respectful greetings to the goddess of the Sun.
“Oh, Mother, this is just like Japan—the way you and I are doing now! Japanese people often gather—a group of friends—and write poems. They meet at a Flower Viewing festival and hang poems on the flowery branches; or at a moon-gazing party where they sit in the light of the moon and make poems. There is one place where the moonlight falls on a plain of ricefields and from the mountainside the silvery reflection can be seen in every separate field. It is wonderful! And then everybody goes home feeling quiet and peaceful—and with new thoughts.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Mother, starting quickly toward the door, adding, as she looked back over her shoulder, “Our poetry contest has given me a new thought!” And she disappeared within the house.
Our conversation had reminded her of a package of morning-glory seeds that a friend had sent when she learned that a Japanese lady was living with her.
“I had almost forgotten about them,” said Mother, returning with a trowel in her hand. “These were gathered from the vines which my friend had grown from seeds that came from Japan. She says the blossoms are wonderful—four and five inches across. Where shall we plant them? We must choose some appropriate spot for the little grandseeds of a Japanese ancestor.”
“I know exactly the place!” I cried, delighted, and leading Mother to our old-fashioned well I told her the legend of the maiden who went to a well to draw water and, finding a morning-glory tendril twined about the handle of the bucket, went away rather than break the tender vine.
Mother was pleased, and she planted the seeds around the well curb while I softly hummed, over and over, the old poem:
“The morning-glory tendril has chained my heart.
Let it be:
I’ll beg water of my neighbour.”
We watched the vines eagerly as they reached out strong arms and climbed steadily upward. Mother often said, “The coming of the blossoms and of the baby will not be far apart.”
One morning I saw from my window Mother and Clara standing by the well. They were looking at the vines and talking excitedly. I hurried downstairs and across the lawn. The blossoms were open, but were pale, half sized weaklings—not resembling at all the royal blossoms we treasure so dearly in Japan. Then I remembered having read that Japanese flowers do not like other lands and, after the first year, gradually fade away. With a superstitious clutch at my heart, I thought of my selfish prayer for a son and vowed to be gratefully content with either boy or girl if only the little one bore no pitiful trace of the transplanting.
And then the baby came—well and sweet and strong—upholding in her perfect babyhood the traditions of both America and Japan. I forgot that I had ever wanted a son, and Matsuo, after his first glimpse of his little daughter, remembered that he had always liked girls better than boys.
Whether the paper charm of Kishibo-jin was of value or not, my good Ishi’s loving thought for me was a boon to my heart during those first weeks when I so longed for her wisdom and her love. And yet it was well that she was not with me, for she could never have fitted into our American life. The gentle, time-taking ways of a Japanese nurse crooning to a little bundle of crêpe and brocade swinging in its silken hammock on her back would never have done for my active baby, who so soon learned to crow with delight and clutch disrespectfully at her father’s head as he tossed her aloft in his strong arms.
We decided to bring the baby up with all the healthful freedom given to an American child, but we wanted her to have a Japanese name.
The meaning of Matsuo’s name was “pine”—he emblem of strength; mine was “ricefield”—the emblem of usefulness. “Therefore,” said Matsuo, “the baby is already a combination of strength and usefulness, but she must have beauty also. So let us give her the name of our kind American mother, which, translated, means ‘flower.’ ”
“And if we use the old-fashioned termination,” I cried with delight, “it will mean ‘foreign fields’ or ‘strange land.’ ”
“Hanano—Flower in a Strange Land!” cried Matsuo, clapping his hands. “Nothing could be better.”
Mother consented, and thus it was decided.
XXII
Flower in a Strange Land
For months after the baby came my entire life centred around that one small bit of humanity. Wherever I went, and no matter who came to see me, the conversation was sure to drift to her; and my letters to my mother held little else than the information that a few ounces had been added to the baby’s weight, or a new accent to the little cooings and gurglings, or that she had developed a dimple when she smiled. My mother must have seen the germ of a too-selfish love in my devotion; for one day I received from her a set of Buddhist picture-books which had belonged to Father’s library. How familiar and dear they looked! There were no stories—only pictures—but as I turned the pages, I could hear again the gentle voice of Honourable Grandmother and see the old tales acted before my mind as plainly as in the days of my childhood. Mother had marked some of the pages with a dot of
