A Daughter of the Samurai

we look upon as friendly comrades, and the simple duties we owe them we perform with calm and pleasant feelings of gratitude and courtesy. There is little fear of penalty for neglect other than humiliation for a lack of politeness, which weighs a good deal with a Japanese. The house shrines remind us that relatives are watching over us, and we show our appreciation with incense and prayer. The fire goddess is the helpful ruler of the kitchen, whose thanks are the slender ends of a weave of cloth hung beside the kitchen firebox. The goodly god of rice asks that we keep the fire beneath the rice-kettle free from rubbish. The water goddess, who blesses the streams and rivers, demands that the wells be clean. The seven gods of fortune⁠—Industry, Wealth, Wisdom, Strength, Beauty, Happiness, and Long Life⁠—are seen everywhere and always greeted with a smiling welcome; and the two especially honoured by tradesmen, Industry and Wealth, are perched on a prominent shelf in every store, from which their faces look down, giving to the master the comfortable assurance that friends are near. The hideous gods beside temple doors are not hideous to us, for they are the fierce watchdogs who protect us from danger, and the gods of the air⁠—Thunder, Wind, and Rain⁠—are guardians for our good. Above all these lesser gods the Sun goddess, ancestress of our Imperial line, watches over the entire land with kindly, helpful light.

These various gods are a confused mixture of Shinto and Buddhist; for the religion of the masses vaguely combines both beliefs. As a rule this is not a religion of fear, although the evil spirits of the hells, if seriously accepted as pictured in ancient Buddhist books, are fearful indeed; but even they allow two days in each year when the repentant may climb to a higher plane. Thus, to the Japanese, even the sad and puzzling path of transmigration, into which unconscious footsteps so often wander, leads at last, after the long period of helplessness and gloom, to a final hope.

Buddhism, on its ages-long journey from India to Japan, seems to have dropped many of its original elements of terror; or else they were softened and lost in the goodly company of our jolly and helpful Shinto gods. Not one of these do we dread, for, in Shintoism, even Death is only a floating cloud through which we pass on our journey in the sunshine of Nature’s eternal life.

Our man-made laws of convention have had more power in moulding the lives of the people and have left a more lasting stamp on their souls than have our gods. Our complex religion arouses the interest of the intellectual, and it teaches genuine resignation; but it does not guide the ignorant with a comprehending wisdom, nor does it give to the brooding and the sorrowful the immediate comfort of cheerfulness and hope that comes with a belief in the peasant priest of Nazareth.

XXIII

Chiyo

After Hanano had learned that the moon was a friend she could depend upon wherever she might travel, she became intensely interested in moon stories. I postponed telling her the legend of the white rabbit who is fated for all time to pound rice dough in a great wooden bowl, for it is his shadow which Japanese children see in every full moon; and I thought I would allow her to drift gradually from her idealization of the American legend. But I told her of our moon-gazing parties where families or groups of friends gather in some beautiful open spot and write poems praising the brilliant leaves of the moon vine which causes the glow of autumn that in America is called Indian summer.

We were sitting on the doorstep of the back parlour one evening, looking out across the porch at the moon sailing round and clear in a cloudless sky, and I told her how in Japan, on that very night, every house, from the palace of the Emperor to the hut of his humblest subject, would have on the porch or in the garden where it could catch the glow of the full moon a small table with fruits and vegetables⁠—everything round⁠—arranged in a certain manner, in honour of the goddess of the moon.

“Oh, how pretty!” cried Hanano. “I wish I could be there to see!”

There was the rustling of a newspaper behind us.

“Etsu,” called Matsuo, “there is some kind of a child’s story about that celebration. I remember once when my elder sister and I had been teasing our little sister, who was a timid child, that my aunt told us a story of gentle Lady Moon and naughty Rain and Wind who tried to spoil her pleasure on an August full-moon night.”

“Oh, tell me!” cried Hanano, clapping her hands and running to her father.

“I’m not much on stories,” said Matsuo, taking up his paper again, “but your mother will know it. Etsu, you tell it to her.”

So Hanano came back to the doorstep, and I tried to recall the half-forgotten story of

Lady Moon and Her Enemies

One pleasant evening in August the beautiful Lady Moon was sitting in front of her toilet stand. As she lifted the powder puff to clear and soften her bright colouring she said to herself:

“I must not disappoint the Earth people tonight. Of all the nights of the year they look forward to the ‘Honourable Fifteenth,’ for this is the time when my beauty is at the crown of its glory.”

Turning the mirror a trifle, she carefully arranged her fluffy collar.

“It seems a poor sort of life⁠—to do just nothing but smile and look happy! But that is my only way to gladden the world, so tonight I will shine my brightest and best. And,” she added, as she peeped over the edge of her balcony and saw the Earth beneath, “after all, it is a pleasant duty⁠—especially tonight!”

It was no wonder she smiled with pleasure, for the whole world was decorated in her