“What are you doing, children,” I asked, “sitting here so quiet?”
“Oh, just enjoying!” replied Hanano.
After a moment Chiyo said: “Grandma’s chairs are soft, but this one has knobs on the edge. Let’s swap again, Hanano.”
Then there was the affair of the bedclothes. The pride of a Japanese housewife is to have not only dainty and pretty, but also appropriate, bed cushions. Mother had sent with Taki enough silk and linen for both children’s beds. The pattern for Hanano’s was, for her flower-name, the “Flowers of the Four Seasons,” in which bunches of many-coloured blossoms were scattered loosely over a background of shadowy pink. Chiyo’s—for her name, which means “Long Life”—was a flock of white storks flying across a blue sky with floating clouds. Taki and Sudzu had sewed steadily for several days making the cushions, so, on the night they were finished, and when Sudzu had made up the beds side by side, I told the girls that I would put the children to bed and they could go out to a street fair held on the temple grounds, not far away. In the midst of the undressing some friends came to call and I left the children to finish alone.
My friends stayed late. I heard Taki and Sudzu come in, and a short time later there was a disturbance in the children’s room. Hanano’s voice sounded clear and loud in English, “It isn’t fair! Stop! It isn’t fair!” Then came a low murmuring in Japanese—sleepy complaints—a soft scrambling—a gentle, “Pardon my disturbing you. Honourable good night!”—a sliding door, whisperings, and presently—silence.
As soon as the guests had gone I hurried into the children’s room. Both were sleeping quietly. I waited for Sudzu to come in after locking the gate, and then I learned what had happened. Faithful Taki, on her return, had peeped into the children’s room to see that all was safe, and behold! the “Flower in a Strange Land” was asleep beneath the flying storks and the long-life lassie was peacefully reposing beneath the scattered blossoms of the four seasons. Taki’s orderly habits of a lifetime had sprung to the rescue of an upset world. Pulling off the covers with a jerk, she had lifted Hanano in her strong arms, and then, standing the startled child upright, had caught Chiyo and plumped her into Hanano’s bed, muttering constantly, “Ignorant children! Ignorant children!” Paying no attention to Hanano’s indignant protests that they had changed purposely, “just to swap,” she had tossed her back into bed, whirled up the covers, and then, politely bowing good night, had softly pushed the doors together and retired as gently as if she feared to awake a sleeping child.
“Taki is just like she used to be,” I thought as I lay down on my own bed with a laugh. “People who think Japanese women are always gentle ought to widen their acquaintance.”
But one thing about which I have never laughed was a peep I had into a hidden part of my children’s lives. Hanano always had been brave about bearing silently little troubles that could not be helped, and she seemed so busy and interested in her new life that I did not realize that deep in her heart was a longing for the old home. Our garden had two entrances, one through the house and one through a little brushwood wicket on the path that led from a wooden gate to the kitchen door. One day, just as I reached home, a sudden shower threatened to drench me. So, instead of going around to the big gateway, I slipped through the wooden gate, and ran across the stones of the garden to the porch. Leaving my shoes on the step I was hurrying to my room when I heard the voices of the children.
“This shady place,” said Hanano, “is where Grandma’s chair always was, on the porch. And under this tree is where the hammock was where you took your nap and where Papa almost sat down on you that time. And this is the big stone steps where we always had firecrackers on Fourth of July. And this is the well. And this is the drawbridge. And this is the place where Clara went to feed the chickens. It’s all exactly right, Chiyo, for I drew it myself, and you must not forget again. Don’t tell Mamma, for she would be sorry, and she is our only treasure that we have left. All the rest are gone, Chiyo, and we can never have them again. So it can’t be helped, and we just have to stand it. But you mustn’t forget that all this—forever—is where our love is. And now, let us sing.”
They stood up, holding hands, and the childish voices rose in a clear, steady “My Country, ’tis of Thee!”
I cried softly as I moved about in the next room and thought of the transplanted morning glories. “Is it right,” I wondered, “to plant a little unasked flower in a garden of love and happiness, from which it must soon be wrenched away, only for another, and a dwarfed, start in strange, new surroundings? The garden had much to give of strength and inspiration, but is it worth the cost? Oh, is it worth the cost?”
XXVII
Honourable Grandmother
“Honourable Grandmother is coming—coming!
Honourable Grandmother is coming today!”
happily sang Chiyo as her little foot mittens came pattering over the white mats, following me as I went through the rooms giving touches here and there to complete arrangements for our expected guest.
Foot mittens took the place of stockings now, and the free American dress had given way to a gay-flowered kimono
