We left the valley, each with tandem pullers and a pusher behind. It was a steep climb up a winding path from which reached out, on either side, long, even lines of scrubby trees. Occasionally the men would stop and, bracing themselves, would rest the shafts against their hips and wipe their hot faces.
“It’s a breathless climb,” said one, as he smiled and pointed down into the valley, “but it’s worth the labour just to see yon terraces of green against the great brown rocks, and the sunny blue of the sky reflected brokenly in the rippling stream below.”
“Hai,” said another, “so it is. The city fellows see naught but level streets and dusty roofs peeping above walls or fences of wood. I pity them.”
Then on they went—panting but content.
“What are all these low, twisted bushes with the gray trunks and so many little fresh buds?” asked Hanano, in one of these pauses.
“Mulberry trees,” replied Sister. “This is a silk-culture district, and the mountain is covered with cocoon villages. Almost every house here has wooden frames filled with trays of silkworms, and on a quiet day you can hear the rustle of their feeding as you walk along the street.”
That sounded interesting indeed to the children and as we went on, they shouted questions and exclamations to each other about silkworms and their mulberry-leaf diet, until the long climb ended in a short, steep pull and an abrupt turn into a broad street of low, wide-eaved houses. At the farther end stood the large house of the village—Sister’s home. Its brownish-yellow thatch rose above a wall of rounded stones topped with a wooden fence, so like the one surrounding my old home in Nagaoka that the sight brought a shadow-ache of homesickness to my heart.
With cordial country manners, the servants had come out to the big wooden gateway, and as our jinrikishas rolled between the two lines of bowing figures, I caught murmurs of the familiar, old-fashioned greeting, “O kaeri asobase!”—“Your return is welcome!”
The quiet house seemed very restful after our long, jolting ride, and the hot bath which is always ready in old-fashioned Japan for the expected visitor refreshed us wonderfully. The children and I had just returned to the living room, where, settling ourselves comfortably on soft cushions, we were gazing across the porch straight out into the blue sky, for the valley and the world were far below us, when two maids appeared bringing in the dainty little tables for luncheon.
“You’ll have to do without meat up here,” said Sister apologetically, as she came hurrying in. “We have only chickens and vegetables from my farm, and fish from the mountain streams. We cannot get meat or bread.”
“That matters nothing,” I replied. “The children are fond of fish and rice; and you know that I always liked everything green that grows. Don’t you remember the ‘white cow’?”
Sister laughed; and Hanano, always on the alert for a story, asked, “What is it about a white cow?”
So, as we ate, Sister told a story of my childhood which dated back so far that my knowledge of it was only what others told me.
“Your mother was not a very strong child,” she began, “yet she was never really sick, either. At that time many of the Nagaoka people, when they were puzzled and helpless about a really serious matter, used to consult the priestess of a small Shinto shrine just outside the town; and Honourable Grandmother asked Father to send for the holy woman. For two days before she came, Etsu-bo was not allowed to eat whale-meat soup, or onion, or any food with an odour; and she was carefully instructed to be extremely good, both in behaviour and in thought.
“Early on the important morning Ishi sprinkled her with cold water. Then she dressed her in her crest dress and took her to Honourable Grandmother’s room. All the family were there, and several women relatives. I remember how Etsu-bo looked as she toddled in, holding on to Mother’s hand. She bowed to everyone, and Mother seated her on the mat beside Honourable Grandmother, just a little in front of the rest of us. The tokonoma was covered with straw matting and decorated with all the sacred Shinto emblems. Of course the priestess was in the most honoured seat of all. She was dressed in pure white, and her black hair was hanging down her back, tied behind the shoulders with a band of rice-straw, from which dangled strips of white, zigzag-cut Shinto paper. When Mother and Etsu-bo were seated, the holy priestess prostrated herself two or three times; then she lifted from the tokonoma a whitewood rod that had on the end a bunch of long streamers of holy paper. She waved it above Etsu-bo’s head, murmuring some religious ritual. We all sat very quiet with bowed heads. After a moment of silence the priestess announced that she had just learned from the gods that Etsu-bo, in a previous existence, had been a small white cow used in drawing lumber for the building of a Shinto shrine on the top of a mountain. The message said that the little creature had toiled up the rocky path so patiently and faithfully day after day, and had lent its strength so willingly for the holy duty, that the gods had hastened the slow steps of transmigration and allowed the soul of the white cow to enter at once into the present life as a human being.
“Do you mean that my mamma was that white cow?” asked Hanano, with wide-open, astonished eyes; while Chiyo stopped
