The four Corners in Japan

by Amy Ella Blanchard

This was quite sufficient material for Ko-yeda to make into a very gracious speech, and then with much ceremony each took a different path around the garden.

Later on came callers—Ko-yeda's elder sister and her husband who bowed low and bumped their heads against the floor upon being presented. Jean tried to respond in like manner, but felt her bow was very awkward. Mrs. Sanzo, as well as her husband, was in regulation European costume, but Jean thought Ko-yeda much more charming in her delicate pink crape kimono and obi tied in an immense bow at the back. The funny little hunchy manner of walking which the little Japanese woman displayed was not suited to French gowns and hats, Jean thought. However, most gracious and sweet was Mrs. Sanzo, with a lovely voice and the most charming smile. She could speak a little English and made her sister promise to bring Jean to see her. During the hour that followed the arrival of these visitors others came and Jean had fairly to pinch herself to discover if she were not dreaming as she sat curled up on a little cushion listening to the unfamiliar language in such a very unfamiliar kind of house. Not any more familiar was the appearance of the little maids who came in from time to time to bring refreshments, and who knelt whenever they slid open the fusuma, or screen, between the rooms and who presented their trays of sweetmeats, or the pipes and tobacco for the gentlemen, still kneeling.

But at last bedtime came. Mrs. Sannomiya clapped her hands and the maids again appeared to slide the fusuma while Ko-yeda led the way through the corridors to an upper room where piles of comfortables, or futons as they were called, had been laid on the floor. A little pillow had been provided for Jean in place of the hard wooden bolster usually considered proper for a lady. This because her hair would be disarranged by the use of anything different.

It was a warm night and the shoji and amado were both open toward the garden, though down-stairs Jean heard them putting up the wooden shutters called amado, and knew the house was thus being closed for the night. She could hear the murmur of talk around her, and the plash of water from the fountain in the garden. There was a queer scent of incense in the air and this mingled with the odors of the garden and the smoke of her lamp made her realize that this was indeed a foreign land. She lay under her canopy of mosquito net, a very necessary protection, and wished that Jack were there and that she could fly across the great city to where her mother and sisters were, that she might kiss them all good-night. "Well, I am glad I am not further away," she thought. "Suppose they were across the ocean. I might have reason for feeling homesick."

The next day came a round of entertainments. A visit to Mrs. Sanzo where there was a fat, laughing, slant-eyed, cunning baby, exactly like dolls Jean remembered having had as a child. There was a little glimpse of the city, and a call at one of the mission schools where it seemed pleasant to find American women teachers and gentle little girl pupils. Then there was a drive to the country to see the silk spinners.

"This is the time when the cocoons are ready," Ko-yeda said. "You will like to see?"

Indeed Jean would and so they drove on to where some lowly little cottages made a village. The doors, even the fronts of the houses, were all open, and inside Jean could see fluffy piles of pale yellow or white stuff before which sat withered, brown-faced old men or women with rude little hand-reels upon which they wound the delicate thread. More than once the girls alighted to watch the process, Ko-yeda speaking and evidently telling about Jean, for they eyed her with eager interest and one gave her a soft puffy ball of the silk and would take no return.

There was more than one stop, for no excursion is complete without a cup of tea, and then back to the city to another meal at a foot-high table, more ceremonious bows and visits, another night upon the futons with the insects shrilling outside in the garden to the accompaniment of water trickling over the stones, and the mosquitoes buzzing outside the net, then Jean was ready for her own people and her own way of living. She would see Ko-yeda? Oh, yes, many times before she left Kyoto, and they would have many more pleasant talks.

She went away laden with presents, with all the servants prostrating themselves at each side the door, and with an impression of having lived for two days in an Arabian Night story.