"Ah, Yuki San, you make sorry voice and your heart is thinking tears. You naughty girl! Quick you make the fire to rise in hibachi and give that Merrit San his gohan—same thing what that funny 'Merica call breakfast."
After the steam had begun to rise from the vessels on several hibachi, Yuki San, flushed by her exertions, rested upon her heels before the door that led into the garden. As she fanned her flushed face with her sleeve, she glanced again and again toward the narrow stairway that led to the chamber above, and at the slightest sound she listened in smiling expectancy.
From outside the wall came the gentle slip-slap of the water against the sampan, and the cheerful banter of the owners as they made ready for the work of the day.
Circling the garden, the fern-like maples made a note of vivid crimson amid the feathery green of the bamboo. Every feature of the place was closely associated with her short happy life. She had learned to walk on the soft sandy paths, she had spelled out her first characters on the old stone-lantern. She had whispered her secrets to the broken- nosed image of Kwannon, who sat in the shadow of the pines, and there under the plum-tree she had caught the naughty kitten that first brought her and Merrit San together.
As she sat, with folded hands, and watched the sunshine on the dewy leaves and flowers, her intense, restless, vivacious body relaxed in sudden languor and her soft mouth drooped in wistfulness.
A splash in the pool below attracted her, and looking down she saw the gleaming bodies of the goldfish as they leaped into the air. Instantly she was all life and volubility.
"Yuki San one big bad girl; she no remember li'l fish. They always like hungry baby San in early morning. I make fast to fill big hole inside—ve'y li'l outside."
Slipping her half-stockinged feet out of her straw house-shoes, she stepped into her wooden geta, and passing a shelf, filled her hands with round rice-cakes.
The edge of the water turned to gold as the fish crowded close. Yuki San scattered the crumbs and stood watching the wriggling mass for a moment, then said:
"You ve'y greedy li'l fish. I never no can fill your bodies. Now I get flower for Merrit San's breakfast."