Then sweet potatoes decided me. It was a matter of history that famine, neither wide-spread nor local, ever gained a foothold where "Satsuma Emo" flourished. This year they were fatter and cheaper than ever before. I knew dozens of ways to fix them, natural and disguised; so I bought an extra supply and made up my mind to keep Jane Gray.
The little missionary thrived in her new environment as would a drooping plant freshly potted. As she grew stronger, she hinted at trying once again to live in her old quarters, that she might fast and work and pray for her sinners. I promptly suppressed any plans in that direction.
After all, I had been a lonelier woman than I realized, and Jane was like a kitten with a bell around its neck—one grows used to its playing about the house and misses it when gone. She also resembled a fixed star in her belief that she had been divinely appointed to carry a message of hope to the vilest of earth, and I felt that the same power had charged me with the responsibility of impressing her with a measure of commonsense.
So we compromised for a while at least. She would stay with me, and I would not interfere with her work in the crime section, nor give way to remarks on the subject.
I was sure the conditions in the Quarter would prove impossible, but as some people cannot be convinced unless permitted to draw their own diagram of failure, it was best for her to try when she was able to make the effort.
The making of an extra room in a Japanese house is only a matter of shifting a paper screen or so into a ready-made groove. It took me some time to decide whether I should screen off Jane in the corner that commanded a full view of the wonderful sea, or at the end where by sliding open the paper doors she could step at once into the fairy land of my garden.
Jane decided it herself. I discovered her stretched in an old wheel-chair before the open doors, looking into the sun-flooded greenery of the garden, and heard her softly repeating,
"Fair as plumes of dreams
In a land
Where only dreams come true,
And flutes of memory waken
Longings forgotten."
Any one who felt that way about my garden had a right to live close to it.
In half an hour Jane was established. My enthusiasm waned a bit the next day when I found all the pigeons in the neighborhood fluttering about the open door, fearlessly perching on the invalid's lap and shoulders while she fed them high-priced rice and dainty bits of dearly-bought chicken.