"Yess," she said.
That afternoon I walked farther up the gorge, past curio shops, with the river roaring far beneath and water tumbling from far above, and I turned in for a moment where the word "Archery" curved in big letters over a doorway, to see an old chap put eight arrows out of ten in a small target a hundred feet away, and triumphantly shout:
"Russian!"
And then on past tea-houses and workshops and rice-mills with undershot water-wheels such as I had left in the Cumberland Mountains. In a rice square below and beyond me three little girls were playing. When they saw me they ran toward the road, stooping now and then to pick up something as they ran. The littlest one held up to me a bunch of blue flowers. I was thrilled; here I thought is where I get the courtesy of the land even from the peasant class and untainted by the rude manners of the Saxon and his Caucasian kind. I took off my hat.
"Arigato," I said, which means "Thank you." Out came the mite's chubby hand.
"Shinga!" she said, "mucha shinga!"
Now I have not been able to find anyone who knows what "shinga" means except the little highway robbers who held me up in the road and made it plain by signs. I went down into my pocket for a coin. Up stepped number two of the little hold-ups, with number three in close support; but I was too disappointed and sore, and I declined. Those three little ones followed me half a mile and up many score of steep steps to a temple in a grove, still proffering flowers and saying,
"Shinga." It was sad.
Going back I met another mite of a girl in a many-colored kimono. She said something. I am afraid I glowered, but she said it again, with a bow and a smile, and it was—