XV
SUMMER, with its flowers, carnivals, moonlight fêtes and banquets, is a season of unalloyed bliss to Japanese children. It seemed as if all nature took a holiday, and bade the children and the grown folks, too, come forth from their houses and rejoice at her beauty and happiness.
Never before had the Japanese held so many celebrations. But this year their festivals were not in honor of the beauty of the flowers or the glory of the moon. They tossed their fans, their parasols, any article, above their heads. They marched the streets of the towns at night with swinging lanterns and torches in their hands, sometimes singing and always shouting, “Banzai! Banzai!” Impassive faces turned ruddy with excitement and pride. Even delicate-faced ladies leaned from their jinrikishas in the public streets and waved the sun flags in their hands. Never had a flower festival drawn forth such enthusiasm and excitement. On all sides people spoke the word, breathlessly, with smiling lips:
“Victory! Always victory for Dai Nippon.”
The Kurukawa family caught the spirit of the country. There was not a member of the little flock that did not feel a personal pride in Japan’s achievements. Even Mrs. Kurukawa, after the first shock of the actual sense of loss had passed, refused to be oppressed by her sorrow. By this time her husband’s friends in the town were hers. She became a member of a society which had for its aim the succor of the town’s poor families whose wage-earners had been given to the war. No Western women’s club or society ever worked harder than did these little Japanese women when they took upon themselves the actual support of the poor of the town. Mrs. Kurukawa found a wonderful comfort in the work. All the little girls assisted. Immediately after the departure of her husband the grandmother had come to her with a suggestion that at first she could not understand.
“Now that the master has gone,” had said the old woman, “shall we not dismiss all the servants?”
“But why?” she had inquired, astonished. “We can afford to keep them, can we not?”