VI
“Alas!” said Madame Aoi, as she brushed, with long hopeless strokes, the rippling hair of little Hyacinth. “Alas! no use try to keep you nice. Look at those hands—so brown like little boy’s—and that neck and face!”
Hyacinth sat upon the weekly chair of torture. Her little russet face had been scrubbed till it shone. Her hair was being brushed uncomfortably smooth with water, to prepare it for being twisted up in a pyramid on her head. Had she been a properly regulated Japanese child, one such hair-dressing a month would have sufficed. But, as a rule, she had scarcely escaped from under the painstaking hands of Aoi before she managed to shake down, or at least loosen, the beautiful glossy coiffure upon her head.
Cleaning-day, Hyacinth dreaded. Though Koma had taught her to swim in the bay like a veritable little duck, it is sad to relate that the little girl despised water which was thrown upon her for the purpose of removing that dirt, the inevitable portion of a child who plays continually in the open and burrows in beach sand.
So now, restless, rebellious, and miserable, anything but the usual passive little Japanese girl, she squirmed under the hands of Aoi.
The day was Sunday, a red-letter day for Aoi. The mission-house on the hill opened its doors to its tiny congregation upon this day. Hence Aoi prepared her little family against this weekly event, and poor Hyacinth was the chief subject of torture. Koma’s hair grew in a short, smooth mass, which required no brushing or twisting. Also, he had reached an age when he had wholly graduated from his mother’s hands and was competent to effect his own toilet. But he was forced to sit in the chamber of horrors during the time that his sister was undergoing the weekly operation, since, were his presence removed, it would have been impossible to manage or control the restless child.
“There!” exclaimed Aoi, as she placed the last pin in the child’s head. “Now, that is fine. Been good child to-day.”
Hyacinth slid down from the small stool, lingered in discontent on the floor a moment, then, with an expression of childish resignation, rose to her feet and stood silently awaiting further operations upon her.
Aoi lightly wafted a little powder towards her face and neck; then removed it with a soft cloth. The tanned skin appeared whitened and softened. Then she dressed her little charge in a fresh crêpe kimono—a red-flowered kimono it was—tied a purple obi about it with a huge bow behind, placed a flower ornament in the side of her hair, and Hyacinth’s toilet was completed.