“Don’t cry, little girl. Come and play.”
After a time, when she had ceased to sob, she looked up into his round face and said:
“What is your name, boy?”
The boy smiled and answered:
“Soichi. Come and play.”
Then they went out and played, and by and by, when it was time to go home, the little boy walked along with her and she was glad. His home was just around the corner from hers, in the fine big house in Azalea Street. He was a funny boy, for he asked her not to tell her father that she had played with him, or that he had walked part way home with her. When she asked him why, he would not tell, but said that some day she would find out, and that would be time enough to tell if she wanted to. Poor little Soichi! Already the boy was learning the hard lesson that old disgrace, however unmerited, cannot be put aside lightly, even by law, and the wise young head knew that the child of the Eta was no playmate, in his world’s eyes, for the daughter of a Samurai.
O-Mitsu cared not at all then. She knew only that he had been kind to her in her wretchedness, and she liked him loyally for that, and loyally, too, she kept her promise not to tell. So they met at school and played, sometimes with other children but often by themselves. Thus several happy months went by and then O-Mitsu got her first great lesson in the new life of the nation. She found out about Soichi. There were plenty of children to tell when it seemed there was a chance of causing pain, for the Japanese child has no less a barbarian heart than many who live in the Western world. The little girl was greatly troubled. She liked the boy and enjoyed the games with him. But the daughter of a Samurai knew her position. She had learned now that the stern looks of the master masked a kindly heart, and her first fear of him was gone. To him she went in her perplexity.
“Why is it,” she asked, “that the Eta boy comes to this school? Are not Etas outcasts?”
The wise teacher smiled gently and said:
“That was true, O-Mitsu-san, but it is not so now. Did you not know that the Emperor has promoted them, and given them the same rights as all the rest of us?”