At the Emperor’s Wish

She was wonderfully beautiful.

At the Emperor’s Wish

A Tale of the New Japan

By
Oscar King Davis

D. Appleton and Company
New York
1905

Copyright, 1905, by
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

Published October, 1905

TO
THE REAL SOICHIS

Who, by tens and hundreds of thousands, from all the
corners of Dai Nippon, great and small, shizoku
and heimin, with a simplicity, a courage and a
faith that may well stand as models for all
the world, and a passion of loyalty passing
occidental understanding, await
only the occasion to demonstrate
their glad, unselfish
readiness to meet the
Emperor’s Wish

O. K. D.

List of Illustrations

At the Emperor’s Wish

I

Far out toward the end of Lower Timber Street, where incurious visitors to the city seldom stray, stands the house of Kudo Jukichi. It is called Lower Timber Street, the Upper end being down in the city where once the stout castle of the Lord of the Clan was the center of all the life of the place. But the name is falsely descriptive, for it leads straight up to the beautiful hills, and ends abruptly in a sheer climb to the top of the pine-clad cone where nestles a famous old Shinto shrine. The narrow path that winds up the steep hillside has been beaten smooth by thousands of pious feet. Below, curving down in gentle slopes, the verdure-covered hills ring in the town, and beyond the billowing roofs of blue-gray thatch and tile stretches the shining, island-dotted sea, warm and soft in the enormous blaze of summer.

To the casual observer there is nothing about the house of Kudo Jukichi to indicate the quality of those who dwell within. A dilapidated fence of split bamboos, that once was tall and fine, partly conceals the weather-beaten little structure and partly reveals it, with the tantalizing indistinctness of a veil over a beautiful face. If a curious stranger should stop and peer through the lattice-like breaks in the fence he would gaze upon wood-work grown soft and gray with age and the flagellation of rains. Even the tiles of the roof, laid with a care cognizant of earthquake and bitter storm, seem to have lost patience and outgrown their pride, and now to await only the semblance of opportunity to loose their hold and slide down. The shrubs along the narrow path that leads from the gate are all unkempt and ragged, and the lone plum-tree that stands like the ghost of a garden sentinel in the corner of the tiny yard, touched by the general air of decay, struggles fitfully in the raw, cloudy days of spring to send forth here and there a spiritless blossom. One must be to the manner born, or carefully instructed, to detect, from the many signs of ruin all about, the single indication of the state of the householder. Such an one, perhaps, searching closely under the warped roof of the gateway, might find and read the cedar ticket which proclaims, according to law, to any who trouble to stop and read, that in this house of little ease lives Kudo Jukichi, a Gentleman of the Empire.

Kudo Jukichi, Gentleman! In the first year of Meiji, when he fought for the restoration of the young Emperor to the power that rightfully belonged to the Throne, he wore the two swords of a Samurai. But that was long ago. Kudo-san is an old man now, and thick gray hair covers the head where once rose the shining black topknot of a warrior. He sits on the soft mats of his little room with a book, or his pipe, and often falls to dreaming of the years of his youth, of the stirring events that threw down the old established order and brought the Emperor again to his own. And if sometimes there comes to him a twinge of sentimental regret for the lost ways of life of the old régime, it is but natural. It has not been easy for Kudo-san to accept many of the changes that came with the new Western thought. His was not the cast of mind that accommodates itself readily to novel sensations and experiences. Only his passionate loyalty and devotion to the Emperor enabled him to smother the feeling of opposition within him, a feeling purely personal and selfish, in his Japanese conception, and therefore not entitled to much consideration. Loyalty with him was something more than a mere sense of duty. It was instinctive, from the heart, the very essence of his nature, and because of it he bore without complaint the heavy blows the new order dealt him.

The abolition of feudalism left him helpless, a dependant with none on whom to depend. But the reorganization of the army, and the promotion of the outcast Etas to citizenship and the proud opportunity of military service dazed him. The distinctive privilege of Samuraihood, the right to bear arms, was destroyed, and after that nothing worse could befall. The capitalization of his hereditary income followed as a matter of course, and he accepted with uncomprehending bewilderment the bonds given him by the government he was no longer to serve. The fabric of his life was crumbling and he was powerless to stay its ruin. With hands clasped before him and head reverently bowed he stood in front of his little shrine and solemnly communed with the shades of the Kudos gone before. It was a new situation, and doubtful if they could understand. But one thing he knew, and in gentle voice, with unshaken faith, he announced it.

“It is the Emperor’s wish!”

Fate dealt neither vigorously nor kindly with Kudo. It let him drift. While his bonds ran their income was sufficient for all his needs, but when the time of their redemption came he looked in dismay at the heap of money they brought him. Nothing in all his experience told him what to do with it. Skillfully invested, it would have furnished ample return, but investment was a science utterly beneath the contempt of a Samurai. It was the business of merchants and traders, the men who devoted their lives to the despicable profession of gaining money. He took his fortune home, from the bank where it had been paid to him, wrapped up in a blue cotton bundle-kerchief, and gave it to his wife with the unconcern of complete scorn. He knew that that bundle alone stood between him and necessity, but he did not care. He lived contentedly on his little capital, nor ever let an anxious thought cross his mind because of its constant decrease.

II

Scarce two hundred yards distant from the house of Kudo Jukichi, around the corner in Azalea Street, there is a most striking evidence of the change the new Western life has brought to the Island Empire. The little shingle at the gate duly sets forth that Mr. Kutami Chobei, a Commoner, occupies that comfortable dwelling, but all the city knows it as the home of Chobei, the Eta. Prosperity radiates from the substantial house and wide grounds with their pleasant garden, and all the place is enfolded in its ample mantle. What cares the Commoner Kutami that his humble station is placarded over his hospitable doorway? But a handbreadth back in the space of years even that poor title seemed a measure of hopeless distinction to him. In the yesterday when neighbor Kudo wore the haughty swords of a Samurai his weapon would have leaped from its scornful scabbard if Chobei the Eta had dared pollute his presence. It was a great advance to be one of the multitude in the oblivion of the Commoners instead of one of the marked few of the Etas, despised, outcast, living apart from all his fellows except the unfortunates of his class. It had been a bitter life for Chobei, for although his sheer force of will had made him Chief of his village, a man of distinction among his own, that very strength of character made only more keen and poignant the disgrace of his position. The wealth he had accumulated in his business of tanner had little pleasure to give him, and it was the business itself, inherited from his fathers, generation after generation, that made him an Eta. That great stroke of the Emperor’s which had shaken off the shackles of his caste restored him to manhood, and he blessed the fate that had brought the Western ideas to Japan and had set noble and Samurai and outcast all equal before the law, face to face together with the problems of individual responsibilities and rewards.

Money is not yet everything in Japan, however rapidly its power may be advancing. But it is something to the Commoner and it was little better than nothing to the Eta. Kutami was proud of himself, in an humble way; proud that he had something to do with when opportunity to do came to him. More than all he was proud of the new nation, and loyal to it with the last drop of his blood. He was no soldier, but he did his part when the forces of the Empire went over sea to meet the armies of the Chinese in Korea and Manchuria. The business of his outcast days had grown with great strides under the incentive of his new ambition, and from being merely a tanner and dealer in leather he had become as well a manufacturer of boots and shoes. Now it was that the money he had won furnished the means of making return to the nation, and thousands of soldiers marched and fought in the boots Kutami the Commoner gave to his country.

There was no thought in Kutami’s heart of anything but loyalty and gratitude to his Emperor in this, but there was a result he did not foresee. Kudo Jukichi had been shaken out of his retirement by the war. All the old fire was revived in him, and his heart was heavy because he was neither able to offer service himself nor was his son old enough to take a soldier’s part. In spite of the fact that they had lived for years at so little distance from each other, for Kudo it was as if Kutami had never existed. For though he might admit that there was advantage to the nation in some of the great changes of his later years, Jukichi was still at heart the Samurai of the old régime, and to him Chobei was still an Eta. But the gift of the boots touched his heart.

“Some men are called Samurai in name, but are outcasts at heart,” he thought. “That man was called outcast but has acted like a Samurai.”

Straightway he put on his finest silk kimono and stalking out of his gate turned the corner into Azalea Street. There was a flutter of excitement in the house of the Commoner when it was known that Kudo Jukichi had come to call. This was an honor that had been beyond their dreams. For, although there had never been a word between the two families, well the Commoners knew their gentle neighbors, and it was not without a secret sympathy that Chobei had noticed the evidence of hard and harder fortune which increasing days brought to the Samurai. The situation of the Kudos had become, indeed, very much straitened. Jukichi had contrived to sell a few of the treasures of art that had been for generations in the family. But his was no nature for bargaining, and kakemono and vases that were priceless to genuine collectors had gone for the song the first unscrupulous dealer had offered. Valiant soldier and skillful swordsman that he had been, the Samurai was inept in the rough-and-tumble scramble for existence, and Chobei gladly would have made his sympathy practical if he had but known how.

It was truly a wonderful event for the Commoner when Jukichi voluntarily came to visit him. O-Koyo, his wife, herself fluttered into the room where the distinguished guest was sitting on the soft, white mat, and brought him tea, that fine long leaf with the heavy flavor of the straw mats that had kept it always from the sun, so delightful to the taste of the Japanese connoisseur. Though it was the house of a man possessed of much wealth, there was no display of riches, except in the exquisite fineness of the wood, the beautiful grain carefully brought out in the soft polish and matched with an evenness and skill that betokened unusual pains and thought. In the alcove of the room where Jukichi sat hung a single old kakemono of rare merit, and the signature that caught his eye told him at once of its great value. Beneath it stood a vase of the famous ware that had long distinguished the old artists of his clan, and in it a single spray of blossoms. It was in perfect taste, and the old Samurai, as he sat down, felt a little glow of satisfaction, as if he had come back at last to the realities of the days before the inrush of Western innovation had done so much to cheapen and make vulgar all that it touched of the island art.

The simple directness of his character had not been changed by his years of vicissitude. The formalities of greeting were hardly ended when Jukichi plunged into the matter that had brought about his visit.

“I have heard,” he said, “that you have made a great gift to the army.”

A deprecatory smile crossed the face of the Commoner and he bowed very low.

“Ah, it was nothing,” he replied, politely belittling what he had done. “It was only a few boots for the soldiers, who are worthy of very much more than one so humble as I can do for them.”

“Nevertheless it is a fine thing to do,” declared Jukichi, and for an instant there flashed in his eyes something of the old fire. “It is a fine thing for one who is not a soldier to give so much to the army.”

Again Kutami bowed very low, and softly protested the trifling character of his act.

“I have heard that it was an entire division that you supplied,” continued Jukichi. “I congratulate you. It is a very fortunate thing to be able to do so much for the Emperor.”

Lower than ever Kutami bowed and for some time his head remained bent forward. At length he raised it and looked the old Samurai in the face.

“It was nothing at all,” he said in a low voice, “nothing at all. And the Emperor has done everything for me.”

He wondered what Jukichi would do or say to such direct reference to his former condition, but loyalty knew no finer quality in the heart of the Samurai than it found in the breast of the Commoner, and though he insulted his honored guest, or died for it on the instant, Kutami would not have withheld that acknowledgment to his Sovereign. And in making it he touched the deepest chord in the Samurai’s nature.

“I cannot be a soldier myself,” the Commoner went on, after a little, “and my son is not old enough to take my place. But the Empire has given me a great deal, and I am very glad that I can give a little something to the sons of others who offer their lives for it.”

“I, too, cannot be a soldier now,” said Jukichi slowly, after a pause, “although in other years it was my duty and my privilege. And I, too, have a son too young to be of service in this war. But he shall be a soldier some day, and, if Heaven please, an officer of the Emperor.”

The ring of the old clan pride was in the voice and the eyes flashed as if the father already saw the boy leading his men in the swinging charge.

“You are indeed fortunate,” said Kutami gravely; “it is a great honor to have such a son, and it is but fitting that the son of such a father should become an officer.” Again the deprecatory smile crossed his face as he continued: “But it is not for my son to think of so glorious a future. He shall do his duty when the time comes, and serve his country as best he can, but after that I am afraid we could not hope to attain such honor as it would be to have him continue in the army.”

It was Jukichi’s turn to bow and smile in deprecation. Then he rose to take his leave, and when Kutami had thanked him for the great honor he had conferred upon that poor house, he went away with a satisfaction in his heart he did not attempt to explain.

III

Jukichi’s son was a fine, sturdy lad who already in the public school was laying a solid foundation for the technical training which later was to fit him for an army career. He did not belie his inheritance. His military instinct manifested itself in the ease with which he excelled his mates in the martial exercises that formed part of his school duties. Often, too, it was revealed in his proud bearing toward his fellows. Ambition found large room in his small breast, and it was his determination to rival and even excel the exploits and skill of that great ancestor, Kokan, whose name he bore. Jukichi had begun his instruction in swordsmanship early, and often the old Masamune blade, that had been the pride of the Kudos for generations, was brought out to take its part in the lessons. At fourteen Kokan was captain of a company of his schoolmates, and the stuff that was in him showed in his grief that his years unfitted him to bear a soldier’s part in the war with China.

But the disappointment did not warp him. Rather it tended to confirm his ambition. And if he had needed a spur he would have found it in the boundless pride in him displayed by his sister, who was the playfellow of his home. O-Mitsu-san was four years his junior. As long as she could remember, from the days when she first toddled out into the yard on her small getas, and robed in the wonderful kimono, gay with bright butterflies, the days of her life had been devoted to adoration of her brother. To her he was everything that was fine and noble, and his imperious spirit received as its just due the deferential homage she paid to his years and his sex. She was little more than a baby, in the Western conception, when O-Haru, the gentle mother, went away on the long journey to the Meido and left the house of Jukichi desolate, and it fell to her to take her mother’s place in the management of the household and the anxious care of the slender, steadily diminishing means of support.

“Though the eagle be starving, yet will he not eat grain,” say the Japanese, and Jukichi fulfilled the saying. No one saw better than he the inevitable end of the course he was pursuing. No one felt more than he the need of doing something to secure an income. Kokan would soon finish with the public schools, and before he would be sufficiently far advanced to enter one of the Local Military Preparatory Schools he must have some years of higher instruction, which no school in the city was fitted to give. The only means of possible relief that presented itself to Jukichi’s prejudiced view was some sort of trade, a vile bargaining and selling for the sake of gaining the money which all his life he had despised. Moreover, he knew that he was unfitted by training as well as by nature for such work. The simple honesty of the old soldier, to whom death was a small price to pay for honor, was no match for the unscrupulous cleverness of men whose native sharpness had been developed by years of practice in a profession from which nothing else was expected. And so Jukichi drifted on.

Between O-Haru and Jukichi there had existed a serene sweetness and depth of love such as seems impossible to the Western world, unused to the Japanese way, where marriages are so often matters of arrangement rather than sentiment. Perhaps it was the recollection of what she had been to him, and the profound sense of his loss, that kept Jukichi a widower. But the death of her mother brought some recompense to the little girl in the transfer to her of much of the calm and confident affection which had been O-Haru’s happiness. More and more her father grew to depend on her in many matters in which he had followed the guidance of her mother, and there developed in her a judgment and self-reliance not often found in one of her years. While yet a child in age she was a woman in character. Not much of her time was spent in school, yet her instruction was not scanty for a Japanese girl. Most of it had been given by her father, whose mode of life left him ample leisure for her lessons. She read well and she had the books of the Bunko that had been her mother’s. Of this “Japanese Lady’s Library” she was diligently studious, and already had attained familiarity with “Woman’s Household Instruction,” and the “Lesser Learning for Woman,” and was intent upon the main part of the work, the profound “Greater Learning.” Besides, she knew the “Hundred Poems,” and often joined with her father and brother in an evening game of quotations. There was little interruption of the quiet current of the family life, and Jukichi loved to put aside pipe or book, when no visitor had come, and play thus with his children. But neither he nor Kokan ever gave a thought to the future of the girl, or noticed the promise she gave of beautiful womanhood.

She was a lonely child for one so bright and winning. Her friends were very few, not because of her condition, for poverty is all too common in Japan to be disgraceful, and many families of great rank have known its bitter pinch. It was rather because of a gentle, instinctive shyness that made her recoil from the often boisterous gayety of her schoolmates. But one there was who held large place in her childish esteem. It was a friendship that began with her schooling. Her father had taken her to the school that first day, for Kokan had finished the primary grades and went to a different school in another part of the city. The master was a large, stern man, with solemn, forbidding face, and O-Mitsu-san was filled with fear. He took her into a great barren room, filled with hard, high benches where sat a multitude of other little boys and girls. He showed her a bench and told her to sit down, and when she took her place, the other children looked at her and whispered together and laughed. She was frightened, and presently, when the master, with a big whip in his hand, called her name in a loud voice, she put her head down on her hands and sobbed with fear. Then the other children laughed more and the master commanded silence in a voice that terrified her. She was very miserable and wished only to get away from that dreadful place and to go home again. By and by a bell rang, and all the children stood up and went out. But one little boy came to her and said shyly:

“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?”

“Then are they like us now?” she asked.

“Yes, child,” replied the teacher softly, for he, too, was a Samurai and knew what was in the heart of his little questioner, “and because it is the Emperor’s will they must no longer be treated as they were.”

“I am glad,” said O-Mitsu shortly, and went out into the yard to join the game in which Soichi had a part.

But when school was over and Soichi was walking toward home with her she kept silent for a long time. At length, raising her eyes and looking at him, she said:

“I know why now, Soichi.”

At once the boy stopped. The training of bitter experience prepared him to hear her proudly scornful decision. But when she was silent he dared at length to ask:

“Why do you not say it?”

But she smiled and answered:

“I do not care, and I will not tell. Teacher says it is right because the Emperor did it. Come, let us go home.”

IV

Kutami the Commoner was fat and jolly. He lived well and put trouble behind him whenever it showed its ugly head. He liked to talk and smoke and visit with the friends who came often to his comfortable house to enjoy his hospitality. For though among the Samurai and the gently born the old prejudice against the Etas was far from extinction, among the Commoners there was little inclination to supercilious remembrance, especially when one had been so successful as Kutami. The visit of Jukichi to his house had had a marked effect. Often since that memorable afternoon the wagging tongues of Kutami’s friends had discussed the proud old man and his hard situation. Many a suggestion was made as to how it might be improved, but none which it seemed likely he would accept. The generous impulses of his admirers were barred by the stubborn pride they were not willing to encounter.

Life in many of its details is not so different in Japanese cities to what it is in the Western world. Neighbors gossip just the same, and pry out secrets and imagine motives just as they do among Occidentals, and just as often hit the mark. They knew Jukichi’s ambition for Kokan, and how more and more doubtful of fulfillment it was becoming.

“How foolish he is!” said Komatsu, the cloth merchant, one evening when the subject had been discussed for the fortieth time. “With what he had from his pension he might have done many things, and been as rich now, perhaps, as Chobei here, who does not know what to do with his wealth.”

“A curio shop, for instance,” said Uchida, the ivory carver; “many Samurai have done that, and with his knowledge of such things and his friends to help him get them, or to buy from, he might have made a great success.”

“But instead of that he has only sold some of his own things for a child’s price, and grows poorer every day!” Komatsu seemed as near to being disgusted as was possible for his good nature.

“How little you know him after all,” said one of the group who until now had taken no part in the gossip. It was Matsumoto, a Samurai who had made his way in the very fashion outlined by Uchida, and whose advertisement, proclaiming his rank, is thrust into the hand of every foreigner who steps ashore at a Japanese port. But he had the native genius for trade as well as the insight into character which told him how utterly lacking it was in Jukichi. “He could never be a merchant,” Matsumoto continued. “The world is just what a man’s heart makes it. Kudo-san would find only misery and hatred in becoming a trader, and would fail before he had thoroughly begun.”

“Ah, that is true,” cried Chobei, “that is quite the truth. I do not know what he could do.”

“That is plain,” replied Matsumoto. “He was a great swordsman in his day and has a fine reputation. He could give fencing lessons. He has taught his son, who already excels the other boys in school. Let him teach the sons of others.”

That was a practical suggestion of which all felt the force. But the real difficulty lay in approaching Jukichi. There was plenty of talk about that, but the gossips went away without having reached a conclusion. A long time after his friends had gone Chobei sat with his little pipe, in deep consideration of the subject. In his abstraction he rapped so hard on the hibachi, knocking out the ashes, that O-Koyo came into the room to see what was the matter. There had never been many secrets between them, and now Chobei looked up and began at once to speak of the problem that was perplexing him.

“You know I have long been desirous of assisting Kudo-san,” he said, “but have not understood the means to be employed. To-night Matsumoto-san has given me an idea. It is that he can teach fencing; but how shall we get him the pupils without his suspecting that we do it to help him?”

“We have one,” replied O-Koyo. “We could ask him as a favor to teach our son.”

“No, no,” said Chobei, at once. “That would not do at all, for I have told him that Soichi is not to be a soldier, and he knows our son has no need of fencing.”

“Well, then,” said O-Koyo, “I do not know what to do. It seems to me that he is a very foolishly proud old man.”

“Ah, yes,” replied Chobei, “but he is one of those who belong to the old Empire and he cannot change. It is very strange and very hard.”

“Hardest for his son,” said O-Koyo. “How can that boy become an officer of the army without education, and how can Kudo-san give it to him? There is no school here and he cannot send the boy away.”

As he listened to his wife speaking these words a new light dawned upon Chobei. He saw the way.

“We must make that school,” he exclaimed, and drew in his breath so hard that it whistled through his teeth. “We will found a new one to fit boys for the Military Preparatory Schools, and Kokan shall have his education. Yes, yes! That is what we must do! There shall be a place for Kudo-san. I will ask him myself. It will be a great honor to us if he will teach the fencing and swordsmanship. Then when his son must go away he will have something to meet the expense.”

So the idea was born. There followed much thought and talk among Chobei’s friends, and one day the local newspapers announced that the authorities had given permission to Mr. Kutami Chobei to establish a new school, which the founder agreed to maintain. It would be the link between the existing institutions of the city and those of the central Government. The courses were to be general, but there was to be special instruction for such boys as desired to fit themselves to enter any one of the six Government Local Military Preparatory Schools with a view to competing for a commission in the army.

It was the shrewd Matsumoto who had suggested this method of bringing the new school to the notice of Jukichi, and his reading of the old man’s character was not at fault. Not a hint of the personal opportunity offered came to the Samurai as he read the news in his paper. To him it was only another evidence of the patriotism of his neighbor, and he was about to set out on a second visit of congratulation, when a messenger brought a letter from Chobei. It was a very humble letter, as befitted the circumstance of a promoted Eta writing to a Samurai. The Commoner hoped that Kudo-san had heard of the projected school and that it would meet with his approbation. There were some matters concerning its administration and the courses of study to be provided, about which it would be a distinguished honor to him to consult with Kudo-san, and in view of the previous marked kindness, he dared to beg the condescension of an appointment. The advice of Kudo-san would be a very material assistance as well as a great honor.

Jukichi thrust the letter into the sleeve of his kimono and stalked around the corner into Azalea Street. There was a smile on Kutami’s face when he saw how his bait had been swallowed, and he silently blessed Matsumoto for his inspiration.

“It is a great presumption for such as I,” he said when the tea had been brought and Jukichi’s first congratulations were offered, “to think of undertaking such a work. No doubt it would have been better if some gentleman had been willing to do it. But, as it is, I am glad to have the opportunity. I have observed for some time, and with much regret, that many of the young men of the city have been obliged to go away to complete their preparatory education, especially those who mean to enter the army, and I hope this school will be able to remedy that fault.”

Jukichi bowed in his courtly fashion and paused respectfully before replying.

“It is an honor to the city,” he said at length, “to have so public-spirited a citizen.”

With profoundest salute Kutami acknowledged the compliment and protested his unworthiness.

“There is very much to do,” he said slowly, “and I am poorly fitted to make suggestions. I hope you will not believe me rude or unthinking if I venture to tell you it has been suggested to me that perhaps you yourself would be willing to help.”

The trial was made, and Kutami sat with narrowing eyes, watching his visitor to note the effect. For a moment or two Jukichi sat perfectly still, with face completely masking his feelings. Then he bowed deeply, with strong sibilant inspiration.

“I?” he said, with show of surprise. “It is an unexpected honor. I am quite unworthy to assist in so valuable a work. I do not know what I could do.”

The Commoner breathed more freely. He had dreaded a fiery outburst from the hot-tempered old man, and when it did not come he could hardly conceal his relief. He felt that Jukichi’s coöperation was more than half promised when it was not at once indignantly refused.

“Who in the city could do more?” he exclaimed. “Who could confer such honor upon so humble an undertaking?”

Jukichi did not reply. Since the day when he saw the struggle for the Restoration successful, the old man, still clinging fondly to the life of the old régime, had been nevertheless drifting unconsciously toward participation in the new. But he was yet far from open avowal, and the proposition of Kutami came to him with a shock. He saw, however, that he had opened the way for it himself, and merely asked to be excused from giving immediate reply. Then with renewed congratulations and polite expression of good-will, he went away, leaving the Commoner uncertain but hopeful.

With genuine sorrow Kutami saw the Samurai pass through his gate unpledged. But he went on with the work, and soon the new building approached completion. Every detail was arranged but the most important of all. For Jukichi still declined to commit himself. If he failed to secure the Samurai, though he succeeded in all else, Kutami felt that the whole undertaking would fail. But he exhausted his ingenuity without success. The pride of his abolished caste still dominated the Samurai. It was an incident beyond the knowledge of either that determined Jukichi.

Jealousy is not the curse of race or rank. It finds its lodgment in the breasts of rich and poor alike, in Occidental and Oriental. It was O-Koyo who found the first evidence of it in a newspaper wrapped around a casual purchase, and with unconcealed emotion took it to her husband, reviling herself for being the bearer of ill news. Poor Kutami! Of all the hard thrusts and unkind blows of his none too easy life this was the meanest and worst. It was a savage attack on his cherished scheme. The school plan had been devised in all sincerity, with the sole purpose of giving aid, without its being known, to the man who, he felt, had honored him by entering his house, and whom he greatly admired. But here he saw his honest, manly work scornfully derided, his simple purpose wantonly distorted and himself held up to ridicule more bitter than his bitterest outcast days had ever known. Every one could see what the real object of the new school was, said the paper. The spawn of the frog was hoping to be hatched out into eagles. But fine dress and large words did not hide the outcast. The Eta, though he clothed an army and built a thousand schools, was only an Eta. Law might call him a Commoner; it could not make him clean. Contamination was in all that he touched. Out upon the upstart with his vile wealth, who dared presume to offer schooling to the sons of men of birth!

With heart too heavy for words Kutami gave back the paper to his wife. The cruel blow seemed to have struck down at once his ambition and his energy. He sat like one paralyzed and could neither think nor speak. And O-Koyo, tearing up the wretched paper in a frenzy of grief, as if thus to destroy the slander, threw herself down on the mat and sobbed aloud.

There was no fight left in Kutami. But Matsumoto, the curio dealer, with the old Samurai courage untouched in his heart, strove to inspirit his friend, and the building was finished. The Government officials had taken no notice of the attack on the founder, and the newspaper discussion provoked by it died away with no immediately discernible effect.

In the seclusion of his quiet home Jukichi had not heard the bitter denunciation of the new school. He was absorbed in the old problem of Kokan’s future. The money he had received from the Government was almost at an end. His treasures were sold, his resources exhausted. Swayed to and fro by the currents of conflicting emotion he sat, still undecided, still reluctant to grasp the proffered relief.

From one of her old schoolmates O-Mitsu heard the story and told her father. The old man listened with flashing eyes, and when she finished his decision was made. For himself he would not take the step, but to help another, even one who had been an Eta, appealed to his sympathy and his sense of honor.

The day of the opening arrived, and then the result of the slander appeared. No pupils came to the new school. In painful embarrassment the governor of the Ken stood in the great, bare, main room and heard the pitiful words of unhappy Kutami presenting his gift to the city. Vain and empty sounded the pompous response. The teachers, gathered for their hopeful task, found nothing to do. The ceremonies were over. The governor and his officials turned to go away, glad the disagreeable business was ended. In the doorway stood an old man and a boy. With grave and dignified salute they waited while the governor passed out. Then into the building they marched and up to the office of the head-master. Five minutes later two students were duly registered and the new school was opened, with Kudo Jukichi and Kudo Kokan its first pupils.

Jukichi had committed himself at last, but the scandalous assault came very near to success. For several days not another pupil appeared. Then the word went abroad that Kudo Jukichi, the Samurai, had registered his son, who was in daily attendance, and that Kudo-san himself had become instructor of swordsmanship. Men who had hoped to have their sons profit by the new institution, but who had been held back by cowardly apprehension, rejoiced at the relief, and some who secretly sympathized with the attack, and hated to see this evidence of the progress of the upstart succeed, were shamed into supporting it. The day was won for Kutami, and it was a victory infinitely sweeter than his bitterest calumniator could have imagined, for a reason of which scarce half a dozen persons in all the city had any inkling.

V

More and more as he grew older, young Kudo Kokan betrayed the haughty spirit that had characterized his ancestors. To him Kutami the Commoner was still Chobei the Eta. With no hint of how intimately his own career was connected with the success of the new school, he was much opposed to having anything to do with it. But as the days passed, and others of his inherited standing filled his classes, his active opposition relaxed into scorn of the man and the institution from which he profited so much.

Boys are boys just as much in Japan as in any other country, and must grow to manhood through the same struggles and with just as much exhibition of their native barbarity. It was in the second year of Kokan’s attendance at the new school that Kutami entered his own son, who was preparing for a course at the university. Soichi was growing very tall and strong, fonder of sports and games, of military drill and marches than of books and hard study. Now for the first time he met the young Samurai. The early friendship with O-Mitsu had run its course of vicissitudes and pleasures, and seemed to have come to the fork in the road. As the girl grew older and learned more of the ways of her world, she came to understand more fully what had been intended by the little talebearer who first informed her of Soichi’s social station. She saw the proud attitude of her father toward the Commoner, and her friendship with the boy was not mentioned at home. Apparently that was the only circumstance which distinguished it from scores of other boy and girl friendships. But the fact that it was not wise to say anything about it gave it a fictitious importance, and perhaps made it linger in a tenderer corner of the girl’s recollection.

The appearance of Soichi at the school offered occasion to Kokan for the revelation of his least lovable qualities, and, boylike, he promptly showed them. He took delight in suppressed sneers and open snubs. And Soichi, being a boy of high spirit and no mean courage, cherished a sturdy resentment. Savagery is indigenous with most real boys. Before they have reached the age of reason it crops out persistently, whether their skins are brown or white, whether their eyes tilt upward at the corners or lie straight across the face. But it is of two kinds, merely exuberant spirits, impersonal, horse-playful, or vicious and vindictive. Kokan had no intention to be mean, but often pranks played just for the fun of it are none the less cruel, and what starts in good-natured play ends in deadly earnest. And Kokan misjudged the mettle of Soichi. He had the easy confidence of assured superiority and could not guess that beneath the jacket of the boy he often derided with the scornful name of Eta there beat a heart as stout as his own.

Unconsciously, too, he had a large advantage. For Soichi knew the secret Kokan did not, of the real reason for the founding of the school, and at any time could have given his tormentor a thrust that would have brought his insolent pride abjectly to the dust. Not many American or European boys would have stood proof against such a test, for they are not trained in the ideas of filial obedience and loyalty, that are the inheritance of the Japanese. Soichi knew that a single word from him would end his persecution, but at the same time it might be the ruin of all his father had tried to do, and he held his tongue. And, because he thought he dealt with unresisting putty, Kokan went from bad to worse. The taunt that had been but a joke at first became a thing of venom, and his easy, indifferent contempt began to grow into something almost hatred.

How little beyond their noses most boys can see! Kokan came to believe there was no flint at all in Soichi, for try as he would, he could not strike fire. Then came the thunder-bolt.

The year’s work was almost finished. A few days more and Kokan would be graduated. It was with a sense of great relief that Soichi saw the end so near. It had been a bitter year for him. Not only had Kokan’s taunts and persecution strained his endurance almost to breaking; it had cost him the sympathy and friendship of many of his fellows, who misconstrued his silence and had come to believe with his tormentor that he was a boy of no spirit. He thought it all over by himself and a great resolve came to him. As he walked alone to the school one morning he planned his course. Let the result be what it might, his mates should see that it was not fear that had kept him from open resentment.

The bell rang and the boys came trooping in from the playground. Standing aloof, Soichi watched until he saw Kokan. The Samurai boy walked briskly, talking light-heartedly with two or three companions. To enter the building he must pass close to the spot where the Commoner stood. Soichi waited until Kokan and his friends were but a few feet away, then stepped directly in front of them, and turning his back, walked slowly toward the door. Instantly Kokan understood that a crisis had come. For a moment he was too amazed to speak. Then he shouted:

“What do you mean, Eta? Get out of my way!”

Soichi made no reply, and stepped more slowly than before. Kokan was almost on his heels.

“Jump, dog!” the young Samurai shouted in sudden anger; “jump before I kick you!”

For answer Soichi turned and without a word slapped him smartly across the mouth with the flat of his hand.

A moment Kokan stood like one turned to stone. It was as if the blow had paralyzed every faculty, not by its force but by its shock. Then in wild fury he sprang forward, his hands outstretched as if to clutch and tear to pieces the boy who had dared to strike him. Soichi was ready. In strength and stature he was quite a match for his frantic antagonist; but it needed no force to meet that furious rush. Swifter than sight his hands went forward, caught the arms reaching out to seize him, and with a single twitch hurled the Samurai boy bodily over his head. Then like a cat he whirled to meet a new attack. It was a trick he had often played on the practice mats of the gymnasium, where not in vain had he worked that year with the master of jiu-jitsu.

Hurled the Samurai boy bodily over his head.

Dazed by the force of his fall Kokan struggled to his feet, mad with rage. Fortunate then for them both that the wearing of swords was no longer the Samurai’s privilege, else Soichi would have been killed in his tracks. But if passion had blinded Kokan, his friends could still see, and before another wild rush should give Soichi a second opportunity they had seized both boys and held them apart. In another moment the master, who from the doorway saw and heard it all, had reached them, and discipline was beginning to work.

“He insulted the Emperor and I struck him,” said Soichi calmly, when they examined him. “If I had had a sword I should have cut him down.”

“What?” said the master, “insulted the Emperor!”

“It is false!” cried Kokan, restored to outward calm, but with heart burning with hatred. “I did not!”

“He called me Eta,” retorted Soichi, “and the Emperor has decreed that there are no more Etas.”

Before that reasoning even Kokan was silent, and because he was Jukichi’s son the master found a way to let the matter drop.

Soichi had given a proof of his spirit, which every boy in the school was ready to accept. He had won his point, but the young Samurai went away to his military school with a bitterness rankling in his heart it was to take years to cure. The quarrel had its effect in the house in Timber Street no less than in the home of Kutami. Jukichi at once left his place as instructor and opened classes of his own. It did not matter. The work for which the school had been founded was done, and the Commoner, grieving that it had come to such result, nevertheless was satisfied, and more than ever proud of the son who had shown both his courage and his patience.

VI

The period of “Little Plenty” was wearing to its close. Already the wistaria blossoms were fading and the gorgeous azaleas were dropping their petals. In the fields the barley heads had turned to yellow and the young rice in the seed beds stood tall and strong in its thick green rows awaiting the harvest that should make room for it. It was a day when even nature rested and basked in the smile of heaven. The sun shone as if pouring the accumulated experience of millions of years into each moment, saturating earth and trees and flowers and grass with a deluge of molten gold. The vast blue arch gleamed like a great aërial mirror, reflecting the wide expanse of motionless sea that lay shimmering in the sunlight, unmarked by a single ripple. On its sleeping surface myriad fishing boats, with dull gray hulls and red brown sails, drifted and dozed. The noisy calls of the city were hushed, and to the girl sitting among the trees on the crest of the pine-clad cone beyond the end of Timber Street there rose only now and then a muffled sound, like the dull roll of surf on a far-distant beach. Only life that was wild sent its challenge to her. Natsu-zemi shrilled his strident ji-i-iii from the branches over the Shinto shrine in vigorous chorus, as if determined to make the uttermost of such a day, and Min-min-zemi chanted his ritual over and over from scores of trees, singing the prayer that has no end.

Six years had more than fulfilled the promise of her childhood for Kudo O-Mitsu. At eighteen she was the full-blown flower of which at twelve she had been only the bud. Such an one she was as would set the hearts of half a city a-throb by a single glance, even a city where men care not overmuch for maidens, and passion is rarely of the tender sort until years of association have coddled it into flame. Her face was a long, narrow oval, the stamp of her gentle birth, exquisitely curved from cheek to chin and rounded to the delicate point that emphasized her beauty and yet revealed her determination. Narrow at the top and broadening to the temples, her ivory-white forehead disclosed the outline of beloved Fujiyama, the sacred mountain of her race. The full lips of her little mouth were brilliant with the stain of luscious cherries. Above a great mass of shining, jetlike hair gleamed softly the green jade of the ornaments that betrayed her years.

She sat leaning a little forward, the slender fingers of one hand half supporting, half caressing her chin, and gazed dreamily out at the splendid pageant of sea and shore spread before her. But its beauty was not in her thought. The wonderful shimmer of the opalescent water, now heliotrope, now tan, now pearl, under the rapturous rays of the afternoon sun, the soft blue of the roofs rising here and there through the brilliant green of the verdured hills, had now no charm for her. The melancholy note of the wild dove, calling sweetly from the deep recesses of the pines, suited more her mood. For trouble had come to O-Mitsu, of a kind she did not know how to meet. Chukei, the nakodo, the professional matchmaker, had called to see her father.

To the old Samurai, hardly less than to the girl, his message had come with a shock. For as unconsciously as she had grown to womanhood, so unconsciously had he seen her grow, with never a thought of the demand for her that time was certain to bring. The son of whom he was so proud was gone to the army. That year he had received his commission and joined his regiment. The red cap-band of the Guards was a badge of honor for Jukichi, and he dwelt lovingly on the future of the young officer who had begun his career by winning appointment to the proudest service in the land. But the old man missed the boy, and honor could not entirely fill his place in the lonely house. It was the girl who brought sunshine into Jukichi’s daily routine. The classes and the lessons that had earned their humble subsistence still occupied part of his time, but the old man had lost his zest for them, and his urgent need had passed. Kokan’s pay was enough for them all considering their simple way of life, and Jukichi, feeling his years, was beginning to contemplate the time when he should resign his cares, and as inkyo, live out his days in rest and peace.

In all such dreams O-Mitsu had her share. Jukichi did not mean deliberately to keep her from the marriage to which every Japanese girl looks forward, but he put the thought of it from him as unpleasant, and Chukei had forced it on him against his will. He turned the nakodo away with evasive answer and scant encouragement. Then for hours he sat thinking of the girl and her future. After supper, when she brought his pipe, he said:

“I have received a proposal of marriage for you.”

She put down his tobacco pouch and sat still, a sudden clutching about her heart as if of suffocation. For some time Jukichi said nothing more, then he added:

“Chukei-san, a nakodo, has been here to see me about it.”

“Ah,” she said, with a pitiful little effort to smile. Her father had given no hint yet of his own feeling, and she dreaded what was to come. She was not prepared for this. She had not thought of it. Kokan and her father had made up her world, and she did not know what to say. The old man sat looking at her fondly, and for a few moments neither spoke. Then he said slowly:

“Yamamoto-san, the silk merchant, makes proposal on behalf of his son.”

She smiled again, and with better will, for somehow she found relief in the words and manner of speaking. Besides, she did not know the young man who had honored her, and she began to feel that perhaps her father might not consent. She had no wish to marry, and she was not the girl to do so simply for the asking. At length, as her father said no more, she plucked up courage, and bowing deferentially to him, said:

“I do not wish to marry yet. It is better for me, if you will, to live here with you until perhaps Kokan shall bring you another daughter to keep the house.”

A smile of pleasure lighted the old man’s face.

“Ha,” he said, “it is as I wished you would feel.”

Then, if he had been an Occidental, he would have kissed his daughter, and heart to heart they would have talked until the matter was settled. But deep and true though affection may be among the Japanese, it finds small show in outward expression, and caresses are signs of weakness.

“I have made no answer,” he went on, after a little. “I had no will to have you marry if you were not ready.”

His hand moved a little as if to touch her arm, and his eyes glistened with unusual emotion.

“I will tell Chukei-san.”

That was all. The incident was ended; but the girl, wiser by instinct than her father, although without experience, marked it for the beginning. What was it that stirred her heart in protest so strangely and so strongly? She did not know. The ghost of some long dead experience, perhaps. The wood dove in the trees behind her called plaintively to its unseen mate. The sun slid down the western heaven and threw his long rays caressingly over her, face to face with a world-old perplexity. Why should she be sad at the prospect for which other girls longed? It was the pleasant homelife with her father, and the deep, quiet home love, she thought at last; life and love that knew no change. That was the way she wished to go on, and with a sudden blaze of anger she hated old Chukei for his unwelcome interference. Gradually her mind recovered its old poise, and she saw the course she would take. Her father’s attitude was her good fortune. As long as he continued in that mood the menace was shorn of its power, and after that—The huge red sun splashed into the flaming sea, and with its parting fire flashing back from her lambent eyes she rose and started down the winding path toward home.

VII

There was joy in the house in Azalea Street. Soichi had come home. His work at the university was finished, and despite his dislike for study he had taken high place in honor of the father who wished him to. Now he had returned to make a beginning in the career Kutami had planned for him. But for a time there was to be no work. Father and mother and son were to play a little together and give rein to the pleasure of the reunion. After that the new venture would take all the effort of both men.

Kutami intended to branch out. The old business was good enough for him, but the son was worthy of something better. He should be a banker, and already the Commoner had arranged with some of his wealthy business associates for the founding of the new institution which should give Soichi his opportunity. The friends who gathered at the comfortable house to celebrate the joyful return of the young man, discussed the new project with unflagging enthusiasm, and all predicted a proud success for Soichi. The sake cups were often exchanged and many cigarettes perfumed the air. There was no flaw anywhere.

It was the next afternoon that Kutami, trudging along through Timber Street on his way back from his office, and turning over in his mind his plans for his son, passed the house of Jukichi. A drizzling rain was falling, but the Commoner, secure under the wide shelter of his yellow, oiled-paper umbrella, cared nothing for that. As he passed the gate of the Samurai a gust of wind swirling through the street tilted the umbrella sharply back, and Kutami glanced up just in time to see old Chukei, the matchmaker, coming out.

“Oho!” he said, as he saw the middleman, “a wedding, eh? I wonder what lucky young fellow it can be who is to have Kudo-san’s daughter for his wife.”

He paused for a moment, looking after the nakodo as he strode toward the city, then turned and went on. It was no affair of his after all, and before he had reached his own home he was back again in the absorbing subject of Soichi and the new bank, and had forgotten all about Jukichi’s daughter.

Shrewd old Chukei had met a puzzling rebuff. The circumstances were everything that to his mind foreshadowed a successful negotiation. But he had been sent away with almost no explanation. The nakodo shook his head and plodded along, wondering what to do.

O-Mitsu was happy. Not soon again, she thought, would this particular middleman return to her father’s house with his annoying business. With unwonted lightness of heart she went about her work. Then when the rain ceased and the sun came out, she stepped out into the yard and on the tall getas that guarded her dainty feet from the mud, took her way up the path toward her favorite spot among the pines by the old shrine. The world was greatly changed for her since last she looked out upon that familiar scene. The sails of the fishing-boats bellied out under the fresh breeze, the spray dashed over their bows, the trees swayed and nodded, everywhere was life and activity. The whole world sang and her heart with it.

She stood a long time gazing down at the spreading sea, quite unconscious that another had climbed the steep path, one who now found even a more entrancing picture before his eyes than the wonderful view below them. It was Soichi, come to visit the old shrine. All unprepared for the vision that came so suddenly before him as he turned to look down on the well-remembered shore, it was hard to stifle his admiration and surprise.

Leaning a little against a gnarled old pine, she stood motionless, her strong profile and the exquisite curve of her chin revealed unwittingly to him as he paused, half concealed by a clump of trees. Back over the years since he had seen her, the rush of memory took him to that day when she had told him that she knew his secret. He saw her again standing in the road and bidding him, with a smile, come on with her. And now that little girl was this beautiful woman! She had not changed, and yet she was all changed.

Slowly the tide of emotion swelled within him. He could not remember that he had ever thought she was a pretty girl, and in the years he had spent at the university he had scarcely thought of her at all. He had seen many pretty girls there, but never had one affected him like this. Now he saw at a glance that she was wonderfully beautiful, and the more he looked the more wonderful she became. It dawned on him that she was much the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and immediately he had an almost irresistible longing to go to her at once and tell her so.

An unhappy thought of himself restrained him. They were no longer schoolfellows. She was the daughter of a Samurai and he—Poor Soichi! Not even his university life had taken from his own consciousness all taint of the old disgrace. He did not know, because he had had no experience, that love is heimin as well as shizoku, a Commoner as often as a Gentleman, and that there is never advantage in loving a girl unless you tell her so.

He moved a little, and a snapping twig told her that some one was near. She turned quickly and their eyes met. A long moment they stood so and neither spoke, yet in that moment the whole world changed for each of them. Under his steady gaze she felt the blush come tingling up her throat and spread across her cheeks. Like one grown fast to the ground on which he rested, he stood and only stared. His brain refused to act, his tongue to work. Then she moved, and the spell was broken.

“O-Mitsu-san!” he cried, and tone and glance told all he would have uttered.

With all her face rosy with warm blood she gazed fearlessly back into his eyes, and murmured softly a single word, yet one instinct with the feeling of a thousand.

“Thou,” she said, in the old familiar language of their childhood.

Even as eyes and look had spoken for him when voice and tongue were mute, so had she answered. His ugly doubts of himself fled at first sight of her smile and it was the old Soichi who sprang forward to her side. A thousand questions trembled on his lips and struggled in vain for utterance. His unruly tongue refused its function, and he stopped in confusion, even his bold eyes falling before her smiling glance. It was the girl, older than he in such matters by hundreds of years of heritage, who said lightly after a little pause:

“I did not know that you had come home.”

A dozen emotions fought together for expression, but all were crowded back, and he answered in commonplace:

“I have been here nearly a week.”

“So long?” she said, questioning.

He fancied he caught a note of reproach in her tone, so far had his self-esteem come back, and a pang of regret crossed him at the thought that he had lost those days.

“I am a fool,” he said irrelevantly, but with air so dejected that one far less clever than she would have followed his thought.

She laughed merrily, and the sound of her voice completed his undoing. He was back to elemental simplicity again, and the passion that was uppermost in his heart came bursting out with truthful bluntness.

“You are the most beautiful woman in all the world,” he said.

Again the blush swept across her face and the long lashes fell over the merry eyes. The flood-gate of his speech was lifted at last. The torrent of his emotion flowed forth with the rush of waters long pent up, telling her the ancient story he had known all his life, but which only that last quarter hour had revealed to him. And the girl, listening with fluttering heart, heard more than he said, for he was answering the question she had asked herself, and she understood now her hot protest at the message of the nakodo.

They sat down by the great rock on the far slope of the hill, where the thick pines screened them from the view of visitors to the shrine, and where the sea lay blue, strong, and peaceful below them. For an hour of which no power ever could rob them, heart was laid bare to heart. Innocently, simply, with the peace of the glorious day, they prattled of the wonder that was theirs, the discovery they alone of all the world had made, and never a thought cloud floated across their heaven to disturb the serenity of its sunshine.

VIII

It was a good thing for Soichi that he had received the proper Japanese training in emotional self-repression or he certainly would have betrayed his secret very soon after his return to the house in Azalea Street. It not only filled him to the overflowing point; it enveloped him roundabout. He was drowned in it. Only the strong force of habit saved him, and the preoccupation of his parents prevented them from noticing his sudden distraction and absent-mindedness. Four days went by, two so long that night seemed never to come, and two so short that he remembered of each nothing but the blissful hour when he had seen O-Mitsu. They had lived over again the past and drunk the joy of the present. Then came the specter. Boys and girls who fall in love in Japan, where the nakodo does most of the wooing, have even less chance than Western lovers for the proverbially rare smooth course of affection. And when he is of such humble descent as Soichi and she the daughter of a Samurai, that little chance is very small indeed. But they were true Japanese and had no lack of courage. They looked their trouble squarely in the eyes and questioned only how to meet it.

“Do you remember the teacher who frightened me so that first day at school?” she asked, going back again to the beginning of all things. “When they told me first that I should not play with you I asked him if it were so. Do you know what he said?”

“Yes, I know,” he answered, a little sadly, for he saw how always the specter stood between them.

“He was a Samurai,” she went on, “and he knew. He said the Emperor had destroyed the old distinction and we were all alike.”

“Yes,” he replied, “before the law. But there are some things that not even the Emperor’s law can reach.”

“Treason!” she cried lightly. “The Emperor’s law reaches everywhere and touches everything.”

He looked at her with a smile. “Do you think,” he said, “that the Emperor wishes us two to be married?”

Her eyes dwelt fondly on his face, and she answered bravely:

“He wishes the old barriers to be utterly thrown down and all his people to be one.”

The picture of that day at his father’s school when he had asserted his manhood came back to him with a rush.

“Ah, yes,” he said soberly, “that is true. Perhaps it might have been, but I spoiled it.”

“Thou?” she said, using again that fond expression that sent the blood surging through him.

“I struck your brother,” he answered. “Perhaps but for that——”

“No, no!” she cried. “I know about that. It was right. There would have been no hope if you had not done it. You do not know Kokan, how proud and hard he is, how he despises fear. He thought you were afraid of him, and he hated you for it. If you had not shown him you were not, and—and this had come, he would have killed you.”

“Perhaps,” he said coolly.

His tone startled her. It was only a little, after all, that she knew of men, and there was a side of Soichi that she did not suspect, because of the difference in their training.

“Ah, but he would,” she declared earnestly. “You do not know how quick and hot his temper is.”

“Perhaps I should have killed him,” Soichi answered. “It would have been a fight, not a murder.”

The words surprised him almost as much as they did her, but for a different reason. That he had said them to her was the wonder to him; that he should have the feeling they disclosed was her amazement. It was the spirit of the Samurai, the spirit that all her training told her belonged only to them, and yet he revealed it as lightly as if it were a thing of supreme indifference, a commonplace, the matter-of-fact possession of every man. A new joy came to her with the unexpected knowledge, and instantly new hope sprang up, vague and undefined, but none the less profound. Somehow, some way this unimagined quality in him would throw down the hateful barrier of prejudice and set them free. There was a deepened tenderness in the eyes that answered his gaze.

“You said there would have been no hope if I had not done that,” he went on, after a little. “Did you think Kokan would ever forgive that blow?”

“He is brave and true,” she answered softly, “even if he is proud and scornful. Too brave himself not to admire bravery in another. He thought you were afraid, but now he knows and in time his anger will die away.”

“You do not know him so well, I am afraid,” he said. “To be struck by one he despised so much was an insult he will never forget or forgive. Hope, for us, must count on something else, yet we must not be without hope. You know the saying, ‘Even a calamity, if left alone three years, may turn into a fortune.’”

She was strangely happy again. It seemed quite natural now that they should face hopefully forward. She looked out over the shining sea and began to build dreams, queer dreams that left the Now by unknown paths and reached the Then by unmarked roads. But always they arrived there, and it was a country of unclouded happiness where she and he lived in perfect peace. A long time he sat silent, watching her with eyes that signaled his mood. At length she turned to him with a little sigh.

“I must go home,” she said. “My father will say I stay very long at the shrine and go very often.”

“So long a time and yet so short,” he said, and rose to his feet. An unpleasant thought crossed his mind and she saw its shadow.

“What is it?” she asked.

“To-morrow the work at the bank begins,” he replied, “and I must go there.”

“Well,” she said, “are you not glad of it? It is an honorable occupation.”

He gave her a puzzled, sorrowful look that brought a peal of merry laughter.

“Is it so bad as that?” she asked.

“When I go to the bank I cannot come here,” he said gravely. “Then when shall I see you?”

At once her own face fell. “You are here now,” she said, “and that was enough. I did not think of to-morrow.”

“Not merely to-morrow,” he rejoined, “but all the days after that.”

“Two,” she answered lightly; “there will be always two in seven. We can thank the new ways that have brought us Saturday and Sunday.”

“Yes, two in seven,” he responded, so gloomily that she laughed outright.

“Greedy!” she cried. “Know you not that the avaricious man prepares his own downfall? How much better are two days than none, as it has been so long?” She held up her slender fingers and made as if to count the years he had been away. “And for the other days,” she went on, “there are paper and ink and brushes, when one knows how to write.”

She was too happy at her new discovery of him to let so small a matter as this conjure up clouds. He caught the contagion and her smile chased away his frown.

“Good thought!” he said. “Now I know why that troublesome art was taught me.”

So, laughing and jesting, they started down the hill. They had almost reached the bottom when a new difficulty arose.

“If I send you a letter,” he said soberly, “will not Kudo-san know it?”

She had thought of that, too, only it did not disturb her.

“In the roof over the gate,” she said, “there is a split in the shingle. Underneath one could easily leave a letter that would never be seen unless someone should look for it.”

But he, more practical, at once objected. It would be tempting fate to leave their letters where any day her father might so easily find them. If he should chance to look over-closely at the gate, or perhaps to have it repaired when a letter was there, discovery would be certain.

“If you do not enter the tiger’s den,” she said, “you cannot catch her cub.”

“Oh, yes,” he answered; “if one is patient by and by the cub will come out. There is a better place. In the corner of the yard by the plum tree there is a big bamboo post in the angle of the fence. To-night, after dark, I will make a cap for it, and in the hollow beneath shall be our letter box.”

“Yes,” she said, “that is best.”

Satisfied of his skill and ingenuity she gave him her prettiest bow and a radiant smile, and moved down the path toward Timber Street. He watched until the far turn shut out from his view the dainty figure in its silver-gray kimono and iris-violet obi, and then thoughtfully took his own way homeward.

It was in the time of “Little Heat” when Soichi fitted the cap to the post. So cleverly he did his work that no one could tell, except by the closest examination, that there was a seam in the bamboo. On the inside he made a deep groove in the post and fastened a tongue to the cap so that it should fit tight always in the same place and never betray what had been done. Often, after that, he would watch his chance and when no one was in sight slip up to the post and stealthily lift the cap to take out or put in a letter.

The days passed swiftly, in spite of his inability to see O-Mitsu, for the work at the bank was new and hard, and as the business prospered there was much for him to do. So Handon and Donkatu (half Sunday and Sunday), as the country people still call them, came around more quickly than he had thought, and nearly always they had contrived to arrange a meeting. Oftenest it was at their favorite big rock back of the pines, where there was seldom a straggling sight-seer to interrupt them. But sometimes, on holidays and festivals, it would be at the big Buddhist temple; and that they liked less, for the crowd interfered, and it was difficult to find a secluded place or to have more than a few words together without observation.

The weeks ran on into months, and the period of the “Cold Dew” came all too quickly, with its short afternoons and early descending sun, that cut down their brief hour together and sent them home to write more letters. For the conversation of lovers is as never-ending in the Mikado’s realm as in the less fettered courtships of happier lands, and there was always so very much between them that had to be said and answered.

And now a new, dread subject was looming up. All over the land traveled the same sinister whisper, and men said the Dragon was rousing himself, and talked of the terrible rustling of his great scales. The winds of war were beginning to blow lightly from the north, and far and near the people waited anxiously to see if they could not be diverted. As time went on, and stronger and stronger came the hostile currents, more and more soberly Soichi and O-Mitsu discussed the darkening future. Much it meant to them, for Soichi would be a soldier. His last birthday had brought him to the age for conscription service, and although his university course would give him some exemption, he was not one to claim it, if the Emperor were engaged in deadly strife; nor indeed would O-Mitsu have him. As autumn dipped into winter the wrath of the people toward their great antagonist grew and deepened, and anxiety lest there should be war gave place to desire for it.

They were sitting again by their great rock one late fall afternoon when the grass was brown and dead, and through the bare branches that waved above the housetops the wind blew bleak and cold from off a sullen sea. They had talked of war and what it might bring to them. Each felt it would be the end of all their dreams, for a soldier’s duty is to die for the Emperor, and Soichi would not come back when once he had been called to the front.

“It will be a very great honor for me,” he said at length, turning from a long, silent look at the wide-stretching water.

She glanced up at him questioningly.

“It is the first time a Kutami has had the privilege of serving the Empire as a soldier,” he went on, “and I shall be very proud to go. It has done a great deal for us.”

She made no answer, but sat with her slender hands folded across her lap.

“Will you pray to Kwannon when I am gone?” he asked gravely.

“Yes, and to Shaka,” she said softly.

“Ah, to him also,” he returned; “yes, to him, too. We commit it all to Shaka.”

The low-hanging sun warned them that their all-too-short hour was ended, and they started down the familiar path in silence. At the turn, where they separated, he paused, and she looked up into his eyes.

“To Shaka, too,” he said, and strode on.

IX

There was plenty of work at the new bank, and Kutami divided his time between it and his old affairs. In the street one morning as he was going to the bank he came upon Chukei, the nakodo, of whom he had not a thought since that day he saw him at Kudo-san’s gate.

“Good morning, Chukei-san,” he said; “what young people are you trying to make happy now?”

“Not your son, surely,” answered the middleman, instantly scenting the possibility of a fortunate stroke, and bowing very low to make a good impression.

“Ho, ho!” cried Chobei, with a hearty laugh. “You are quite right. Surely not my son. He has no thought of marrying yet.”

“Be not oversure,” replied the nakodo. “One never can tell what is in the minds of these likely young fellows.”

“That is so,” returned the banker; “but I think I know my son quite well enough. I saw you coming from Kudo-san’s house a while ago. That must have been a proposal for his pretty daughter?” He chucked at his shrewdness in guessing.