The heart of Hyacinth

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ONOTO WATANNA

ILLUSTRATED DECORATIONS BY

II

It was the season of Seed Rain. The country was green and fragrant and the crops thirstily absorbed the rain. The villagers sat at their thresholds , some of them even indolently lounging in the open, unmindful or perhaps enjoying the seething rain, an antidote for the heat, which was somewhat sweltering for the season.

Children were playing in the street, nimbly jumping over the puddle ponds, or climbing, with the agility of monkeys, the trees that lined the streets, and about whose boughs they hung in various attitudes of daring delight.

One small boy had climbed to the very tip of a bamboo, and there he clung by his feet, swaying with the shakings of the slender tree, and the motion of those below him — far below him.

It was not often that the son of Madame Aoi was permitted such absolute freedom. Indeed, it was only upon those occasions when Komazawa, momentarily blind to the reproach of his mother's sad eyes, literally thrust away the bonds which seemed to hold and chain him to their quiet household and burst out and beyond their reach. Surely, at the tip of this long, perilous bamboo he was quite beyond the reach of little Madame Aoi and her old servant, Mume. But even in his present lofty position Komazawa had kept his eyes from the possible glimpse of his mother. His feet clung to the tree only because his hands were engaged in covering his ears.

Yet, even in the open, Komazawa was alone. The neighbors' children played in little bodies and groups together, and Komazawa from his perch watched them with the same ardent wistfulness with which he was wont to regard them from the door of his little isolated home. 1 1

Old Mume was angry. Her voice had become hoarse, and she was tired of her position in the rain, for the bamboo gave but scant shelter. She shook the tree angrily.

" Do not so," entreated the gentle Aoi. "See how the tree bends. Take care lest it become angry with us and vent its vengeance upon my son. But, pray you, good Mume, return to the home and give food and succor to our honorable guest."

As Mume shuffled off, her heavy clogs clicking against the pavement, Aoi called up, entreatingly, to the truant:

"Ah, Koma, Koma, son, do pray come down."

But Komazawa, with head thrown backward, was whistling to the clouds. He was very well content, and it pleased him much to be wet through. How long he sat there, whistling softly strange airs and imagining wild and fanciful things, he could not have told, since the passage of time in these days of freedom was a thing which he noted little.

Gradually he became aware that the rain was becoming colder and the skyhad darkened. Komazawa looked downward. There was nothing but darkness beneath him. He shivered and shook his little body and head, the hair of which was weighted with rain. Komazawa began to slide downward, feeling the way with his feet and hands. It was quite a journey down. In the darkness he had knocked his little shins against out -jutting broken boughs. He landed with both feet upon something palpitating and soft — something that caught its breath in a sigh, then inclosed him in its arms.

Komazawa guilty, but not altogether tamed, spoke no words to his mother. He stood stiffly and quietly still while she felt his wetness with her hands. But he threw off the cape in which she endeavored to wrap him. He was obliged to stand on tiptoe to put it back around his mother, and as this was an undignified position, his bravado broke down. i3

Gradually he nestled up against her, and — strange marvel in Japan! — these two embraced and kissed each other.

After a while, as they trudged silently down the street homeward, Komazawa inquired, in a sharp little voice, as he looked up apprehensively at his mother :

"And the honorable stranger, mother?"

Aoi hesitated. The hand about her son trembled somewhat. His thin little fingers clutched it almost viciously. He flushed angrily.

"Why do you not answer me?" he asked, with peevishness.

"I have not seen the honorable one," said Aoi, gently.

"Pah!" snapped the boy. "No, certainly, and we do not wish to see her. We do not like such bold intrusion."

"Nay, son," she reproved, "we must not so regard it. Let us remember the words of the good master, the august missionary."

"What words?" inquired Koma, tart- 14 ly. "Why, his excellency does not even know of the coming of the woman, since he is gone three days from Sendai now."

"Ah, but my son, do you not remember that he taught us to treat with kindness the stranger within our gates?"

Koma made a sound of disapproval, his little, ill-tempered face puckered in a frown. After a moment he inquired again :

"But where is the woman, mother?"

Aoi regarded her small son almost apologetically.

"She is within our humble house," she replied.

Koma pulled his hand from hers with a jerk. For a time he walked beside her in silence. He was strangely old for his years, and already he showed the inheritance of his father's pride.

"Mother," he said, "we do not wish the stranger to disturb our home. My father would not have permitted it. We are happy alone together. What do we want with this woman stranger?"

IS

"But, my son, she is very ill."

"She should have stayed at the honorable tavern. We do not keep a hostelry."

Aoi sighed.

"Well," she said, hopefully, "let us bear with her for a little while and afterwards— "

"We will turn her out," quickly finished the boy.

"We will entreat her to remain," said Aoi. "It would be proper for us to do so. But the stranger will not be lacking in all courtesy. She will not remain."

They had reached their home. Now they paused on the threshold, the mother regarding the son somewhat appealingly, and he with his sulky head turned from her. Aoi pushed the sliding-doors apart. A gust of wind blew inward, flaring up the light of the dim andon and then extinguishing it. The house was in darkness.

Suddenly a voice, a piercing, shrill voice, rang out through the silent house. 16

''The light, the light!" it cried; "oh, it is gone, gone!"

Koma clutched his mother's hand with a sudden, tense fear.

' ' The light ! " he repeated. ' 1 Quickly, mother; the honorable one fears the darkness. Quickly, the light!"

Ill

Old Mume was busily engaged in the kitchen. The milk over the fire had begun to bubble. With a large wooden stick she stirred it. Then she returned to her rice. As she pounded it into flat cakes, her old face, with its hundred wrinkles, was contorted, and she muttered and talked to herself as she worked. She was like some old witch, breathing incantations.

At the threshold of the room stood Koma. His eyes were very wide open and his cheeks were flushed. At his side his little hands were sharply clinched. His whole attitude betokened excitement and impatience. Suddenly he clapped his hands so loudly and sharply that the old woman started in fright; then catching sight of the little intruder, x8 she hobbled towards him on her heels, her tongue in angry operation.

"Now, who but an evil one would frighten an old woman? Shame upon you, naughty one!"

"Oh, Mume, you are so slow the evil one will catch you. Just see, the milk boils over. Still you do not hasten. Yet the illustrious ones are ill, very ill."

"Tsh!" scolded the old woman, as she poured the steaming milk into a shallow bowl, and broke pieces of the rice-bread into it. "What, would you advise old Mume about such matters ? Would you have me burn the honorable babe?"

She cooled the preparation with her hand, fanning it back and forth across the bowl.

Koma watched her a moment with smouldering eyes. Suddenly he started, his little ears alert and attentive.

A cry, thin and piping at first, grew in volume. Was it possible that so small a thing could fill the house with its 19 noise? Koma strode to the fire, seized the bowl with both hands, and, before the grumbling old servant could interfere, he was gone with it from the room, and speeding along the hall.

With his finger-tips on the closed shoji of the guest-chamber he tapped gently. It was softly pushed aside, and Aoi appeared in the opening. Stepping into the hall, she closed the sliding screens behind her.

The boy spoke in an eager whisper.

"Here is the milk the honorable one desired."

"Where did you obtain it, son?"

"In the village. And see, we have warmed it, for it was quite cold. It is good goat's milk."

"Such a good son!" whispered Aoi, and stooped to kiss the upraised face ere she returned to the sick-chamber.

Koma crouched down on the floor by the door. He could hear within the soft glide of his mother's feet across the floor. There was a murmuring of indistin- 20 guishable words. Then that voice, with its strange accent, which seemed to pierce and reach something in the boy.

The voice was weak now, but its exquisite clearness was not dulled. Then Koma heard the movement of the lifting of the babe ; a little cry or two, then little gurgling, satisfied gasps. The babe was being fed with the milk he had procured. It gave Koma a strange satisfaction — a warm delight. He stretched out his little limbs across the floor. He, too, was satisfied. All was now well. Gradually his head drooped backward and Komazawa fell into a slumber.

Within, the stranger was imparting bits of her history to the sympathetic Aoi. She was hardly conscious of her words, which were spoken through her semi-delirium. Her feverish eyes, wide open, shone up into the bending face of Aoi, and held the Japanese woman with their piteous appeal. She seemed soothed under the gentle touch of Aoi's hand on her brow.

"Pray thee to sleep," gently the Japanese woman persuaded her.

She was quiet a moment, only to start up the next.

"Nay," entreated Aoi, "sleep first — to-morrow speak. Rest, I pray you."

"It was so long, so long!" cried the woman on the bed, clasping her thin hands across those on her head. "And, oh, the pain, the agony of it all! I was so tired — so — "

Her body palpitated and quivered with the sighing sobs that shook her. She sprang up suddenly, pushing away from her the hands of Aoi, which gently attempted to restrain her.

' ' It was all wrong — quite wrong from the first. But what did they care ? They had their wedding. Ah, I tell you, they are bad, all bad! Ah, it was cruel, cruel!"

"Ah," thought Aoi, sadly; "she, too, has been pierced with anguish. Truly, my heart breaks in sympathy with her."

She bent above the quivering woman, her pitying face close to hers.

"Pray thee, dear one, take rest and comfort," she said, smoothing softly her brow.

"Ah, you are so good, so good," said the sick woman. "You are not like those others — those fearful people." She covered her eyes with her thin hands as if to shut out a vision of some horror. "God will bless you, bless you for your goodness to me," she said.

Exhausted, she lay back among the pillows, her eyes closed. How grateful to her must have felt that great English bed, with its soft coverlets! For how many days had she wandered, without sight or word of her own people! Her thin, fine lips quivered unceasingly, while her blue eyes held a constant mist, seemingly haunted by some troubled spectre that pursued her ceaselessly.

Once she raised her hands feebly, then plucked at the coverlet with long, white fingers.

"What a death! oh, what a death!" she whispered, faintly.

After a long silence her voice raised itself to the pitch of one delirious.

"If I could see — " Her words came slowly and with difficulty, and she repeated them ramblingly. "If I could only see — a white face — a white — one of my own people. Oh, so long, and, oh me! — mamma, mamma!"

"Ah, dear lady," said Aoi, "if you will but deign to rest I will go forth and endeavor to find some of your people. There are white people in the next town. It is not far — not very far, and perhaps, ah, surely, they will come to you."

"My people," the woman repeated. "No, no." Her voice became hoarse. She started up in her bed. ' ' You do not understand. I must never, never see them again. I could not bear it. They are cruel, wicked. No! Ah, you shall promise me — promise me."

She fell back, exhausted from her transport of passion. Aoi knelt beside 24 her and took her hands within her own.

"I will promise you whatever you wish, dear lady. Only speak your desires to me. I will humbly try to carry them out."

The sick woman's voice was so weak that she scarce could raise it above a whisper, but her words were plain.

"Promise me that you will not give them my little one when I am gone. You are good, and will be kind to her. Oh, will you not? I would not be happy, I could not rest in peace if she were sent to — to him." Her words rambled off again. "I left him," she said, "ran away — far away, far away, and the country was all strange to me, and I could not find my way. Every one stared at me; it must have been because I had gone mad, you know, quite mad. All women do. I wanted to put a great distance between us, to get beyond his sight — beyond the sound of his voice, beyond — " 25

"Ah, do not speak more," entreated Aoi, now in tears.

"Why, you are crying!" said the sick woman, looking wistfully into Aoi's face. She began to weep, weakly, impotently, herself.

After a time she became quieter. She started once again, when Aoi had snuffed a few of the lights, seeming to dread the darkness, but when the Japanese woman's hands reassured her, she was again silent. And as she slept she still clung spasmodically to the hands of Aoi.

IV

Morning dawned with a haggard light. Ceaselessly the rain drizzled down. The torpid heat of the previous day had given place to a clammy chilliness. The weather oppressed the sick one. Her restlessness was gone, but passive quiet was more ominous. Her white face seemed to have shrunken through the night — so white and still it was that she seemed scarcely to breathe.

Too weak to bear the burden of her child against her, the mother permitted the little one to be cared for in an interior room lest its cries might disturb her. All through the day she spoke no word. Wearily, the heavy lids of her eyes were closed.

As the day began to wane, Aoi, thoroughly alarmed, summoned the vil- 27 lage doctor ; a very old and learned man he was considered. He felt the woman's hands, listened to her breathing with his ear against her lips. Very cold her hands were, but her breathing was regular, though faint.

The doctor looked grave, solemn, and wise. He shook his bald head ominously.

"How long has the honorable one been thus?"

"Since early morn, sir doctor. She awoke from her night sleep only to fall into this condition."

"The woman has but a short space of life left to her," said the doctor, solemnly.

Aoi trembled.

"Her people — " she began, falteringly. "Oh, good sir doctor, it is very, very sad. So young! Ah, so beautiful!"

Seeming not to share or understand Aoi's sympathy, the doctor gathered up his instruments and simples slowly, meanwhile glancing uneasily towards 28 the face of the sick woman. He turned suddenly to Aoi.

"Madame," he said, "the village sympathizes with you at the infliction placed upon you by this enforced guest, but—"

"You do not finish, sir doctor?"

"The woman became a nuisance at the tavern. The people there were not Kirishitans (Christians), and were moreover in ignorance of the woman's speech. They could only comprehend that she wished to be taken to some one of her own people — so, madame, you — "

"I, being of her people," said Aoi, with simple dignity, "she was brought to me. That was right. I thank my neighbors for their kindness. I am honored, indeed, with such a guest. She is welcome."

The doctor moved towards the door.

"And the child? It is well, and will not accompany the mother on her last journey. What will become of it?"

Aoi did not reply.

" If it is desired by you, Madame Aoi," said the doctor, endeavoring to be kind, "I will immediately despatch word to the city to send notification to the nearest open port. There, surely, must be some consul, or representative of the woman's country. To them the child should go."

Aoi spoke swiftly.

"The poor one's people were unkind to her and cruel. How can we tell but that they might also abuse the child?"

"That is the affair of the child, Madame Aoi. Pray accept my counsel. Send the child—"

Interrupted by the sudden entrance of little Komazawa, he did not finish. The boy had evidently heard all, through the thin partition doors, against which he had leaned, listening intently. He thrust himself now before the doctor, with eyes purpled by excitement. His tense little body quivered.

"Sir doctor," he said, in a voice new even to his mother, it was so strong 30 and haughty, ' ' you make mistake. The child is already among its own people. Here, in my father's house, all people are Engleesh. So! The child belongs to us, since the mother did present it to us. It is a gift of the good God!"

Smiling and frowning together the little doctor bowed ironically to the little fellow facing him.

"And will the august one enlighten me as to whether he will make an effort to find the child's legal guardians?"

"That is our affair, sir doctor, but I will answer. We will ask advice of the good excellency when he returns. He is in Sendai even now. He will be in our village to-night."

The doctor bowed himself out, and Koma turned to his mother, a question in his eyes. Aoi nodded sadly. The poor white woman would die, had said the sir doctor.

Komazawa approached the bed softly, until he stood by the woman's side, looking down fixedly upon her. How 3i white was the still face, how beautiful the long lashes that swept the cheeks, how wonderful and sunlike the silken hair enveloping her head like a halo. Could she be real, this beautiful, still creature? Never had Komazawa seen anything like her. She seemed a spirit of the lingering twilight.

Suddenly he bent over her and softly touched the small hand that lay outside the coverlet. But soft as was his touch it acted like an electric shock upon the woman. She started and quivered, as her heavy lids lifted. At the little face bending above her she stared. A strange expression came into her face. Her voice was like that of one murmuring in a dream.

"A little white boy," she said. "A little white—"

Her lips were stilled, but a breath, a sigh passed from her as Koma, with a sudden instinctive motion, put his face down to hers. When Aoi gently drew the boy up she found the still, white 32 face softly smiling in the twilight, as though ere she slept she had seen a vision.

But Komazawa knelt by the bedside, weeping passionately.

V

Near the Temple Zuiganjii there is one huge rock, where the Date lords in the feudal days were wont to gather yearly, attended by musicians, and seeking recreation in gay amusements. It is of enormous size, and when the sun's rays beat upon its white surface it shines like white, polished glass. Flat, embedded in the soil, there is, however, a part of the rock which rises many feet above the level, its out - jutting point resembling the head of some giant seamonster. Under this jutting head a natural cave has been formed.

Here, on a summer day, two children were playing together. Far below them the Bay of Matsushima spread out its insistent beauty. Moored to the beach, a few cho below them, was their minia- 34 ture raft-sampan, an old weather-beaten boat, in which they had made their pilgrimage from the village. Behind them were the tombs and the eastern hills. The sunlight slanting upon them was no less golden than these summer foot-hills of the mountains beyond.

Bareheaded and barelegged the children were, the sandals upon their feet wet, showing how they had paddled in the bay. The boy, a lad of possibly fifteen years, was stretched full length under the shadow of the rock, only his sandalled feet projecting into the sunlight, which he hoped would dry them. His elbows were in the sand, his chin resting upon one arm. He was reading from a very much worn and ragged book, the leaves of which he turned with the utmost care and tenderness.

The little girl had gradually come from the rock's shadow, and now squatted at his feet. The sun fell upon her. She was a diminutive, odd little mite. Her hair, a dark shining brown, had been 35 carefully knotted up into a little chignon at the top of her head, but, being wayward by nature, it had escaped the most persistent brushing and the severe pins which held it. It clung around her ears and little neck in soft, damp curls. Her face and hands were russet, sunburned and freckled. Her eyes were large and gray, shading towards blue. She wore but one garment, a little red, ragged kimono, very much frayed at the ends and soaked from her late paddling. Unlike the average Japanese child, the little girl was restless and lacked all sense of repose, an inherent instinct with Japanese children.

Though the boy had constituted her his audience and was reading aloud to her, she apparently had heard no word of what he had been reading. Having wriggled her way beyond the reach of his hand, she now looked about her for new means of engaging her active little mind. This she discovered in some stalks of grass. Having selected the stiffest blade 36 she could find, she stealthily crept back to the feet of the boy, and first tickled, then pricked his feet with the grass. The natural result followed. The boy's droning, monotonous voice in reading changed to a sudden, sharp grunt, and he threw up his heels, whereat the little girl burst into a wild, elfish peal of laughter. At the same time she renewed her jabs at the boy's protesting feet.

Komazawa, still agitating his heels, closed the book with care, placed it in safety in the sleeve of his hakama, and swung upward, drawing his heels under him beyond the reach of his naughty tormentor.

With assumed gravity he regarded the small rogue before him.

"Something bitten you, yes?" she inquired, keeping her distance from him and hugging her knees up to her chin.

Koma nodded, silently.

"What?" she inquired. "What was that bitten you, Koma?"

"Gnat!" said the boy, briefly. 37

' ' Gnat ? ' ' She crept a few paces nearer to him, and peered up into his face.

"Yes — gnat," he repeated, "bad devil gnat."

The expression on the little girl's face was involved. How was it possible for any one ever to know just what Komazawa meant when his face was so grave and smileless. She had an odd little trick of glancing up at one sideways under her eyelashes. She peeped up at Koma now' for some time in this manner. Her mirth had changed to a matter of speculation. Did or did not Koma know what had bitten him? He had said it was a gnat. Her intelligence was not sufficiently developed to include the possibility that he might have meant her for the gnat. She ventured:

"Did you see that gnat bite you?"

"Yes, twice."

Her eyes became wide.

"Where is it gone?" she inquired, breathlessly.

"Still there," was his reply. 38

" Where ?" She -started, actually frightened. Koma's voice and air of mystery began to work upon her active imagination. What was a gnat, anyway? And if one had actually bitten Komazawa, might it not also bite her? By this time she had entirely forgotten her own attacks with the grass blade. She was close to Koma now, her hands upon his arm, her upraised eyes searching his face.

"What is a gnat, Komazawa?"

"Bad little insect."

"Oh! Does it bite?"

"Yes."

"Did it also bite you?"

"Three times."

"Oh!" A palpitating pause. Then:

"Will it bite me, too?"

"Maybe."

She crept completely into his arms, shielding herself with his sleeves.

"Where is it — that bad gnat?"

"Here." He pointed at her with an index-finger.

"Here!" She gave a little scream. "On my face!"

She was a small bundle of pricked nerves, frightened at a shadow of her own making. Komazawa relented, and pressed her little, fluttering face against his own.

"There — foolish one! No; there is nothing on your face. You are the gnat I meant."

"Me!" She drew back a pace. "But I am not an insect!"

"Little bit like one," said Koma, a smile of sunshine replacing his affected gravity a moment since.

His small companion sat up stiffly, half indignant, half curious.

"How'm I like unto an insect gnat?"

"Gnat jumps — this way, that, every way. So you do so. Can't sit still, listen to beautiful stories."

" I don't like those kind stories. Like better stories about ghosts and — "

"Oh, you always get afraid of such stories, screaming like sea-gull." 40

"Yes, but all same, I like to do that — like to hear such stories — like also get frightened and scream."

"Gnat also bites — bites foot, same as you do."

"That don't hurt," she said, her eyes askance. Then, repeating her words, quest ioningly, "That don't hurt?"

"Oh yes, it does, certainly. What do you suppose I got to keep my feet under me now for?"

Her little bosom heaved.

"Let me see those foots, Komazawa."

"Too sore."

"Oh, Komazawa!"

Her eyes were beginning to fill. He thrust his two feet out quickly.

"No, no; they are all right."

Her face was aglow again in an instant.

" Oh, I love you, my Koma," she said. "I only pretend hurt your honorable foots."

"That's right. Now, you fix your hands so." He illustrated, doubling his 4i own hands into fists, then doubling hers also.

"That's right. Make hand good and hard. So! Now you hit hard against those feet. So!"

He brought her little, closed fist down hard with his own hand on his offending foot. The little girl became pale. Her lips quivered. She began to sob.

Koma lifted her in his arms, jumped her on his shoulder, and carried her down to the beach, soothing her as he walked.

"That's just little punishment for me; punishment for teasing little sister," said Koma, laughing quietly. " That don't hurt. You going to laugh soon? You just little gnat! That's so? You bite just little bit. I am big dog. I bite big."

He set her in the boat.

"Such a foolish little gnat," he said, ' ' always cry — always laugh. Like these waters — sometimes jump — sometimes lie still."

Standing in the boat he pushed it out into the bay with the large pole which served as a sort of paddling oar.

He smiled back over his shoulder at her. ' ' Ah, the wind go blowing us home so quick. Now you smile once more. Good! Sun come up again!"

He had been speaking to her in English, idiomatic, but clear. Now he broke into Japanese song. His voice was round and large, full and sweet for one so young. It seemed to ring out across the bay, and float back to them from the echoing hills.

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 44 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.