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Lady of the Decoration

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Never mind Mate, I couldn't be frivolous if I wanted to down
here. Kobe would have proven fatal, for there are many foreigners
there, and the temptation to have a good time would have been too much
for me. I am rapidly developing into a hymn-singing sister, and the
world and the flesh and the devil are shut up in the closet. Let us
pray.



October 2nd, 1901.


At last, dear Mate, I am started at my own work with the babies and
there aren't any words to tell you how cunning they are. There are
eighty-five high class children in the pay kindergarten, and forty in
the free. The latter are mostly of the very poor families, most of the
mothers working in the fields or on the railroads. There are so many
pitiful cases that one longs for a mint of money and a dozen hands to
relieve them. One little girl of six comes every day with her blind
baby brother strapped on her back. She is a tiny thing herself and yet
that baby is never unstrapped from her back until night comes. When I
first saw her old weazened face and her eagerness to play, I just took
them both in my lap and cried!

One funny thing I must tell you about. From the first week that I got
here, the children have had a nickname for me. I noticed them laughing
and nudging each other on the street and in the school, and whenever I
passed they raised their right hands in salute, and gave a funny
little clucking sound. They seemed to pass the word from one to
another until every youngster in the neighborhood followed the
trick. My curiosity was aroused to such a pitch that I got an
interpreter to investigate the matter. When he came to report, he
smilingly touched my little enamelled watch, the one Jack gave me on
my 16th birthday, and apologetically informed me that the children
thought it was a decoration from the Emperor and they were saluting me
in consequence! And they have named me "The Lady of the Decoration".
Think of it, I have a title, and I am actually looked up to by these
funny yellow babies as a superior being. They forget it some time
though when we all get to playing together in the yard. We can't talk
to each other, but we can laugh and romp together, and sometimes the
fun runs high.

I am busy from morning until night. The two kindergartens, a big
training class in physical culture, two Japanese lessons a day and
prayers about every three minutes, don't leave many spare hours for
homesickness. But the longing is there all the same, and when I see
the big steamers out in the harbor and realize that they are coaling
for _home_, I just want to steal aboard and stay there.

The language is something awful. I get my tongue in such knots that I
have to use a corkscrew to pull it straight again. Just between you
and me, I have decided to give it up and devote my time to teaching
the girls to speak English instead. They are such responsive, eager
little things, it will not be hard.

As for the country, I wouldn't dare to attempt a
description. Sometimes I just _ache_ with the beauty of it all!
From my window I can see in one group banana, pomegranate, persimmon
and fig trees all loaded with fruit. The roses are still in full
bloom, and color, color everywhere. Across the river, the banks are
lined with picturesque houses that look out from a mass of green, and
above them are tea-houses, and temples and shrines so old that even
the moss is gray, and time has worn away the dates engraved upon the
stones.

We spent yesterday at the sacred Island of Miyajima, which is about
one hour's ride from here. The dream of it is still upon me and I wish
I could share it with you. We went over in a sampan, a rude open boat
rowed by two men in undress uniform. For half an hour we literally
danced across the sea; everything was fresh and sparkling, and I was
so glad to be alive and free, that I just sang for joy. Miss Leasing
joined in and the boatmen kept time, smiling and nodding their
approval.

The mountains were sky high, and at their base in a small
crescent-shaped plain was the village with streets so clean and white
you hated to walk on them. We stopped at the "House of the White
Cloud" and three little maids took off our shoes and replaced them
with pretty sandals. The whole house was of cedar and ebony and bamboo
and it had been rubbed with oil until it shone like satin. On the
floor was a stuffed matting with a heavy border of crimson silk, and
in the corner of the room was a jar that came to my shoulder, full of
wonderfully blended chrysanthemums. All the rooms opened upon a porch
which hung directly above a roaring waterfall, and below us a dozen
steps away stretched the sparkling sea, full of hundreds of sailing
vessels and junks.

In the afternoon, we wandered over the island, visiting the old, old
temples, listening to the mysterious wailing of the wind bells,
feeding the deer and crane, and drinking in the beauty of it all. I
felt like a disembodied spirit, traveling back, back over the
centuries, into dim forgotten ages. The dead seemed close about me,
yet they brought no gloom, for I too was dead. All afternoon I had
the impression of trying to keep my consciousness from drifting into
oblivion through the gate of this magical dream!

How you would enjoy it all, and read its deeper meaning, which is
hidden from me. But even if I can't philosophize like a certain
blessed old Mate of mine, I can _feel_ until every nerve is a
tingle with the thrill.

Good bye for a little while; I've stolen the time to write you this,
and now it behooves me to hustle.



November 12th, 1901.


It's been a long while between "drinks", but I have been waiting until
I could write a letter minus the groans. The truth is I have hit
bottom good and hard and it is only to-day that I have come to the
surface. When the exhilaration of seeing all the new and strange
sights wore off, I began to sink in a sea of homesickness that
threatened to put an end to the kindergarten business for good and
all.

I worked like mad, and all the time I felt like one of these whizzing
rockets that go rushing through the air and die out in a miserable
little fizzle at the end. I can stand it in the daytime, but at night
I almost go crazy. And you have no idea how many women do lose their
minds out here. Nearly every year some poor insane creature has to be
shipped home. You needn't worry about that though, if I had mind
enough to lose I'd have lost it long ago. But to think of all my old
ambitions and aspirations ending in the humble task of wiping Little
Japan's nose!

I suppose you think I am pulling for the shore but I am not. I am
steering my little craft right out in the billows It may be dashed to
smithereens, and it may come safely home again, but in any case, I'll
have the consolation of the Texas cowboy that "I've done my durndest!"

By the way, what has become of Jack? He needn't have taken me so
literally as never to send me a message even! You mentioned his having
been at the Cape while you were there. Was he just as unsociable as
ever? I can see him now lying flat on his back in the bottom of a boat
reading poetry. I hate poetry, and when he used to quote his favorite
passages I made parodies on them. Now _you_ were always
different. You'd rhapsodize with him to his heart's content.

Just here I had a lovely surprise. I looked out of the window and saw
a coolie pull a little wagon into the yard and begin to unload. I
couldn't imagine what was taking place but pretty soon Miss Dixon came
in with both arms full of papers, pictures, magazines and letters. It
was all my mail! I just danced up and down for joy. I guess you will
never know the meaning of letters until you are nine thousand miles
from home. And such dear loving encouraging letters as mine were! I
am going to sit right down and read them all over again,



November 24th, 1901.


Clear sailing once more, Mate! In my last, I remember, I was blowing
the fog horn pretty persistently.

The letters from home set me straight again. If ever a human being was
blessed with a good family and good friends it is my unworthy self!
The past week has been unusually exciting. First we had a wedding on
hand. The bride is a girl who has been educated in the school, so of
course we were all interested. Some time ago, the middle-man, who does
all the arranging, came to her father and said a young teacher in the
Government school desired his daughter in marriage. The father
without consulting the girl investigated the suitor's standing, and
finding it satisfactory, said yea. So little Otoya was told that she
was going to be married, and the groom elect was invited to call.

I was on tiptoe with curiosity to see what would happen, but the
meeting took place behind closed doors. Otoya told me afterwards that
she had never seen the young man until he entered the room, but they
both bowed three times, then she served tea while her mother and
father talked to him. "Didn't you talk to him at all?" I asked. She
looked horrified. "No, that would have been most immodest!" she
said. "But you peeped at him," I insisted. She shook her head, "That
would have been disgrace." Now that was three months ago and she
hadn't seen him until Monday when they were married.

At our suggestion they decided to have an American wedding and I was
appointed mistress of ceremonies. It was great fun, for we had a best
man, besides brides-maids and flower girls, and Miss Lessing played
the Wedding March for them to enter. The arrangements were somewhat
difficult owing to the fact that the Japanese consider it the height
of vulgarity to discuss anything pertaining to the bride or the
wedding. They excused me on the ground that I was a foreigner.

The affair was really beautiful! The little bride's outer garment was
the finest black crepe, but under it, layer after layer, were slips of
rainbow tinted cob-web silk that rippled into sight with every
movement she made. And every inch of her trousseau was made from the
cocoons of worms raised in her own house, and was spun into silk by
her waiting maids.

After the excitement of the wedding had subsided, we had a visitation
from forty Chinese peers. They came in a cavalcade of kuramas,
gorgeously arrayed, and presenting an imposing appearance. I ran for
the poker for I thought maybe they had come to finish "Us
Missionaries." But, bless you, they had heard of our school and our
kindergarten and had come for the Chinese Government to investigate
ways and means. They made a tour of the school, ending up in, the
kindergarten. The children were completely overpowered by these
black-browed, fierce-looking gentlemen, but I put them through their
paces. The visitors were so pleased that they stayed all morning and
signified their unqualified approval. When they started to leave, I
asked the interpreter if their gracious highnesses would permit my
unworthy self to take their honorable pictures. Would you believe it?
Those old fellows puffed up like pouter pigeons, and giggled and
primped like a lot of school girls! They stood in a row and beamed
upon me while I snapped the kodak. If the picture is good, I'll send
you one.

This morning I had to teach Sunday School. I'll be praying in public
next. I see it coming. The lesson was "The Prodigal Son", a subject
on which I ought to be qualified to speak. The Japanese youths
understood about one word out of three, but they were giving me close
attention. I was expounding with all the earnestness in me when
suddenly I remembered a picture Jack used to have. It was of a lean
little calf tearing down the road, while in the distance was coming a
lazy looking tramp. Underneath was the legend:

"Run, bossy, run,
Here comes the Prodigal Son."

That settled my sermon, so I told the boys a bear story instead.

How I should love to drop in on you to-night and sit on the floor
before the fire and pow-wow! I'll be an awful back number when I come
home, but just think how entertaining I'll be! I have enough good
dinner stories to last through the rest of my life!

For heaven's sake send me some hat pins, nice long ones with pretty
heads. And if you are in New York this winter please get me two
bottles of that violet extract that I always use.

My dearest love to all, and a hundred kisses to the blessed children
at home Don't you _dare_ let them forget me.



November 27th, 1901.


I told you it would come! My prophetic soul foresaw it. I had to lead
the prayer in chapel this morning. And I play the organ in Sunday
School and listen to two Japanese sermons on Sunday.

I tell you, Mate, this part of the work goes sadly against the
grain. They say you get used to hanging if you just hang long enough,
so I suppose I'll become reconciled in time. You ask me _why_ I
do these things. Well you see it's all just like a big work shop,
where everybody is working hard and cheerfully and yet there is so
much work waiting to be done, that you don't stop to ask whether you
like it or not.

I can't begin to tell you of the hopelessness of some of the lives out
here. Just think of it! Women working in the stone quarries, and in
the sand pits and on the railroads, and always with babies tied on
their backs, and the poor little tots crippled and deformed from the
cramped position and often blind from the glare of the sun.

What I am crazy to do now is to open another free kindergarten in one
of the poorest parts of the city. It would cost only fifty dollars to
run it a whole year, and I mean to do it if I have to sell one of my
rings. It is just glorious to feel that you are actually helping
somebody, even if that somebody is a small and dirty tribe of Japanese
children. I get so discouraged and blue sometimes that I don't know
what to do, but when a little tot comes up and slips a very soiled
hand into mine and pats it and lays it against his cheek and hugs it
up to his breast and says, "Sensei, Sensei," I just long to take the
whole lot of them to my heart and love them into an education!

They don't know the word love but they know its meaning, and if I
happen to stop to pat a little head, a dozen arms are around me in a
minute, and I am almost suffocated with affection. One little fellow
always calls me "Nice boy" because that is what I called him.

We are having glorious weather, cold in doors but warm outside. The
chrysanthemums and roses are still blooming, and the trees are heavily
laden with fruit. The persimmons grow bigger than a coffee cup and the
oranges are tiny things, but both are delicious. Chestnuts are twice
as big as ours, and they cook them as a vegetable.

You'll be having Thanksgiving soon, and you will all go up to
Grandmother's, and have a jolly time together. Have them fix a plate
for me, Mate, and turn down an empty glass. Nobody will miss me as
much as I will miss my poor little self.

What jolly Thanksgivings we have had together! The gathering of the
clans, the big dinner, and the play at night. Not exactly a play, was
it, Mate f More of a vaudeville performance with you as the stage
manager, and I as the soubrette. Do you remember the last reunion
before I was married? I mean the time I was Lady Macbeth and gave a
skirt dance, and you did lovely stunts from Grand Opera. Have you
forgotten Jack's famous parody on "My Country 'Tis of Thee?"

"My turkey, 'tis of thee,
Sweet bird of cranberry,
Of thee I sing!
I love thy neck and wings,
Legs, back and other things," etc, etc.

There goes the bell, and here go I. I can appreciate the feelings of
a fire engine!



Christmas Day, 1901.


Had somebody told you last Christmas, as we trimmed the big tree and
made ready for the family gathering, that this Christmas would find me
in a foreign country teaching a band of little heathens, wouldn't you
have thought somebody had wheels in his head?

And yet it is true, and I have only to lift my eyes to realize fully
that I am really in the flowery kingdom. The plum blossoms are in full
bloom and the roses too, while a thick frost makes everything
sparkling white in the sunshine. The mountains have put on a thin
blue veil trimmed in silver, and over all is a turquoise sky.

And best of all, everybody--I speak figuratively--is happy. It may be
that some poor little waif is hungry, having had only rice water for
breakfast, it may be some sad hearts are beating under the gay
kimonos, and it _may_ be, Mate dear, that somebody, a stranger in
a strange land, can't keep the tears back, and is longing with all her
mind and soul and body for home and her loved ones. But never you
mind, nobody knows it but you and me and a bamboo tree!

This afternoon we are going to have tea for the Mammas and Papas, and
I am going to put on my prettiest clothes and do my yellow locks in
their most fetching style.

I shall lock up tight, way down deep, all heartaches and longings and
put on my best smile for these dear little people who have given to
me, a stranger, such full measure of their sympathy and friendship,
who, in the big service last month, when giving thanks for all the
great blessings of the past year, named the new Kindergarten teacher
first.

Do you wonder that I am happy and miserable and homesick and contented
all at the same time?

The box I sent home for Christmas was a paltry offering compared to
what I wanted to send, but the things were bought with the first money
I ever earned. They are packed in so tight with love that I doubt if
you ever get them out.

Our Christmas dinner was not exactly a success. We invited all the
foreigners in Hiroshima, twelve in number, and everybody talked a
great deal and laughed at everybody's stale jokes, and pretended to be
terribly hilarious. But there was a pathetic droop to every mouth,
and not a soul referred to _home_. Each one seemed to realize
that the mere mention of the word would break up the party.

I tell you I am beginning to look with positive reverence on the
heroism of some of these people! Tears and regrets have no place here;
desire, ambition, love itself is laid aside, and only taken out for
inspection perhaps in the dead hours of the night. If heart breaks
come, as come they must, there is no crying out, no rebellion, just a
stiffer lip and a firmer grip and the work goes on.

I wish I was like that, but I'm not. If Nature had put more time on
my head and less on my heart, she would have turned out a better job.

I put a pipe in the box for Jack. If you think I ought not to have
done it, don't give it to him. As old Charity used to say, "I don't
want to discomboberate nobody." Only I hope he won't think I am
ungrateful and indifferent.



NAGASAKI. January 14th, 1902.


Now aren't you surprised at hearing from me in Nagasaki? I am
certainly surprised at being here! One of the teachers at the school,
Miss Dixon, Was taken sick and had to come here to see a doctor. I was
lucky enough to be asked to come with her.

I am so excited over being in touch with civilization again that I
can't sleep at night! The transports and all the steamers stop here,
and every type of humanity seems to be represented. This morning when
I went out to mail a letter, there were two Sikhs in uniform in front
of me, at my side was a Russian, behind me two Chinamen and a
Japanese, while a Frenchman stepped aside for me to pass, and an
Irishman tried to sell me some vegetables!

Miss Dixon had to go to the Hospital for a few days, though her
trouble is nothing serious, and I accepted an invitation from
Mrs. Ferris, the wife of the American Consul, to spend a few days with
her.

And oh! Mate, if you only _knew_ the time I have had! If I
weren't a sort of missionary-in-law I would quote Jack and say it has
been "perfectly damn gorgeously." If you want to really enjoy the
flesh-pots just live away from them for six months and then try them!

The night I came, the Ferrises gave me a beautiful dinner, and I wore
evening dress for the first time in two years, and was as thrilled as
a debutante at her first ball! It was so good to see cut glass and
silver, and to hear dear silly worldly chatter that I grew terribly
frivolous. Plates were laid for twenty, and who do you suppose was on
my right? The severe young purser who was on the steamer I came over
in! His ship is coaling in the harbour and he is staying with the
Ferrises, who are old friends of his. He is so solemn that he almost
kills me. If he weren't so good looking I could let him alone, but as
it is I can't help worrying the life out of him.

The dinner was most elaborate. After the oysters, came a fish nearly
three feet long all done up in sea-weed, then a big silver bowl was
brought in covered with pie-crust. When the carver broke the crust
there was a flutter of wings, and "four and twenty black birds" flew
out. This it seems was done by the Japanese cook as a sample of his
skill. All sorts of queer courses followed, served in the most unique
manner possible.

After dinner they begged me to sing, and though I protested violently,
they got me down at the piano. I didn't get up any more until the
party was over for they made me sing every song I knew and some I
didn't. I sang some things so hoary with age that they were decrepit!
The purser so far forgot himself as to ask me to sing "My Bonnie lies
over the Ocean"! I did so with great expression while he looked
pensively into the fire. Since then I have called him, "My Bonnie,"
and he _hates_ me.

The next day we went out to services on board the battleship "Victor."
The ship had been on a long cruise and we were the first American
women the officers had seen for many a long day. They gave us a
rousing welcome you may be sure. Through some mistake they thought I
was a "Miss" instead of a "Mrs." and I shamelessly let it pass. During
service I heard little that was said for the band was playing outside
and flags were flying and I was feeling frivolous to the tip of my
toe! I guess I am still pretty young, for brass buttons are just as
alluring as of old.

When the Admiral heard I was from Kentucky, he invited us to take
tiffin with him, and we exchanged darkey stories and the old gentleman
nearly burst his buttons laughing. After tea, he showed us over the
ship, making the sailors line up on deck for our benefit. "Tell the
band to play 'Old Kentucky Home'," he ordered.

"You'll lose a passenger if you do!" I cried, "for one note of that
would send me overboard!"

He was so attentive that I had little chance to talk to the young
officers I met. But several of them have called since, and I have been
out to a lot of teas and dinners and things with them. The one I like
best is a young fellow from Vermont. He is very clever and jolly and
we have great fun together. In fact, we are such chums that he showed
me a picture of his fiancée. He is very much in love with her, but if
I were in her place I would try to keep him within eye-shot.

We will probably go home to-morrow as Miss Dixon is so much better.
I am glad she is better, but I could have been reconciled to her being
mildly indisposed for a few days longer.

I forgot to thank you for the kodak book you sent Christmas; between
the joy of seeing all the familiar faces, and the bitterness of the
separation, and the absurdity of your jingles, I nearly had hysterics!
I almost felt as if I had had a visit home! The old house, the cabin,
the cherry tree, and all the family even down to old black Charity,
the very sight of whom made me hungry for buckwheat cakes, all, all
gave me such joy and pain that it was hard to tell which was
uppermost.

It's worth everything to be loved as you all love me, and I am willing
to go through anything to be worthy of it. I have had more than my
share of hard bumps in life, but, thank Heaven, there was always
somebody waiting to kiss the place to make it well. There isn't a day
that I haven't some evidence of this love; a letter, a paper, a book
that reminds me that I'm not forgotten.

A note has just come from his Solemn Highness, the purser, asking me
to go walking with him! I am going to try to be nice to him but I know
I won't! He is so young and so serious that I can't resist shocking
him. He doesn't approve of giddy young widows that don't look sorry!
Neither do I. In two days I return to the fold. Until then "My
Bonnie" beware!



HIROSHIMA, February 19th, 1902.


After a sleepless night I got up this morning with a splitting
headache. I have been back in the traces for a month, and I am
beginning to feel like a poor old horse in a tread mill, not that I
don't love the work, but oh! Mate, I am so lonesome, lonesome,
lonesome. I think I used up so much sand when I first came that the
supply is running low.

"All day there is the watchful world to face
The sound of tears and laughter fill the air.
For memory there is but scanty space
Nor time for any transport of despair.
But, Love, the pulse beats slow, the lips turn white
Sometimes at night!"

Perhaps when I am old and gray and wrinkled I'll be at peace. But
think of the years in between! I have been cheated of the best that
life holds for a woman, the love of a good husband, the love of her
children, and the joys of a home.

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