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Lady of the Decoration

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But the sights, Mate dear, are enough to break one's heart. I have
seen good-byes, and partings until I haven't an emotion left! One man
I talked with was going back for the fourth time having been wounded
and sent home again and again; his wife never took her eyes from his
face until the train pulled out, and the smile with which she sent him
away was more heart rending than any tears I ever saw.

Then I have been touched by an old man and his wife who for four days
have met every train to tell their only son good-bye. They are so
feeble that they have to be helped up and down the steps and as each
train comes and goes and their boy is not on board, they totter hand
in hand back to the street corner to wait more long hours.

Going one way the trains carry the soldiers to the front, boys for the
most part wild with enthusiasm, high spirits, and courage, and coming
the other way in vastly greater numbers are the silent trains bearing
the sick and wounded and dead.

We meet five trains during the day and one at two in the night. I have
gotten so that I can sleep sitting upright on a hard bench between
trains. Think of the plucky little Japanese women who have done this
ever since the beginning of the war!

Out of my experience at the station came another very charming one
yesterday. It seems that the president of the Red Cross Society is a
royal princess, first cousin indeed to the Emperor. She had heard of
me through her secretary and of the small services I had rendered here
and at Hiroshima, so she requested an interview that she might thank
me in person.

It seemed very ridiculous that I should receive formal recognition for
pouring tea and handing out posies, but I was crazy to see the
Princess, so early yesterday morning, I donned my best raiment and
sallied forth with an interpreter.

The house was a regular Chinese puzzle and I was passed on from one
person to another until I got positively dizzy. At last we came to a
long beautiful room, at the end of which, in a robe of purple and
gold, all covered with white chrysanthemums, sat the royal lady. I was
preparing to make my lowest bow, when, to my astonishment, she came
forward with extended hand and spoke to me in English! Then she
bowled me right over in the first round by asking me about
Kindergarten. I forgot that she was a lady of royalty and numerous
decorations, and that etiquette forbade me speaking except when spoken
to. She was so responsive and so interested, that I found myself
talking in a blue streak. Then she told me a bit of her story, and I
longed to hear more. It seems that certain women of the royal line are
not permitted to marry, and she, being restless and ambitious, became
a Buddhist Priestess, having her own temple, priestesses, etc. The
priestesses are all young girls, and I wish you could have seen them
examining my clothes, my hair and my rings. The Princess herself is a
woman of brilliant attainments, and fine executive ability.

Of course we had tea, and sat on the floor and chattered and laughed
like a lot of school girls. When I left I was told that the Princess
desired my photograph at once, and that I should sit for it the next
day. I suppose I am in for it.



HIROSHIMA, December, 1904.


My dearest Mate:

The American mail is in and the secret is out, or at least half-way
out and I am wild with curiosity and interest. You say you can't give
me any of the particulars and you would rather I wouldn't even
guess. All that you want me to know is that you have "a new interest
in life that is the deepest and most beautiful experience you have
ever known." I will do as you request, not ask any questions, or make
any surmises but you will let me say this, that no fame, no glory, no
wealth can ever give one thousandth part of the real heart's content
that one hour of love can give. Without it work of any kind is against
the full tide, and accomplishment is emptier than vanity. The heart
still cries out for its own, for what is its birthright and heritage.

I am glad with all my soul for your happiness, Mate, the tenderest
blessing that lips could frame would not express half that is in my
heart. There is nothing so sure in life as that love is best of
all. You think you know it after a few weeks of loving, I know I know
after years of grief and suffering and despair.

From the time when you used to stand between me and childish
punishments, through all the happy days of girlhood, the sorrowful
days of womanhood, on up to the bitter-sweet present, you have never
failed me.

I want to give you a whole heart full of gladness and rejoicing, I
want to crowd out my own little wail of bereavement, but Oh! Mate, I
never felt so alone in my life before! I am not asking you to tell me
who the man is. I am trying not to _guess_. Tell me what you
like and when you like, and rest assured that whatever comes, my heart
is with you--and with him.



HIROSHIMA, January, 1905.


It has been longer than usual since I wrote but somehow things have
been going wrong with me of late and I didn't want to bother you. But
oh! Mate, I haven't anybody else in the world to come to, and you'll
have to forgive me for bringing a cloud across your happiness.

The whole truth is I'm worsted! The fight has been too much. Days,
weeks, months of homesickness have piled up on top of me until all my
courage and my control, all my _will_ seem paralysed.

Night after night I lie awake and stare out into the dark, and staring
back at me is the one word "_alone_". In the daytime, I try to
keep somebody with me all the time, I have gotten afraid of myself. My
face in the mirror does not seem to belong to me, it is a curious
unfamiliar face that I do not know. Every once in a while I want to
beat the air and scream, but I don't do it. I clench my fists and set
my teeth and teach, teach, teach.

But I can't go on like this forever! Flesh and spirit rebel against a
lifetime of it! Haven't I paid my penalty? Aren't the lightness and
brightness and beauty ever coming back?

On my desk is a contract waiting to be signed for another four years
at the school. Beside it is a letter from Brother, begging me to drop
everything and come home at once. Can yon guess what the temptation
is? On the one hand ceaseless work, uncongenial surroundings and
exile, on the other luxury, loved ones,--and dependence. I must give
my answer to-morrow and Heaven only knows what it will be. One thing
is certain I am tired of doing hard things, I am tired of being brave.

It is storming fearfully but I am going out to mail this letter. If I
cable that I am coming you must be the first one to know why. I have
tried to grow into something higher and better, God knows I have, but
I am afraid I am a house built on the sands after all. Don't be hard
on me, Mate, whatever comes remember I have tried.



HIROSHIMA, 3 hours later.


If you open this letter first, don't read the one that comes in the
same mail. I wrote it this afternoon, and I would give everything I
possess to get it back again. When I went out to mail it, I was
feeling so utterly desperate that I didn't care a rap for the storm or
anything else. I went on and on until I came to the sea-wall that
makes a big curve out into the sea. When I had gone as far as I
dared, I climbed up on an old stone lantern, and let the spray and the
rain beat on my face. The wind was whipping the waves into a perfect
fury, and pounding them against the wall at my feet. The thunder
rolled and roared, and great flashes of lightning ripped gashes in the
green and purple water. It was the most glorious sight I ever saw! I
felt that the wind, the waves, and the storm were all my friends and
that they were doing all my beating and screaming for me.

I clung to the lantern, with my clothes dripping and my hair streaming
about my face until the storm was over. And I don't think I was ever
so near to God in my life as when the sun came out suddenly from the
clouds and lit up that tempest-tossed sea into a perfect glory of
light and color I And the peace had come into my heart, Mate, and I
knew that I was going to take up my cross again and bear it bravely. I
was so glad, so thankful that I could scarcely keep my feet on the
ground. I struck out at full speed along the sea wall and ran every
step of the way home.

And now after a hot bath and dry clothes, with my little kettle
singing by my side, I want to tell you that I have decided to stay,
perhaps for five months, perhaps for five years.

Out of the wreckage of my old life I've managed to build a fairly
respectable craft. It has taken me just four years to realize that it
is not a pleasure boat. To-night I realize once for all that it is a
very modest little tug, and wherever it can tow anything or anybody
into harbor there it belongs, and there it stays.

Tell them all that I am quite well again, Mate, and as for you, please
don't even bother your blessed head about me again. I have meekly
taken my place in the middle of the sea-saw and I shall probably never
go very high or very low again. I am sleepy for the first time in two
weeks, so good-bye comrade mine and God bless you.



HIROSHIMA, February, 1905.


My dearest Mate:

I can't feel quite right until I tell you that I have guessed your
secret, that I have known from the first it was Jack. I always knew
you were made for each other, both so splendid and noble and true. It
isn't any particular credit to you two that you are good, there was no
alternative--you couldn't be bad.

How perfectly you will fit into all his plans and ambitions! A
beautiful new life is opening up for you, a life so full of promise,
of tremendous possibilities for good not only for you but for others
that it seems like a bit of heaven.

Tell him how I feel, Mate. It is hard for me to write letters these
days, but I want him to know that I am glad because he is happy.

I have been living in the past to-day going over the old days in the
Mountains up at the lake, and the reunions on the farm. How many have
gone down into the great silence since then! Somehow I seem nearer to
them than I do to you who are alive. While I am still on the crowded
highway of life, yet I am surrounded by strange, unloving faces that
have no connection with the joys or the sorrows of the past.

How the view changes as we pass along the great road. At first only
the hilltops are visible, rosy and radiant under the enthusiasm of
youth, then the level plains come into sight flooded with the bright
light of mid-day, then slowly we slip into the valleys where the long
shadows fall like memories across our hearts.

Oh! well, with all the struggles, all the heartaches, I am glad, Mate,
very glad that I have lived--and laughed. For I am laughing again, in
spite of the fact that my courage got fuddled and took the wrong road.

I heard of a man the other day who had received a sentence of fifteen
years for some criminal act. He was in love with the freedom of life,
he was young and strong, so he made a dash down a long iron staircase,
dropped into a river, swam a mile and gained his freedom. All search
failed to find him, but two days later he walked into the police
station and gave himself up to serve his time. I made my dash for
liberty, but I have come back to serve my time.

I don't have to tell you, Mate, that I am ashamed of having shown the
white feather. You will write me a beautiful letter and explain it all
away, but I know in my soul you are disappointed in me, and to even
think about it is like going down in a swift elevator. Being able to
go under gracefully is my highest ambition at present, but try as I
will, I kick a few kicks before I disappear.

Please, please, Mate, don't worry about me. I promise that if I reach
the real limit I will cable for a special steamer to be sent for
me. But I don't intend to reach it, or at least I am going to get on
the other side of it, so there will be no further danger.

Two long months will pass before I get an answer to this. It will come
in April with the cherry blossoms and the spring.



HIROSHIMA, March, 1905.


You must forgive me if the letters have been few and far between
lately. After my little "wobble" I plunged into work with might and
main, and I am still at it for all I am worth. First I house-cleaned,
and the old place must certainly be surprised at its transformation.
Fresh curtains, new paper, cozy window seats, and bright cushions have
made a vast difference. Then I tackled the kindergarten, and the
result is about the prettiest thing in Japan. The room is painted
white with buff walls and soft muslin curtains, the only decoration
being a hundred blessed babies, in gay little kimonas, who look like
big bunches of flowers placed in a wreath upon the floor.

As for my training class, I have no words to express my
gratification. I can scarcely believe that the fine, capable, earnest
young women that are going out to all parts of Japan to start new
Kindergartens, are the timid, giggling, dependent little creatures
that came to me four years ago.

Goodness knows I was as immature in my way as they were in theirs, but
in my desperate need, I builded better than I knew. I recklessly
followed your advice and hitched my little go-cart to a star, and the
star turned into a meteor and is now whizzing through space getting
bigger and stronger all the time, and I am tied on to the end of it
unable to stop it or myself.

If I only had more sense and more ability, think what I might have
done!

The work at the hospital is still very heavy. The wards are bare and
repellant and the days are long and dreary for the sick men. We do all
we can to cheer them up, have phonograph concerts, magic lantern
shows, with the magic missing, and baby organ recitals. The results
are often ludicrous, but the appreciation of the men for our slightest
effort is so hearty that it more than repays us.

I saw one man yesterday who had gone crazy on the battlefield. He
looked like a terror stricken animal afraid of everybody, and hiding
under the sheet at the slightest approach. When I came in he cowered
back against the wall shaking from head to foot. I put a big bunch of
flowers on the bed, and in a flash his hands were stretched out for
them, and a smile came to his lips. After that whenever I passed the
door, he would shout out, "Arigato! Arigato!" which the nurse said was
the first sign of sanity he had shown.

In the next room was a man who had fallen from a mast on one of the
flag ships. He had landed full on his face and the result was too
fearful to describe. The nurse said he could not live through the
night so I laid my flowers on his bed and was slipping out when he
called to me. His whole head was covered with bandages except his
mouth and one eye, and I had to lean down very close to understand
what he said. What do you suppose he wanted? To look at my hat!! He
had never seen one before and he was just like a child in his
curiosity.

Of course, as foreigners, we always excite comment, and are gazed at,
examined and talked about continually. I sometimes feel like a wild
animal in a cage straight from the heart of Africa!

Our unfailing point of contact is the flowers. You cannot imagine how
they love them. I have seen men holding them tenderly in their fingers
and talking to them as they would to children. Imagine retreating
soldiers after a hard day's fight, stopping to put a flower in a dead
comrade's hand!

Oh! Mate, the most comical things and the most tragic, the most
horrible and the most beautiful are all mixed up together. Every time
I go to the hospital I am faced with my wasted years of
opportunities. It takes so little to bring sunshine and cheer, and yet
millions of us go chasing our own little desires through life, and
never stop to think of the ones who are down.

No, I am not going to turn Missionary nor Salvation Army lassie, but
with God's help I shall serve somewhere and "good cheer for the
lonely" shall be my watch-word.

I am lots better than I was, though I am still tussling with
insomnia. My crazy nerves play me all sorts of tricks, but praise be I
have stopped worrying. I have come at last to see that God has found
even a small broken instrument like myself worth working through, and
I just lift up my heart to Him every day, battered and bruised as it
is, in deep unspeakable thankfulness.



HIROSHIMA, April, 1905.


My dearest Mate:

Your letter is here and I haven't a grain of sense, nor dignity, nor
anything else except a wild desire to hug everything in sight! I am
having as many thrills as a surcharged electric battery, and I am so
hysterically happy that I don't care what I do or say.

Why didn't you tell me at first it was Dr. Leet? My mind was so full
of Jack that I forgot that other men inhabited the earth. It is no use
bluffing any longer, Mate, there has never been a minute since the
train pulled out of the home station that every instinct in me hasn't
cried out for Jack. Pride kept me silent at first, and then the
miserable thought got hold of me that he was beginning to care for
you. Oh! the agony I have suffered, trying to be loyal to you, to be
generous to him, and to put myself out of the question! And now your
blessed letter comes, and laughs at my fears and says "Jack chooses
his wife as he does his friends, for eternity."

I have no words to fit the occasion, all I can say is now that
happiness has shown me the back of her head I am scared to death to
look her in the face. But I "shore do" like the arrangement of her
back hair.

Don't breathe a word of what I have written, but as you love me find
out absolutely and beyond all possibility of doubt if Jack feels
exactly as he did four years ago. If you give me your word of honor
that he does, then--I will write.

I have signed a contract for another year, and I must stay it out, but
I would spend a year in Hades if Heaven was at the end of it.

All you say about Dr. Leet fills me with joy. He does not need any
higher commendation in this world nor the next than that you are
willing to marry him! Isn't it dandy that he is going to back the
hospital scheme?

When I think of the way Jack has worked for ten years without a
vacation, putting all his magnificent ability, his strength, his
youth, his health even into that project, I don't wonder that men like
Dr. Leet are eager to put their money and services at his disposal.
You say Dr. Leet does it upon the condition that Jack takes a rest.
Make him stick to it, Mate, he will kill himself if he isn't stopped.

I have read your letters over and over and traced your love affair
every inch of the way. Why are you such an old clam! To think that I
am the only one that knows your secret, and that up to to-day I have
been barking up the wrong tree! Never mind, I forgive you, I forgive
everybody, I am drunk with happiness and generous in consequence.

My little old lane is glorified, even the barbed wire fence on either
side scintillates. The house is too small, I am going out on the River
Road, and see the cherry blossoms on the hill sides and the sunlight
on the water, and feel the road under my feet. I feel like a
prospector who has struck gold. Whatever comes of it all, for this one
day I am going to give full rein to my fancy and be gloriously happy
once more.



HIROSHIMA, May, 1905.


There is a big yellow bee, doing the buzzing act in the sunshine on my
window, and I am just wondering who is doing the most buzzing, he or
I? His nose is yellow with pollen from some flower he has robbed, his
body is fat and lazy, all in all he is about the happiest bee I ever
beheld. But I can go him one better, while it is only his wings that
are beating with happiness, it is my heart that is going to the tune
of rag-time jigs and triumphal alleluias all at the same time.

My chef, four feet two, remarked this morning "Sensei happy all same
like chicken!" He meant bird, but any old fowl will do.

Oh! Mate, it is good to be alive these days. For weeks we have had
nothing but glorious sunrises, gorgeous sunsets, and perfect
noondays. The wistaria has come before the cherry blossoms have quite
gone, and the earth is a glow of purple and pink with the blue sky
above as tender as love.

Each morning I open my windows to the east to see the marvel of a new
day coming fresh from the hands of its Maker, and each evening I stand
at the opposite window and watch the same day drop over the mountains
to eternity. In the flaming sky where so often hangs the silver
crescent is always the promise of another day, another chance to begin
anew.

Just one more year and I will be turning the gladdest face homeward
that ever a lonely pilgrim faced the West with. There will be many a
pang at leaving Japan, I have learned life's deepest lesson here, and
the loneliness and isolation that have been so hard to bear have
revealed inner depths of which I never dreamed before. What strange
things human beings are! Our very crosses get dear after we have
carried them awhile!

I have had three offers to sign fresh contracts, Nagasaki, Tokyo, and
here, but I am leaving things to shape themselves for the
future. Whatever happens I am coming home first. If happiness is
waiting for me, I'll meet it with out-stretched arms, if not I am
coming back to my post. Thank God I am sure of myself at last!

The work at the hospital this month is much lighter, and the patients
are leaving for home daily. The talk of peace is in the air, and we
are praying with all our hearts that it may come. Nobody but those who
have seen with their own eyes can know the unspeakable horrors of this
war. It is not only those who are fighting at the front who have known
the full tragedy, it is those also who are fighting at home the
relentless foe of poverty, sickness, and desolation. If victory comes
to Japan, half the glory must be for those silent heroic little women,
who gave their all, then took up the man's burden and cheerfully bore
it to the end.

I was very much interested in your account of the young missionary who
is coming through Japan on her way to China. I know just how she will
feel when she steps off the steamer and finds no friendly face to
welcome her. I talked over your little scheme with Miss Lessing and
she says I can go up to Yokohama in July to meet her and bring her
right down here. Tell her to tie her handkerchief around her arm so I
will know her, and not to worry the least bit, that I will take care
of her and treat her like one of my own family.

Can you guess how eagerly I am waiting for your answer to my April
letter? It cannot come before the last of June, and happy as I am, the
time seems very long. Yet I would rather live to the last of my days
like this, travelling ever toward the pot of gold at the end of the
rainbow, than ever to arrive and find the gold not there!

You say that at last you know I am the "captain of my soul." Well,
Mate, I believe I am, but I just want to say that it's a hard worked
captain that I am, and if anybody wants the job--very much--I think he
can get it.



YOKOHAMA, July 5, 1905.


Do you suppose, if people could, they would write letters as soon as
they got to Heaven! I don't know where to begin nor what to say. The
only thing about me that is on earth is this pen point, the rest is
floating around in a diamond-studded, rose-colored mist!

I will try to be sensible and give you some idea of what has been
happening, but how I am to get it on paper I don't know. I got here
yesterday, the 4th of July, on the early train, and rushed down to the
hatoba to meet the launch when it came in from the steamer. I had had
no breakfast and was as nervous as a witch. Your letter had not come,
and my fears were increasing every moment.

Well I took my place on the steps as the launch landed and waited,
with very little interest I must confess, for your young missionary to
appear. By and by I saw a handkerchief tied to a sleeve, but it was a
man's sleeve. I gave one more look, and my heart seemed to
stop. "Jack!" I cried, and then everything went black before me, and I
didn't know anything more. It was the first time I ever fainted;
sorrow and grief never knocked me out, but joy like that was enough to
kill me!

When I came to, I was at the hotel and I didn't dare open my eyes--I
knew it was all a dream, and I did not want to come back to reality. I
lay there holding on to the vision, until I heard a man's voice close
by say, "She will be all right now, I will take care of her." Then I
opened my eyes, and with three Japanese maids and four Japanese men
and two ladies off the steamer looking on, I flung my arms about
Jack's neck and cried down his collar!

He made me stay quiet all morning, and just before tiffin he calmly
informed me that he had made all the arrangements for us to be married
at three o'clock. I declared I couldn't, that I had signed a contract
for another year at Hiroshima, that Miss Lessing would think I was
crazy, that I must make some plans. But you know Jack! He met every
objection that I could offer, said he would see Miss Lessing and make
it all right about the contract, that I was too nervous to teach any
more, and last that I owed him a little consideration after four years
of waiting. Then I realized how the lines had deepened in his face,
and how the grey was streaking his hair, and I surrendered promptly.

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