Buch lesen: «The Four Corners in Japan»

CHAPTER I
STARTING OFF

"I feel a migratory fever stirring within my veins," remarked Miss Helen Corner one morning as she sat with the elder two of her nieces in their Virginia home.

Nan put down the book she was reading; Mary Lee looked up from her embroidery. "You are not going to desert us, Aunt Helen?" said Nan.

"Not unless you girls will join me in my flight."

"But where would you fly?" asked Mary Lee.

"What do you say to Japan?"

"Japan? Oh, Aunt Helen, not really."

"Why not? Every one goes there these days. We could make the trip by way of California, stop off for a few days at Honolulu, and see some of the strange things I have been reading about this winter. I am strongly inclined to make the trip if you two will go with me."

"And would we start soon?" asked Nan. "In time for the cherry blossoms, the lovely flowery Japanese spring and all that?"

"It was what I was planning to do."

"What about mother and the twinnies?"

"We should have to make up our minds to leave them behind. I believe your mother has declared against going with us. She thinks the twins should not be taken out of college and that she should be within call while they are there. That should not prevent your going, however. Nan, what do you think about it?"

"You know me, Aunt Helen," responded Nan.

"What about you, Mary Lee?"

"Oh, 'Barkis is willin';' that is if mother approves."

"I consulted her before I mentioned it to you, for I did not want any one disappointed. Therefore, young ladies, consider yourselves booked for a personally conducted trip. I think we might start next month, and we need not burden ourselves with too much of an outfit."

"I should think not," returned Nan, "when such lovely and cheap things can be had in Japan. Hurrah! Mary Lee, let's go tell Jo."

The two girls started off together. The month was February, but already the first hints of spring could be found in the warmer sunshine, the longer days, the swelling of buds on trees and bushes. A few yellow stars were already spotting the forsythia which clambered up one end of the front porch of Dr. Woods's house which they soon reached. They entered without knocking, for their friend Josephine Woods was like a sister, and would have resented any formality. They knew where to find her, for it was after her husband's office hours; he was off making his professional visits, and Jo would be up-stairs attending to certain housewifely duties.

They discovered her in the little sewing-room surrounded by piles of house linen.

"Hallo," cried Nan, "what in the world are you doing, Jo?"

"Marking these towels for Paul's office," she returned soberly.

Nan laughed. "It is so funny to see you doing such things, Jo. I can never quite get over your sudden swerving toward domesticity. We have come over to tell you something that will make you turn green with envy."

"Humph!" returned Jo. "As if anybody or anything could make me turn green or any other color from envy. I am the one to be envied."

"She still has it badly," said Nan shaking her head. "What is there in marking towels to make it such an enviable employment, Mrs. Woods?"

"Because it is being done for the dearest man in the world," replied Jo promptly.

"I wonder if you will still continue to be in this blissful state of idiocy when we get back from Japan," put in Mary Lee.

"Japan!" Jo dropped the towel she was holding, barely saving it from a splotch of indelible ink.

"Aha! I knew we could surprise you," jeered Nan. "She is green, Mary Lee, bright, vivid, grass green."

"Nothing of the sort," retorted Jo. "Of course I always did long to go to Japan, but I wouldn't exchange this little town with Paul in it for all the Japans in the world."

"You are perfectly hopeless," said Nan. "I wonder if I shall ever reach such a state of imbecility as to prefer marking towels to going to Japan."

"I wouldn't put it past you," returned Jo. "Just you wait, Nan Corner. I expect to see the day when you are in a state that is seventy times seven worse that mine ever was."

"If ever I do reach such a state, I hope the family will incarcerate me," rejoined Nan.

Jo laughed. "This does sound like the good old college days," she remarked. "But do tell me what is up, girls. Are you really going to Japan?"

"So Aunt Helen says," Mary Lee told her.

"And when do you go?"

"Next month."

"The whole family?"

"No, the kiddies will have to continue to grind away at college. I think it probable that mother will go back with them after the Easter holidays and stay there till summer, when they can all go away together."

"And how long shall you be gone?"

"Don't know. All we know is that we are going. We didn't wait to hear any more till we came over to tell you. What shall we bring you, Jo?"

"I think I should like a good, well-trained Japanese servant," returned Jo with a little sigh.

"Poor Jo; there are serpents even in Paradise, it seems. Does the last kitchen queen prove as unworthy to be crowned as her predecessors were?"

"Oh, dear, yes, but never mind, I am still hoping that the one perfect gem will at last come my way. Meantime I am learning such heaps of things that I shall become absolutely independent after a while. You will see me using fireless cookers, and paper bags, and all that by the time you get back."

"Well, good luck to you," said Nan. "We must be off. You shall have the next bulletin as soon as there is anything more to report."

They hurried back to find their mother, being entirely too excited to stop long in one place. After talking the plan over with her, they hunted up their Aunt Helen to join her in consulting maps, time-tables and guide-books. Before night the date was set, the route was laid out, the vessel upon which they should sail decided upon.

At last one windy morning in March the Virginia mountains were left behind and the little party of three set their faces toward the western coast. California was no unknown land to them and here they decided to tarry long enough to see some of their old friends, making Los Angeles their first stop.

"Doesn't it seem familiar?" said Mary Lee as they approached the city where they had lived for a while.

"The very most familiar thing I see is out there on the platform," returned Nan as she observed Carter Barnwell eagerly scanning each car as the train came into the station. Nan hailed him from the car window and he was beside them before the train came fairly to a standstill.

"Glory be to Peter! But isn't this a jolly stunt you are doing?" he cried fairly hugging Miss Helen. "Why didn't the whole family come, as long as you were about it?"

"By the whole family you mean Jack, of course," remarked Mary Lee.

Carter laughed a little confusedly. "That's all right," he returned; "I'm not denying it. Where are your checks and things? Give me that bag, Miss Helen. You are going straight to the house; Mrs. Roberts is counting the minutes till you get there."

The three were nothing loth to be settled in Carter's automobile and to be whirled off through summerlike scenes to Pasadena where Mrs. Roberts's home was.

"Do let us go past the little house where we used to live," said Nan who was sitting on the front seat with Carter. "I suppose it is still there."

"Oh, yes," was the reply, "and I hope it always will be. It was there I first saw Jack, you know; the little rapscallion, how she was giving it to that youngster." He laughed at the recollection. Then in a lower voice and more seriously he asked, "Did she send me any message, Nan?"

"We didn't see the twinnies before we left, you know," returned she. "There wasn't any special excuse for a holiday and it didn't seem worth while to bring them away from college just now. Doesn't she write to you, Carter?"

"Sometimes," he answered soberly.

"Oh, well, you know what Jack is," said Nan with an effort to be consoling. "Just hang on, Carter, and it will be all right, I am sure."

"Yes, perhaps it will," he responded, "but sometimes it does look mighty discouraging. I haven't had a line from her since Christmas, Nan."

"Isn't that just like her? I suppose she had the politeness to thank you for that lovely set of books you gave her."

"Oh, yes; she wrote a perfectly correct little note. I was afraid maybe she didn't like the books."

"She was crazy about them, but she just wouldn't give you the satisfaction of knowing it," said Nan comfortingly.

"That is something to know," returned Carter in a more cheerful tone. "There's the house, Nan." He halted the car for a moment that they all might have a glimpse of the vine-embowered cottage where they had lived, and then on they sped again to draw up, after a while, before the door of the Roberts's pleasant home in Pasadena.

They were tired enough from their long journey to be glad of the rest and quiet which Mrs. Roberts insisted they should have. "You are to go to your rooms and have a good restful time before we begin to chatter," she told them. "Since you assure me that you left every one well at home, I can wait to hear the rest of the news."

So to their rooms they went to descend after a reasonable time to luncheon when they were welcomed by Mr. Roberts and were waited upon by the same Chinese servant who had been with the Robertses for years.

Another day or two here and then off again they started to San Francisco where they would take their steamer. Carter insisted upon seeing them thus far on their way, and they were glad enough to have his assistance in getting started.

"Wish I could go along," he told them, "but I reckon I have enough of traveling on this continent. It is something of a jaunt to Richmond and they think I must show up there every two years anyhow."

"Then I suppose this is not your year for going since you came to see us graduated last summer."

"No, but I am banking on getting there next year."

"And of course when the twins are graduated you will be on hand."

"You'd better believe I shall. No power on earth shall keep me from going then."

It was Nan to whom he was speaking, and she well knew why he was so in earnest.

"Well, remember what I told you," she said. "Don't give up the ship, Cart, no matter how discouraging it looks. Jack is a little wretch at times, but she is loyal to the core, in spite of her provoking ways."

"Nan, you are a perfect old darling," said Carter wringing her hand. "You have put new life into me. I'll remember, and I shall not give up till I see her married to another man."

"That's the way to talk," Nan assured him. "Dear me, is it time to go? Well, good-bye, Cart, and good luck to you."

Carter turned from her to make his adieux to Miss Helen and Mary Lee, then back he turned to Nan. "You are a brick, Nan," he said. "Good-bye and write a fellow a word of cheer once in a while, won't you?"

Nan promised and in another moment Carter had left them. The steamer's whistle blew a farewell blast and they were moving out of the harbor, Carter watching them from shore, his waving handkerchief on the end of his umbrella being visible as long as they could see.

They remained on deck that they might watch for every point of interest which the beautiful harbor displayed, and at last through the Golden Gate they steamed out into the broad Pacific.

"Doesn't it seem queer to be going the other way around?" said Nan to her aunt. "Do you realize that this is the Pacific and not our old friend, the Atlantic?"

"Old friend," scoffed Mary Lee; "old enemy I should say. I hope to be spared the seasickness which I always associate with our last voyage."

"Of course you won't have any such experience," Nan assured her. "This is placid water and in four or five days we shall be in Honolulu. It wouldn't be worth while to get seasick for such a little trip as that."

But Mary Lee was not altogether satisfied with her prospects and was glad to seek her steamer chair before very long, and the other two decided to follow her example, Nan going to their stateroom to get wraps, and other paraphernalia, together with the guide-books with which they had provided themselves. After seeing that her aunt and sister were comfortably tucked in, Nan proposed that she should dispense information, while the other two became acquainted with the Pacific. "Of course you know," she began, "that Honolulu is on the Island of Oahu. I used to think it was on the Island of Hawaii, didn't you, Mary Lee? It is quite like an American town except that it has tropical trees and plants and things like that. I don't suppose it is half as picturesque as it was before we took possession of it. It was ceded to the United States, I mean the Hawaiian Islands were, in 1898."

"How big is Oahu?" asked Mary Lee.

"It has an area of six hundred square miles, and it is the loveliest of all the islands."

"Dear me, I hadn't an idea it was so big. I thought we should be able to walk all over it during the time we expected to be there."

"Not this trip, my honey, but we can drive about or go on the street-cars around Honolulu."

"Oh, are there street-cars?"

"Certainly there are. Honolulu is quite a big city."

"I always think of it as a wild sort of place with queer little grass huts for the people to live in when they are not disporting themselves in the water and making wreaths of flowers. I expected to see coral reefs and palms and people with feather cloaks on, when they wore anything at all."

Nan laughed. "You might have seen all that if you had lived some eighty or ninety years ago in the days of King Kamehameha."

"Oh, dear, and I suppose there is no more tabu, and we shall not see a single calabash. I don't understand tabu exactly, but I thought I should have an excellent chance to find out."

"No doubt the book tells," said Nan turning over the pages. "It was like this," she said presently after a little reading. "If a chief wanted a field that appealed to his tender sensibilities he set up a pole with a white flag on it and that made the field tabu to any one else. Sometimes if he wanted a lot of fire-wood he would tabu fire and the people had to eat their food raw. All the nicest articles of food were tabu to women who were obliged to eat their meals in a different room and at a different time from the men."

"Dear me," cried Mary Lee, "then I am sure I don't want to go back eighty or ninety years even for the sake of grass huts and feather cloaks. We shall probably receive much greater consideration in this twentieth century. Tell us some more, Nan."

"You know the islands are of volcanic origin and they have the most delightful climate imaginable. On the Island of Molokai is the leper settlement where Father Damien lived and died. It is a larger island than Oahu, but only a part of it is given over to the lepers, and they are cut off from the remaining land by a high precipice, so they could not get away if they wanted to, as the ocean is on the other side. You will see plenty of coral at Honolulu, Mary Lee, for there are buildings made of blocks of it, and there is a museum where we can be shown the feather cloaks. They were made for royalty only, of the yellow feathers taken from a bird called the Oo. He was black but had two yellow feathers of which he was robbed for the sake of the king. They let him go after they took away the yellow feathers so he could grow some more. But just imagine how many feathers it must have taken to make a cloak that would reach to the knees, sometimes to the feet. No wonder there are none of these birds left."

"It is all very interesting," declared Mary Lee. "Is there anything about calabashes?"

"Not very much," returned Nan after another examination of her book. "Perhaps we can find out more when we get there."

"I think I may be able to tell you something about calabashes," said a gentle voice at Nan's side.

Nan turned to see an elderly lady with a bright face, who had her chair next to the Corners'. "We are trying to get our information crystallized," said Nan. "It would be very good of you to tell us something about calabashes."

"I live in Honolulu," returned the lady, "and I have been entertained by your remarks. You have been quite correct in all you have said. The calabashes are quite rare now and rather expensive, though once in a while there is an auction sale when one can get them more reasonably."

"Do you hear that, Mary Lee?" cried Nan. "Oh, wouldn't it be fine if there should happen to be one while we are in Honolulu?" She turned again to the lady by her side. "Our name is Corner," she said. "This is my sister, Mary Lee, and my aunt, Miss Corner, is next."

"And I am Mrs. Beaumont, the wife of an army man who is stationed at Honolulu. We are in the way of knowing some of the out-of-the-way things that all travelers do not know about, for we have been there some time. I am just returning from a visit to my sister who is in California."

Nan felt herself in luck and continued her talk with this new acquaintance, getting more and more enthusiastic as various things were told her about the place to which they were going. "I have been noticing you," said Mrs. Beaumont when they had become on quite friendly terms. "You are always so eager and interested."

"Oh, yes, I know I am," Nan said a little ruefully. "I am so very eager to know and see everything that I don't think of consequences, at least my sister tells me so."

"And are the consequences liable to be disastrous?" asked Mrs. Beaumont.

"Sometimes," Nan smiled reminiscently, "though, take it all in all, I would rather have a few disasters than miss what lucky experiences bring me. Nothing very terrible has happened to me yet for I have a younger sister who is so much more impulsive that I am able to curb myself on account of her didos. I daren't do things that I must warn her from doing, you see."

Mrs. Beaumont laughed. "I think many of us could understand the position, though, like yourself, there are some of us who delight in experimenting with the unconventionalities."

Nan's heart warmed to the speaker at this speech and the two sat talking till the call for dinner sent them below.

CHAPTER II
A GLIMPSE OF HONOLULU

By the time the reefs of Oahu were in sight, the Corners had become so well acquainted with Mrs. Beaumont that they felt that they would have a friend at court when they should finally reach Honolulu. The four stood on deck together watching for the first glimpse of the coral reefs, Koko Point, and Diamond Head, then the city itself at the foot of the mountains. Finally they passed on to the harbor inside the reefs and beheld the tropical scene they had pictured. There were the palms, the rich dense foliage, and, at the moment the vessel touched the wharf, there were the smiling natives with wreaths around hats and necks, waving hands, and shouting, "Aloha!" So was Honolulu reached.

As Nan had warned them it was quite like an American city, and as they were driven to the hotel which Mrs. Beaumont had recommended, they could scarce believe themselves upon one of those Sandwich Islands associated with naked savages and Captain Cook, in one's early recollections of geography.

"I do hope," remarked Nan as they entered their rooms, "that we shall not find any centipedes or scorpions in our beds."

"Horrors!" cried Mary Lee. "How you do take the edge off our enthusiasm, Nan."

"Well, there are such things, and I, for one, mean to be careful."

"We shall all be careful," said her aunt, "but I don't believe in letting that mar our pleasure. Mrs. Beaumont says one rarely sees those creatures, though of course they do exist. Some of them are not so poisonous as we are led to suppose, and one soon recovers from the sting. Now, girls, don't let us waste our time in discussing centipedes and tarantula, for we must make the most of our time. I have ordered a carriage for a drive to the Pali, which, I am told, is the favorite one. We can take the shore line next, Waikiki, it is called, and then we can see the surf-riding and all that."

"Such lovely, queer names," commented Nan.

"Such queer looking people," said Mary Lee as they started forth, looking eagerly to the left and right that they might observe anything worth their while.

"Why do those women all wear those awful Mother Hubbard looking frocks?" said Nan. "While they were adopting a costume, couldn't some civilized person have suggested something more artistic? Poor things, I think it was a shame to condemn them to wear anything so ugly. When there were Japan and China to give them models of picturesque kimonos, it seems almost a crime for them to adopt these hopelessly ugly things."

"Now Nan is off," laughed Mary Lee. "You touch her in her tenderest spot when you offend her artistic or musical taste."

"Speaking of music," said Nan, not at all offended, "I want to hear the song of the fishermen. Mrs. Beaumont says it is very weird and interesting."

"And I want to go to a luau," Mary Lee declared.

"I think that may be possible," Miss Helen said, "for Mrs. Beaumont has promised to be on the lookout for any festivity which might interest us and will let us know."

"She was a true discovery," Nan went on. "I am so glad she happened to be on board our steamer. Those wreaths that the natives wear around their hats and necks they call leis. Isn't it a pretty fashion?"

"The flowers are really wonderful," said Mary Lee, "but oh, such commonplace looking shops, with canned things on the shelves just as at home. In such a summery, balmy climate I should think they could raise almost anything."

"So they could, but they don't," her aunt told her. "Everything almost, in the way of fruit particularly, is brought from the coast. Sugar is the great crop here. There are some coffee plantations, and rice is raised. Pineapples and bananas receive some attention, but the possibilities for cultivating other things seem to be unconsidered except by a very few."

"The natives eat poi," said Nan. "It must be horrid stuff from the description of it. It is made from a tough root something like a sweet potato. They mash it, or grind it up, mix it with water into a sort of paste, and sometimes they let it ferment before they dish it up in a calabash. Then the family sits around to eat this appetizing dish with their fingers. Mary Lee, how should you like to dine out with some of the Hawaiian gentry and be asked to join in a dip into the all-sufficing calabash with dried tentacles of an octopus as a dainty accompaniment?"

"Ugh!" Mary Lee looked disgusted.

Yet the next day when Mrs. Beaumont appeared to bear them all off to a luau they were all quite as eager to go as if they had not discussed poi to its disadvantage.

"Luau is the Hawaiian name for feast," Mrs. Beaumont explained. "The presence of guests will turn nearly any dinner into a luau. We are going a little out of town so that you may see one in its primitive method of serving."

"Shall we have to eat anything that is set before us?" asked Mary Lee anxiously.

"Oh, no, but I am sure you will find enough to satisfy you among the things you can eat. There will be fish steamed in ti leaves, and probably pork roasted in an oven built underground. And I am sure you will like a green cocoanut eaten out of the shell."

"But tea leaves," said Nan – "I should think they would give fish a queer flavor."

"Not t-e-a, but t-i," Mrs. Beaumont explained. "The ti plant is used for many things. It makes a convenient wrapping for one's ordinary marketing, and takes the place of paper in more than one instance."

The girls were very curious to see what the luau would be like, and were charmed to find that the feast was to be served from a mat spread upon the ground. The mat was finely braided and was adorned with a profusion of flowers. At each place were laid leis of carnations, begonias, bourga invilleas, or some unfamiliar flowers; only roses and violets were conspicuous by their absence.

Mrs. Beaumont and her guests were welcomed with low salaams by those who were native Hawaiians, though the company was a mixed one, as the feast was attended by some of the officers and their wives more in a spirit of policy or curiosity than because of strictly social relations. The girls discovered that Mrs. Beaumont was quite right in her advice about the fish and pork which they found delicious. They tried the poi, but barely tasted it. There was a very possible salad made from the alligator pear, and the green cocoanuts were indeed a delicacy which they could enjoy. It was not appetizing to watch the eaters of poi wrap the sticky mass around their fingers before putting it into their mouths, and one or two glances were entirely sufficient. Knives and forks were provided for the principal guests, and indeed for any who preferred, but some still clung to the simpler and earlier manner of eating with their fingers.

Later on came a visit to the shore to see the surf-riding, less indulged in than formerly since clothes have become an impediment, yet interesting enough. Here, too, they heard the wild and melancholy song of the fishermen which Nan tried to jot down as a hint to her musical memory in days to come. A sightseeing tour about town was planned for the next day when they were to see the various buildings, the Executive mansion, once the palace, the Museum where, indeed, were the feather cloaks and other interesting exhibits of primitive days, the Punahou College, and, what to the Corners was the most interesting of all, the Lunalilo Home for aged natives.

"When I see those low salaams, I know I am in the Orient," said Nan. "Did you notice that old fellow actually prostrate himself?"

"They are a very gentle, biddable people, if they are lazy," remarked Mary Lee, "and they say they are strictly honest."

"I think that is because of the old system of tabu," Nan made the remark. "You were not allowed to take anything that belonged to a chief, for it was a matter of life and death, and even to allow your shadow to fall across the path of one of those mighty beings meant 'off with his head' or some similar order. I know what I shall do when I am queen of these islands; I shall tabu Mother Hubbards. Look at that fat old monstrosity; isn't she a sight?"

"There are quantities of Chinese and Japanese," said Mary Lee, noting the various persons who passed them.

"It seems to me one sees more of them than of the natives."

"I believe they do outnumber the natives," Miss Helen remarked, "for they form the principal class of laborers. The Chinese, more than the Japanese, have become shopkeepers, and own a larger proportion of real estate, so no wonder we see so many of them."

"Are you all very tired?" asked Nan suddenly.

"I must confess that I am," Miss Helen told her.

"And I shall be mighty glad to get to my room," Mary Lee put in. "Why do you ask, Nan?"

"Because I am wild to take a ride on those King Street cars. Mrs. Beaumont says that nobody of the better class does ride on them, and that is the very reason I want to go."

"Oh, Nan, I wouldn't," objected her sister.

"Why not? Nobody knows me, and I shall probably see sights undreamed of. Come along, Mary Lee."

"No, indeed, I don't want to get mixed up with lepers and filthy scum of the earth."

"Nonsense! There couldn't be any lepers, for they keep a very strict watch and hustle them off to Molokai as soon as one is discovered."

"Mrs. Beaumont saw one; she told me so."

"Oh, Mary Lee, did she really?"

"Yes, she was buying something in one of the Chinese shops at the time of the Chinese New Year, and this creature was begging outside when she came out. She says she shall never forget the sight, and that sometimes their friends hide them so the officers cannot find them."

"Well, they will not hide them on a King Street car, that's certain," retorted Nan. "If neither of you will go with me, I shall go by myself."

Finding her determined, Miss Helen and Mary Lee went on to their hotel while Nan boarded the car she had selected. It was about an hour before she rejoined them. "Well, how was it?" asked Mary Lee as her sister came in.

"It was great larks," was the answer. "You missed it, you two proper pinks of propriety."

"Come in and tell us, Nan," called Miss Helen from the next room.

Nan laid aside her hat and came to her aunt, sitting on the side of the bed while she related her experiences. "It was perfectly decent and respectable," she declared, "and the route is a beautiful one. A most polite Chinese person of the male persuasion took my car fare to deposit, handed me my change with an entrancing bow and then," she laughed at the recollection, "neatly abstracted his own nickel from his ear and put that in, too."

"From his ear?" Miss Helen exclaimed.

"She is just jollying us, Aunt Helen," said Mary Lee.

"Indeed I am not," declared Nan, "and, what is more, he had stowed away another nickel, for his return fare, in his other ear; I saw as I came out. For my part I think it is a lovely idea, and I believe I shall adopt it in future, particularly when I must get on one of those evil inventions, a pay-as-you-enter car. One day in New York I dropped as many as three car fares in trying to get a nickel into the box. It was a rainy day; I had my umbrella and a small traveling bag to carry, so how in the world I could be expected to grasp the situation I have been wondering ever since. No, the ear is the place, a simple and effective way of solving a very difficult problem."

"What else did you see?" queried Miss Helen.

"I saw a bland, urbane native lady, gowned in a pink Mother Hubbard – I have learned that the native name for these horrors is holuku– well, she wore one. She carried a basket of fish, principally alive, for one that looked like a goldfish almost jumped into my lap. When she left the car I noticed that the Chinaman next me began to jerk his foot in a most remarkable manner. He attempted to get up, but somehow couldn't seem to manage it. The woman was going one way; the car the other; but finally another passenger stopped the car after some unintelligible words to the motorman and I discovered that the woman's hook and line had caught in the Chinaman's shoe. The woman was dragging away, all unconsciously, for she had caught a fish which she didn't intend to fry. It was very funny, but I was the only one in the car who laughed; the rest were far too polite."