Y

ESTERDAY morning, just as Kiku, the little serving-maid, was pushing back the wooden shutters which close in my neat and tiny Japanese house for the night, I heard the gentle pit-pat-pit-pat, of wooden clogs on the stones of the garden. The sounds startled me, for though we keep early hours in Nikko (because where the sun's uprising is so splendid a man thinks it shame to lie late sleeping), still visitors before breakfast are unusual. Luckily, I had no sober moments of suspense while my unexpected guest was led down corridors and through ceremonial ante-rooms, for the whole house, dainty as a bird-cage, is scarcely larger than one. In three steps I was on the veranda, prepared in all the dignity of a bath-gown and an uncombed thatch of hair to challenge the intruder.

"Ohayo-it is honorably early!" purred a soft voice in my ear. There stood O Hana San, saluting me with a series of courteous bows. My wrath melted immediately. I had

no more heart to resent the intru

sion, for O Hana San is an old friend -and privileged. She is the first soul to greet me when I come each summer to Nikko, the last to wave me a graceful "sayonara" when I go.

Her old father is my gardener. Kawano, they call him in the village, where his wisdom makes him something of a celebrity. Often when he has arranged the flowers for the "tokonona," the niche built in every Japanese room especially to do them. honor, he will sit for a moment on

the edge of the little veranda of polished boards outside my study. There, where I can look down on his bare old head, which shines like an ivory ball, he smokes his pipe. at the "hibachi," the fire-box, always left for him, and occasionally vouchsafes remarks about the weather.

"It will be fine," he says with the assurance, the bravado of a toreador. "It will be fine," he dares to prophesy in this mountainous valley, that breaks into hysterics of rain a dozen times a day with no apparent reason. And if I ask him why, he tells me with conviction imperturbable that the Thunder Animal has fallen into a well and been caught hard by the next village, or that the festival of the Sun Goddess

is approaching, therefore it cannot rain. Oh, he is never at a loss for a plausible explanation or an ingenious excuse, the old wiseacre!

Even at this early hour a visit from him would not have greatly surprised me; but that the Honorable Interior, O Hana San, should leave her household with the night. coverlets not yet folded away, the morning rice half cooked, portended news-great news!

I begged her to come in, and clapped my hands for the "neisan," that tea might be brought for the early guest. Then solemnly we sat down opposite each other and discussed this before breakfast, too! -thimble cups of green tea with dainty sweetmeats, while O Hana San tastefully praised the view over my little garden, with its minuscule hills and microscopic ponds, its pebbles that do duty as mimic rocks.

For all that she was in a hurry to give her news and be off home again, O Hana San was far, far too polite to omit these little ceremonies or to hurry them, the result being that we wasted precious minutes of impatience in inquiring after the excellent health of our respective families. At last she began on the real business in hand: "I-the Selfish-One, have come to bring you news." A little paper fluttered between her fingers. "The voice of the Emperor has called my husband -called him to fight!" And she smiled as she said it-the queer little Japanese smile which does not always stand for merriment.

It was all written down on the scrap of paper-just as she saidthe scrap of paper that she placed so reverently in my hand and persistently called the "Emperor's Voice." How could such an idea have come into her head? It must have sprouted at sight of the gorgeous official in uniform who brought the letter, thereby shedding distinction unprecedented over the gardener's humble home. With the haziest notion of government workings, O Hana San doubtless immediately concluded that such an imposing messenger could only come direct from her sovereign.

To her, of course, the characters of the message were undecipherable. This was as well, since they set forth only the most prosaic of orders from the district headquarters, summoning her husband to join his regiment.

Though I knew they were in no wise, as she firmly believed, tones of the Emperor's voice miraculously transferred to paper, and then be.come incarnate like those words, written by holy men in the poetic past, which descended from their tablets and held converse with mankind, still I had no wish to correct O Hana San. Of what use to set her right, and in so doing break her lamp of faith, as one might break

Satsuma vase?

some delicate old Chiefly a feeling of modesty withheld me, for with our wooden, lifeless lettering, we can never hope to understand how, to the Japanese mind, every written character, with its grace and proportion, is always a live thing; it speaks; it gesticulates.

And here she saw a whole page full of such living characters, figures that cried out to the eyes, though she could not read them, words that smiled up at her like faces-all created for her, a humble woman, by the sacred person of the sovereign. She placed the paper against her forehead and bowed to the mats in a reverent obeisance. The exquisite sense of imperial condescension intoxicated her like a perfume, blotted out for the moment every other sensation! And I thanked the gods for my gift of silence!

The village was as excited as a whirlpool in the river. From almost every house a son or a brother had been called, fifty altogether, chosen to fill vacancies-cruel spaces torn by shot and shell-in the regiment recruited from the district. No wonder she came early with such news!

O Hana San showed no sign of grief or regret, though Heaven knows this little bit of paper may prove as destructive as a bomb thrown into their quiet household. And, oh! the pity of it! Her husband is such an unusually fine fellow, clever at his trade, gentle, industrious, sober-one who can i be spared. And she loves him dearly, too!

It is all very sad; I scarcely know what to say, fearing to condole lest I offend her Samurai pride, which counts it the greatest honor possible to die for the Emperor, yet longing to speak to the tender side of her, for it is like sending him straight to execution. There at the front life counts for nothing beside success. Remember Nanshan and the bat

talions poured out like a living stream, only to be polluted by the touch of death. The very thought of it forces the tears from my eyes; I cannot speak, so full my

heart is!

To-morrow, O Hana San holds a little party of intimate friends to watch the Yaku-otoshi, or Casterout-of-devils, weave spells of good luck around the house. She has invited me to join in the ceremony, a kind of farewell celebration, as the next day her husband goes. I accepted gladly. The early morning will find me on my way to take part in this quaint and perhaps pathetic

custom.

From what she tells me, all the Japanese, when husbands and sons. and brothers are sent away, court luck by such a ceremony. Even the very, very poor contrive some little feast for good-bye, through pinching economy; or when there is no other way, by borrowing from friends the wherewithal. It is one more of the picturesque customs that will be all too soon forgotten.

Having secured my acceptance, O Hana San, with more bows, disappeared, the pattering of her geta, wooden shoes, beating a tattoo on the stepping stones of the path.

*

This morning I awoke even earlier than usual and repaired to the house of O Hana San. There was all the domestic display of a festival in the decoration of the kamidana— the shelf of the gods. Before the little household images of Buddha were placed great double rice cakes, the shrine itself being beautified with flowers-a branch of pine and some sprays of late peach blossoms. Turnips, kabu and radishes, daikon and the seaweed of Kombu, which is a symbol of pleasure, were set out on a curiously-shaped little table, used alike in temple and cottage to hold the offerings made to Shinto gods. Very quaint it was to see side by side Buddhist and

Shinto symbols. But I was not surprised. surprised. Kawano is as wily an old philosopher as ever sat astride a fence. Whichever religion ultimately triumphs, he means to be among the elect.

What surprised me greatly was a fine lobster tastefully arranged in the very center of the little tablelambo is the correct name for it. Why a lobster of all things-a lobster, which must have been procured in this inland town at great trouble and greater expense?

The Oji San, the Honorable Grandfather, my old gardener, whom at first I hardly recognized under the honorific title children and grand-children gave him, was more than willing to explain. He has the garrulity of age. A lobster's body, bent double as this was bentas the body of a man must be who lives through the storms of many winters, is the symbol of yearsmany years. Its presence on the table signified the hope that the family and those friends gathered at the celebration might live so long that they, too, would become bent like the lobster under the weight of many summers and winters.

It seemed to me a singularly suitable, as well as hopeful emblem for the soldier, this creature who signifies long life! But I doubt if O Hana San felt it so. I really do begin to doubt whether her pride, if her husband should die bravely for his sovereign, would not be greater than her love if he was spared less gloriously to her.

Around the room hung strings of dried chestnuts, truly military emblems these, symbols of success, for their name in Japanese means “victory," "conquests." Here was something which really delighted the heart of O Hana San.

Altogether six of us assembled for the rite. I have often heard on the eve of the Letsubun Festival, a little after dark, the Yaku-otoshi wander through the streets rattling

his staff and uttering his strange professional cry: "Oni wa soto!-Fuku wa uchi!" (Devils out!-Good fortune in!) Offer a trifling fee, and he will perform his exorcism in any house to which you call him; the actual magic, however, I had

not seen.

O Hana San seated us in a semicircle on the spotless mats, soft as the bedding of her best room. The husband, meek and lamb-like, rather than fierce, as a warrior by all traditions should be, crouched in one corner. He was by nature such a gentle, unobtrusive soul that I think all this celebration troubled him. Not so the Oji San, who delighted in it, and once we were seated, led the magician into our presence with the manners of a court chamberlain.

The ceremony proper was so simple after all-just the recitation by the Yaku-otoshi of some Buddhist verses which he intoned in a measured chant. Afterwards he gravely stood in the center of the room, and threw, quite solemnly, into the four directions of space some dried peas that he carried in a little wallet attached to his belt. For some mysterious reasons, devils do not like dried peas. But the family do, for O Hana San, who watched carefully where they fell, whispered to me that afterwards they would be swept up and eaten. Why these harmless vegetables should strike awe into the devils I could not find out; neither could I discover the origin of this dislike; but my sympathy on the subject is entirely with the fiends-they have good taste.

The exorcising was now over; ail the mischievous spirits dispersed. Only the prayer-papers remained to be pasted-little strips of ricepaper each with a prayer written on its surface. We all worked at this right heartily. If the devils creep in through the cracks, it will not be through my papers; for they are. pasted down SO tight, so tight,

wherever a little chink could be seen along the edge of the shoji, the sliding paper screens, leaving no slit, no cranny, for the most starved hobgoblin to creep through. This closed the official performance. The guests slipped away one by one aiter they had drunk more thimble cups of tea, and eaten more pink and green and lilac sugar cakes.

Just as I, too, was going, O Hana San plucked me by the sleeve. If I would remain there were yet more ceremonies. "Remain," she entreated, "to our humble evening meal. There augustly exist eggsof ducks," she tempted with the smile of a Kwannon. Delicious surprise! surprise! Remain? Of course! As if one could refuse anything to O Hana San-when the Voice of the Emperor had called her husband!

We had a delicious little dinner-but mostly silent, except for the Oji San's chatter. Bits of war-like legend he unearthed for our benefit from the dusty lumber-room of his old memory. O Hana San presently cut him short.

"At Sannomiya Temple the mat

(fair) honorably is," she reminded. I knew then why she had bribed me with the eggs-of ducks. Doubtless there was some luckcharm to be bought at the matsuri for the husband who sat silent by the kitchen fire absorbed in thoughtless Oriental reverie, totally oblivious of the preparations centering around him.

We took our way up the little village street and across the bridge where paper lanterns flitted like lines of fire-flies-for it was falling dusk when we set out. Up a little pebbly path we followed the line. of people bound matsuri-wards, each ringed in a lurching circle of light-on and up to a gate adorned with gargoyles and swarming dragons, into a courtyard where graceful votive lanterns of stone stand like monuments. To me the dragonries and snakeries undulate