The House of the Misty Star by Frances Little (ereader for android TXT) 📕

  It was my one attempt to lighten conversation. We went on in silence.

  Wordless my other companion walked beside me. She gave no sign. Only once, when I stumbled, the hand she outstretched in quick support was shaking and cold.

  On reaching the house Page declined to come in; but, seeing the knuckles of his right hand torn and bleeding, I would take no refusal. "Boy, your hand is bleeding. Come right in and let me dress it," said I.

  "Don't trouble. It's nothing; only a bit of knocked-up skin. That coolie must have sharpened his teeth for the occasion."

  Zura spoke for the first time as I made the room light. "Oh! I didn't know you were hurt, Mr. Hanaford. I am sorry. Let me see." She took his hand in both of hers and held it closer under the lamp. Still holding it, she lifted her eyes with sympathy to his. "I'm not worth it," she said softly.

  I did not hear Page's answer; but I thought he was almost gruff when he quickly drew away and walked to the window. He had nothing to say when I bandaged his hand, and he soon left.

  It was only a matter of a few minutes to light the lamp and arrange the bed in the guest-room I had taken such pleasure in preparing before for Zura's visit. I went through these small duties without speaking. I bore no ill will to the girl who had been thrust upon me. My thoughts were too deep for anger against the wayward child whose start in life had been neither fair nor just. But in separating herself from her family she had done the most serious thing a girl can do in whose veins runs the blood of a Japanese. Everything ready, I said good-night as kindly as circumstances would permit.

  Zura put out her hand and thanked me. A smile twitched her lips as she said, "Never mind, Miss Jenkins. Don't be troubled. No use fighting against fate and freckles." The tears in her voice belied her frivolous words.

  Anxious for what might happen, I sat for the rest of the night in the room adjoining the one occupied by my unexpected guest. Twice before the coming of the dawn there reached me from the farther chamber sounds of a soul in conflict—the first battle of a young girl in a strange land, facing the future penniless and heavily handicapped.

  It was a lonely vigil and a weary one.

  If becoming a member of my household was a turning-point in Zura's life, in mine it was nothing less than a small-sized revolution, moving with the speed of a typhoon.

  The days piled into weeks; the weeks plunged head-foremost into eternity, and before we could say "how d'y' do" to lovely summer, autumn had put on her splendid robes of red and yellow and soft, dull brown.

  If once I yearned for things to happen, I now sometimes pined for a chance, as one of my students put it, "to shut the door of think and rest my tired by suspended animation." For I had as much idea about rearing girls as I had on the subject of training young kangaroos. But it grew plainer to me every day my nearly ossified habits would have to disintegrate. Also I must learn to manipulate the rôle of mother without being one.

  Soon after the girl's break with her family the ineffective child-woman who had given Zura life passed quietly into the great Silence before the daughter could be summoned. Though Zura was included among the mourners at the stately funeral, she had no communication with her grandfather. Afterwards the separation was final.

  Once only I visited Kishimoto San's house and had an interview with him. He was courteous, and his formality more sad than cold. He would never again take Zura into his house; neither would he interfere with her. Her name had been stricken from his family register. As long as I was kind enough to give her shelter, he would provide for her. Further than that he would not go, "for his memory had long ears and he could never forget."

  It was a painful hour which I did not care to repeat.

  I acquainted Zura with her grandfather's decision.

  Her only comment was, "His memory has long ears, has it? So has mine, and they'll grow longer, for I have longer to live."

  In the first intimate talk I had with my protégée, her one idea was to earn the money to return to America, where there was "more chance to make a living." So far as she knew her father was without relatives. There was no one to look to for help. But she could work; she knew many girls who worked; and there was always "something to do" in Seattle.

  "How good it will be to get back to it. Wish I could get a whiff of the air right now. Yes, indeed! I am American to the ends of my fingers, and hallelujah to the day when I sail back."

  I entered into her plans with enthusiasm, reserving my determination never to lose sight of her till she was in safer hands than mine.

  She was very eager to begin earning money for her passage home, offering to teach, to scrub, and even to learn to cook, if we'd learn to eat it.

  I pointed out that, with her ability to sketch and her natural fascination for young girls, the forming of classes would be a simple matter. She was only to teach them drawing at first.

  To this she demurred; the pay was so poor that she pleaded to be allowed to have one little class in English.

  I was dubious; but, as it was only a beginner's class, I consented—upon her solemn promise to "cut out all ragtime classics and teach plain cats and dogs, rats and mice."

  The process of readjustment in life is sometimes as painful as skin grafting. The passing of each day under the new conditions which Zura's coming had brought about marked for both of us either a decided growth or a complete backset. With earnestness I endeavored to make my old eyes see the world and all its allurements from the windows of Zura's uncontrolled youth. Earnestly I then appealed to her to try to understand that life was a school and not a playground and to look without prejudice at the reasonableness of conventions which life in any country demanded, if happiness was to come.

  For the first time since I had known her the girl seemed fully to realize that regulated law was a force, and no bogey man which crabbed old grandfathers dangled before pleasure-loving girls, and for her running loose in the green pasture of life was at an end. The bit she must learn to wear would teach her to be bridle wise. However stupid, the process was an unavoidable necessity.

  Zura was really serious when we finished our long conference. She leaned over and put her hand on mine. "Nobody but father was ever so kind to me. I'll truly do my best." As if afraid of growing too serious she added: "But, Miss Jenkins,"—her voice was low and her eyes sparkled, proving how hard the old Zura was dying—"I just bet I kick over the traces some time. I feel it in my system."

  "You what?" I reminded.

  "Madam, I have a premonition that this process of eliminating the gay and the festive will be something of a herculean task. In other words, keeping in the middle of the road is a dull, tough job."

  "Oh, Zura!" I cried despairingly.

  "Yes'm. But from this minute I am starting down the track on the race for reformation. Give me time. Even a colt can't get a new character and a sweet disposition in a week."

  As the days passed it proved not a race, but a hard, up-hill battle, where in gaining one fight she sometimes lost two, and while still aching with the last defeat had to begin all over again. The vision, though, of the home-going to America lured and beckoned her to the utmost effort to conquer not only circumstances, but herself.

  Jane and I helped whenever we could, but there were places so dark through which the girl must pass alone, that not even our fast increasing love could light the shadows of the struggles.

  I realized that a young girl should have young company of her own kind; but there was none for her. In Hijiyama, and especially in our neighborhood, were many high-class families. Even members of the royal line claimed it as residence. With these the taint of foreign blood in any Japanese marked that person impossible. I dreaded to tell Zura this. She saved me the trouble by finding it out for herself. Ever afterward, when by chance she encountered the elect, her attitude caused me no end of delight and amusement. In courteous snubbing she outclassed the highest and most conservative to them. In absenting herself from their presence Zura's queenly dignity would have been matchless, had she been a little taller.

  As much as possible, I made of myself a companion for her and the most of our days were spent together.

  It was a curious pact between young and old. One learning to keep the law, the other to break it, for in my efforts to be a gay comrade as well as a wise mother I came as near to breaking my neck as my well-seasoned habits. Zura had a passion for out-of-door sketching, as violent as the whooping cough and lasting longer and the particular view she craved proved always most difficult of access, It severely tested my durability and mettle. I wondered if Zura had this in mind, but I stuck grimly to my task and though often with aching muscles and panting lungs, scrambled by dangerous paths to the edge of some precipice where I dared neither to stand up nor to sit down, but I had longed for excitement and happenings and dared not complain when my wish was fulfilled.

  I could always count upon it that, whatever place Zura chose, from there one could obtain the most splendid view of vast stretches of sea, the curve of a temple roof, a crooked pine, or a mass of blossom. She was as irresistibly drawn to the beautiful as love is to youth. Her passion for the lovely scenery of Japan amounted almost to worship.

  I had never been a model for anything. Now I was used as such by my companion indiscriminately, in the background, in the foreground and once as a grayhaired witch. I was commanded to sit still, to not wink an eyelash, though the mosquitoes feasted and the hornets buzzed.

  Fortunately the summer holiday gave me some leisure. I absorbed every moment seeking comprehension of youthful ways of looking at things, and in Zura's effort to reduce her wild gallop to a sober pace, the way was as rough for the girl, as the climb up the mountain side was for me. Often she stumbled and was bruised in the fall. Brushing aside the tears of discouragement she pluckily faced about and tried again.

  There were many battles of tongue and spirit but when the smoke had been swept away, the vision was clearer, the purpose firmer.

  That monotony might not work disaster or routine grow irksome our workdays were interspersed with picnics, journeys to famous spots and, for the nights, moonlight sails on the Inland Sea.

  Page Hanaford was our frequent guest. To Jane and me his attitude was one of kindly deference and attention. Towards Zura it was the mighty call of youth to youth. She answered with ready friendship. It was easy