PATS

TOKIO.

ATSY,-It has happened! So have many other things since I wrote you. By it I mean Otani San has left.

The first I knew of it was Kate coming into my room with cheeks flushed and very bright eyes. She'd just had a visit from the broker-man. He rushed over here when he found pinned to a plush pillow a note saying:

I have a duty to perform. It may take me ten years, maybe twenty. I shall not return. Giru San knows why.

I can't remember the poetical phrasing, but this is plainer than poetry and quicker in the telling.

Kate frankly gave all the information she had. It wasn't much. Otani had said she was going some time. Her little daughter should have a chance which had never come to her. "But I did not know her determination was fixed or dated. I see it is. If I can find her I shall do everything I can to help her stick to it," declared Kitty; and I can see her back stiffen as she said it.

I am truly sorry to have missed that interview, for when it is a battle of standards between a sure saint and a determined sinner fireworks are bound to follow.

The man fought for self and all his unquestioned privileges. My missionary friend fought for right, and woe be to any unrighteous soul that clashed with her weapons. I'd pick Kitty as a sure thing any time. Don't reprove me, Patrick! I'm excited. And I am telling one Christian soldier about another of the same kind. If they aren't sure, who is?

Mr. Broker-man wasn't defeated; only

knocked dizzy. Maybe it was the confused state of mind which made him consent not to pursue. Instead he handed a roll of bills to Kate, asking her to find Otani San and give her a message. If she would return, the better part of his fortune and the child were hers to do with as she would. But Kitty, who knows something about everything, says the man has an attack of genuine love! Who can say? Love is a reckless bombthrower.

Do you think I am making too much of this? Not a bit of it. It's a sign of the times. A few years ago the thing simply could not have happened. And even now there are those who contend that, though the though the way be open for escape, the desire for a luxurious life is stronger than desire for the straight and thorny path of hard work and poverty. Time and Katherine will tell this story.

While Kate was gone on her search for a runaway lady, your fat, newsy letter came. Still at it, I see! Keeping your little-big world astir with enthusiasm, polishing up jaded people and weary hearts with your clear vision and kindly deeds!

Of course you didn't say so, but I have an enthusiasm or so myself. The two biggest ones in my treasure-box are you as a miracle-worker in turning handicaps into victory for yourself and others, and Katherine Jilson's fearlessness in tackling the devil in any disguise.

Every time she does it you can fairly see the crumpled horns and drooping tail of the personage in question, and you want to race to life's score-board, wherever that may be, and hang up a double number for Kit.

Deep snow at home, have you? You should see it out here! For a week the sun has been raining diamonds on the sea. All the plum-trees of the land have flung out their blossoms, white and pink and deep red. And the young willows are joyfully waving their long green fringes to every passer-by. The yanagi is a wonderful tree. It is like a tall and lovely lady, clothed in silken garments of brown and palest green. I knew of an especially beautiful one. It stood in a miniature garden which held infinite joys, and the whole affair belonged to an old-time pupil. Being assured of a welcome at that house at any time, I went.

But it is not of the tree or the garden I am going to tell you. Nor shall I repeat the oft-told tale of the greetings offered by a Japanese hostess to her guest. But, since you touched on the piled-up difficulties of housekeeping in America, I am going to give you a taste of what it means in Japan to be a housekeeper and a home-maker. Pass it along to the first complainer in your Home Problem Club.

In this land of flaming maples, housekeeping is no merry experiment, tried out just for fun in the rosy afterglow of honeymoon time. It is a profession, for which a large share of the nation's girlhood goes through a machine-like grilling. It begins in early school life. It ends only when the housekeeper is gathered unto her foremothers, in that perfect place where dust and duties do not collect, and covetous serving-maids do not break through and steal. Here's how my hostess summed it up:

"Ladies first is not Japanese idea. Of course men protect and take care of women and children, but man is always honored and respected high, because he is a man! Women and girls must be taught how to serve him, and to look after him, and don't give him trouble at home; then he can take his whole heart and put into his work!"

Isn't it easy to see why skilful housewifery is a heavy asset in the matrimonial market? And, as matrimony is the end for which almost every Japanese

daughter is born, it behooves the father to command the mother to urge the teacher to prepare the daughter for her high and inevitable calling.

It is some climbing to attain the proper standard for wifehood. The average girl's education embraces about everything, from picture alphabet to ponderous Chinese classics. I have often wondered how the latter applied to housekeeping and motherhood. But far be it from me to dally long enough with those ancient Asiatics to solve the mystery.

You might think, when a girl has mastered the art of making herself mistress, wife, mother, and hostess all at the same time, to say nothing of having pigeonholed in her memory recipes for an endless variety of dishes with strange ingredients and impossible names, it was time for a breathing-spell. Not yet, nor soon! There's the bookkeeping, sewing, and learning to direct many servants.

Flower arrangement takes five years of any young life. With it goes correct standing, which is mostly sitting, precise angle of folded hands, and, above all, soft speaking, with reverent silence emphasized when relations-in-law are near. Otherwise, I'd have you know, the young bride-to-be is hardly worth the jinrikisha ride that brings her to her parents-inlaw's house, or the three cups of wine consumed in making the twain one—and that one the man.

"Suppose the bride is a daughter of the soil? Would the requirements be so very exacting?" I can hear you asking it just that way-and here's my answer: 'Spose she is? Hers is still some job. To the qualities of a good housekeeper she adds those of a good farmer, as she usually works close upon the heels of the man of the house.

With gentle skill she manipulates the stupid ox attached to the crude plow. She helps to sow the seed. She coaxes the crops and follows the reapers in the harvest. Betweentimes she mothers her children, serves her husband's parents, and takes a moment to breathe a prayer

at a wayside shrine. She finds time for it all. Her eight-hour day is multiplied by two.

Long before Fuji's snow-capped dome begins her morning blush, housekeepers of the land are up and doing. Sometimes the home is servantless. Then wife's first duty, after her own quick toilet, is to slide back the wooden doors which inclose four sides of the dwelling. This makes way for the glory of the sun or the beauty of the mist. Her bedding is lifted from the floor to its resting-place behind wall-panels. The night light is safely removed. She fans the hibachi charcoal to a fresh glow and arranges husband's apparel so conveniently near, and with such care, a semi-blind man could array himself without missing a collar-button or a loop.

But listen to the silence with which it is done. There is a reason. The master of the house, "because he is a man," must

VOL. CXLIV.-No. 860.-23

have his beauty sleep. And you and I and the universal sisterhood of housekeepers will agree it is most desirable that the "He" arrive at the breakfasttable with temper unruffled. Happily the Danna San's mood is usually in tune with the harmony around him and the breakfast awaiting him completes the score.

Wise lady, she is to have hat, shoes, overcoat, and cane ready to be placed on the "precious person of her honorable husband." She follows him to the gate, and I dare any of his species to be proof against the farewell smile she gives as he goes to his work. Don't get too sorry. It's her life and she lives it cheerfully. It's a sort of comradeship business with duty well done on both sides, and on the average works out with quiet content. Husband and wife may not be radiantly enthusiastic about each other, but it's a different story when it comes to the children.

Of course there are children. There must be, whether begged, borrowed, or adopted. And you just want to get up and hug somebody when you see with what care each small body is made ready, started schoolward, fresh and happy, carrying in his heart some gentle reminder of duty. Thrice blessed the household when the gracious gods supply it annually with a brand-new baby. If ever the mother is a spendthrift of time, it is when she lingers over her morning's delight of bathing and dressing the latest cherub.

It is the same feeling with which some women pin a bunch of priceless orchids to their belt and hie them forth to a banquet that a Japanese woman ties a little pink- or bluekimono baby on her back and goes about

her household duties. I'd wager, if you told Jimmy Lou to go to the Daidoroko, she'd up and tell you she was too much of a lady.

In Nipponese it stands for kitchen, and in some homes where I have been the food-cooking place is the shiniest spot under the roof. The morning sun streams through the paper windows. It catches up its thousand reflections from pan and brass kettles, making flirty little haloes to float about child and mother as the daily scrubbing and polishing goes on. Between rubs the many picturesque tradesmen appear on the scene—the fishman, the egg-man, the chicken-dealer, maybe a duck-trader, the vegetablevender, and the flower-seller. They come early and linger long with baskets swung from a pole carried across the shoulder;

each one declares that nothing grows outside the garden of the gods so rare as the thing he offers. He is so earnest you are almost convinced he's telling the truth. This precious bit has been grown especially for madam. And so very cheap! Does not the lady see with her own honorable eyes? She is so clever. She is good. Also she is beautiful.

Eggs? Surely! That very morning six faithful hens provided twelve fresh eggs for the special needs of this house. And the flowers? Ah! Truly Onu San is beloved of the gods! By the space of an hour these blossoms burst into bloom, only to greet her eyes!

The flattery is never dimmed by repetition, but rarely does it penetrate the consciousness of a Japanese mistress.

It is a time-consuming ceremony. But, servant