Amy Blanchard - The Four Corners in Japan

Nan, hesitating while she looked longingly at a fragile cup and saucer, sighed. "I suppose you are right, but one's enthusiasm is always so much more ardent in the beginning. Besides, I have always found that no matter how much I carried home with me from abroad, I was always sorry I didn't buy double."

"But these breakable things will be so hard to lug around."

"True, my practical sister. I think I will limit myself to the purchase of two things alone in this precious town and it will be fun to decide what they shall be."

From shop to shop they went, stopping to look at the queer hanging signs, to examine the curios, the silks, and the odds and ends which could be picked up for a mere trifle. But at last Nan decided upon a silk scarf as being easy to carry and a singularly lovely kakamono, though she gave many a sigh to the beautiful bits of color which she must pass by. "So cheap," she would murmur, "and I can't have it."

Then Mary Lee would resolutely rush her away with the consoling remark that doubtless she would find things twice as lovely and even more cheap in other places. "For you must remember," said she, "that we are only on the threshold, and probably, as this is such a well-known seaport, and one which is so much visited, things here are more expensive than they will be further on."

"I bow to your superior judgment," Nan would reply, with a last backward look at the treasure she coveted.

Mary Lee, herself, followed Nan's decision and bought but two articles, one a small piece of carved ivory and the other a piece of embroidery, both of which could be easily tucked away and would take up little room.

Their afternoon would not have been complete without a first visit to a tea-house. "A really truly Japanese one this time," said Nan. "Aren't you glad we waited? I have much more of a sensation, haven't you, Aunt Helen?"

"It does seem the real thing in such an atmosphere and such a company," she returned, as they were served with the pale yellow beverage in tiny cups by the most smiling of little maids.

It was something of a ceremony as they discovered, when, at the very door, they must remove their shoes that they might not soil the clean straw mats with which the floor was thickly spread. Slippers were provided them and shuffling in with these upon their feet they sat on cushions, when a little maid in kimono and broad obi came forward to ask if the honorable ladies would like some honorable tea.

"Dear me," whispered Nan, "it is just as I hoped it would be. We have been called honorable at last."

Presently the mousmeé approached on her knees bearing a carved tray which she presented most humbly, and the three sat drinking their tea and trying to realize that this was Japan and that they were not dreaming.

Continuing their ride, they were taken still further away from the European quarter of the town through the streets which looked more and more foreign; but they did not stop at any of the tiny shops, raised above the street, with their banner-like signs of blue or red or white all bearing lettering in fantastic Japanese or Chinese characters. It was all wonderfully rich and harmonious and the three were so busy drinking in the sights, the queer little low houses, the people, mostly habited in blue, short of stature, smiling, picturesque, that they were taken by surprise when at last their broad-hatted runner stopped. They looked up there to see before them in the evening light the great cone of Fujiyama, or Fujisan, as the wonderful mountain is called.

Nan began to laugh hysterically. "What makes you do that?" said Mary Lee. "I don't see anything so amusing about this glorious view."

"I have to do something," returned Nan, "and I don't want to cry. I have to do one or the other, it is so wonderfully beautiful. Doesn't it seem like the very spirit of a mountain wrapped in this pale, misty evening light? The great sacred mountain! And how high is it? I must look at my book and see." She turned the leaves of the book which she carried with her. "The great volcano," she read, "is between 12,000 and 13,000 feet high. It is 120 miles around the base. It has been practically inactive since 1707, yet there is a spot where it still shows indications of inward fires which, it is safe to declare, may break out some day."

"Dear me, let us hope it will not be while we are here," said Mary Lee.

"It isn't at all probable," Nan assured her, "for I am sure there would be some warning, unearthly noises, and growlings and mutterings. I shouldn't mind a little harmless sort of eruption, and I am rather looking for a baby earthquake that we can really expect almost any time. Do you know, Mary Lee, I am only beginning to wake up to the tremendous possibilities of Japan. Every little while I come upon the description of some famous shrine or temple, some wonderful view, some queer custom, or fascinating festival. I am beginning to get more and more bewildered, and shall have to sift this information so I can gather together the few grains which must serve us while we are here. It would never do to go away with merely a hodge-podge of facts not properly catalogued in our minds. You, who have an orderly and practical mind, must help me arrange some sort of synopsis of what we are to see and why we must."

Mary Lee agreed and after a short observation of the magic mountain, they turned their backs upon it and saw only the bobbing hat of their runner who bore them through the unfamiliar and weirdly interesting streets, whose shops were now beginning to be lighted by gay paper lanterns, on to a more familiar looking quarter of the city, peopled principally by Europeans and back to the hotel on the quay, where they stopped. Their minds were full of new sensations, and their eyes were still filled with the pictures of foreign streets, smiling, gentle-voiced little people, and lastly great Fujisan, calm and beautiful in the sunset glow.

After dismissing the jinrikishas , the three entered the hotel again, Nan walking ahead. As they were passing through the corridor, she stopped short as she came face to face with a girl about her own age who also came to a halt as she saw Nan. Then she sprang forward and took Nan by the shoulders, giving her a gentle shake. "Nan Corner, as I live! This is surprising."

"Eleanor Harding, who could have expected to meet you on the other side of the world?" cried Nan.

"How on earth did you get here?" asked Eleanor.

"Just dug a hole and fell through," returned Nan.

Eleanor laughed. "Dear me, that does make me feel as if we were all back at Bettersley. Why, there is Mary Lee, too! What fun!" She hastened forward to greet her old classmate, and to speak to Miss Helen whom she had met more than once at various college functions. "Well, this is luck," she declared. "Do let us go somewhere and have a good talk. Have you all had dinner? No? Then come along and sit with me for I was just going in."

"But we are still in traveling dress," objected Mary Lee, always particular.

"Never mind that; lots of others will be, too. Come right along."

Thus urged the three followed along to the dining-room where they found a table to themselves over in one corner, and the chattering began.

"Now tell me all about it," said Eleanor. "Dear me, but it does me good to see you."

"We have come just because we all wanted to," Nan told her. "Aunt Helen proposed it, and here we are. We left mother and the twinnies at home."

"Jack and Jean are at Bettersley, of course."

"Yes, pegging away and getting along about as well as the rest of us did in our freshman year. Jack, as may be guessed, is in everything, including scrapes, but she is a general favorite and always comes out on top."

"It makes me sort of homesick," said Eleanor with a sigh.

"But you haven't told us yet what brought you here," Mary Lee reminded her.