Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice

One morning several weeks later, June was lying on his back in the garden wishing he had someone to play with. Toro was away at school and Seki San was having her hair dressed. He had watched the latter performance so many times that it had ceased to interest him. Seki would sit for hours on a white mat before the old hair-dresser who combed, and looped and twisted the long oily strands into butterfly bows of shining black.

The only person on the premises who was at leisure was Tomi, but that was just the trouble, he was so much at leisure that he refused to stir from his warm spot on the sunny steps no matter how much June coaxed. To be sure there was a yellow cat next door, but she did not understand English as Tomi did, and when June called her, she humped her back and would have ruffled her tail if she had had one, but Japanese cats do not have tails, so when they get angry they always look disappointed.

Just as June was getting a bit lonesome the postboy came trotting in with a letter for Seki San and June ran in to take it to her.

"For me?" said Seki San, looking very comical with one loop of black hair hanging over her eye, "from Meester CarrÉ? I sink it is a mistake, I do not know Meester CarrÉ."

"Read it," demanded June impatiently.

"It say," went on Seki San slowly, "that Meester CarrÉ is not able to write hisself but he desire the writer to ask me will I permit the little American boy to come to see him to-day. He is sick on the bed, and have the low spirit. He will keep safe care of the little boy and send him home what time I desire."

"Oh, let me go, Seki! Please let me go!" cried June.

"But who is Meester CarrÉ?"

"He is the Frenchman," said June. "He is a soldier and has got the rheumatism. He has goldfish too, and a sword. Oh Seki, please let me go! Oh, do let me go!"

"Ah yes," said Seki, "one leg is shorter than the other leg and he walks with sticks, and he has long white whiskers on his lip, ah! yes, I know."

"Can I go?" begged June.

Seki San took a long while to think about it. She consulted her mother and the old man next door, and the doctor who lived at the corner, but by and by she came back and said he could go.

"I will send you in good Tanaka's 'rikisha, he will take good care of you and bring you back at tiffin time."

June was greatly excited over the prospect and stood unusually still while Seki San buttoned him into a starchy white blouse and pinned a scarlet flower in his buttonhole.

"Can't I pin my flag on too?" he begged, and Seki, who could not bear to refuse him anything, fastened the bit of red, white and blue silk on the other side.

"Now keep your body still," cautioned Seki San as she put him in the jinrikisha and gave final instructions to Tanaka who was bowing and grinning and bowing again, "Tanaka will wait for you, and you must come when he calls you. Be good little boy! Sayonara!"

June had never felt so important in his life. To be going out all by himself in a jinrikisha was quite like being grown up. The only thing lacking to make him quite happy was a pair of reins that he might imagine he was driving a horse instead of a little brown man with fat bare legs and a big mushroom hat who looked around every few moments to see if he was falling out.

They trotted along the sunny streets, passing the temple grounds where the green and red Nio made ugly faces all the day, and where the greedy pigeons were waiting for more corn. They passed over the long bridge, skirted the parade ground, then went winding in and out of narrow streets until they came to a stretch of country road that ran beside a moat.

Here there was less to see and June amused himself by repeating the few Japanese words he had learned. "Ohayo" meant "good-morning," and it was great fun to call it out to the children they passed and see them bow and call back "Ohayo" in friendly greeting. He knew another word too, it was "Arigato," and it meant "thank you." He used it on Tanaka every time he stopped by the wayside to pluck a flower for him. Once when they rested June saw a queer old tree, with a very short body and very long arms that seemed to be seeing how far they could reach. June thought the tree must have the rheumatism, for it was standing on crutches, and had knots on its limbs just like Monsieur had on his fingers. But the strange part of it was that from nearly every branch fluttered a small strip of paper with something written on it. June had seen this before on other trees, and he remembered that Seki San had told him that these little papers were poems hung there when the tree was covered with cherry blossoms.

Now June always wanted to do everything anybody else did, so when they started off again, he decided that he would make up a poem to hang on the tree as they came back. He knew one that he had learned from a big boy coming over on the steamer, and he said it over softly to himself:

"King Solomon was the wisest man;

He had some ready cash,

The Queen of Sheeny came along

And Solly made a mash."

To be sure he didn't understand at all what it meant, but it sounded nice and funny and always made him laugh.

"I'd like to make up one out of my own head though," he thought, and he sat so still that Tanaka glanced back uneasily.

It was a very hard matter indeed, for when you write a poem you have to get two words that sound alike, and then find something to write about them. It took him so long that by the time he finished, the shaft of the jinrikisha came down with a jerk and he looked up to find that they had stopped in front of a house all smothered in vines, with two inquisitive little windows peering out like eyes behind a tangle of hair. Everything about the place looked poor and neglected. As June and Tanaka made their way up the path, June gave an exclamation of delight. There about the door were bowls and jars and basins of goldfish. Every available receptacle had been pressed into service, and big fish and tiny ones in every shade of radiant gold swam gaily about in the sunshine.

It was such an engrossing sight that June almost forgot to go in and speak to Monsieur who lay in a bed, near the door.

"Ah, at last," cried the sick man. "My little friend is welcome. There, sit in the chair. Though I am poor, I live like a gentleman. See, I have a bed and chairs and a table!"

June looked about the shabby crowded room, at the dusty flag of France that was draped over the window, at the map of France that was pinned on the wall beside the bed, at the cheap pictures and ornaments and the soiled curtains, then he remembered Seki San's room, clean and sweet and airy with nothing in it but a vase of flowers. "I'd rather sit on the floor," he said as he took his seat beside the bed, adding immediately, "I can stay until twelve o'clock!"

Tanaka had gone to take a bath after his warm run and to drink tea at the little tea-house across the road.

Monsieur lay propped up in bed with his bandaged hands lying helpless on the cover-lid. But his eyes were soft and kind, and he had so many interesting things to talk about that June found him a most entertaining host. After he had shown June his sword and told a wonderful story about it, he returned to the goldfish.

"Alas, there are but twenty-one now," he sighed. "Napoleon Bonaparte died on Sunday. Have you seen the Grand Monarch? He is the great shining fellow in the crystal bowl. Those smaller ones are his gentlemen-in-waiting. Here is Marie Antoinette, is she not most beautiful?"

June was introduced to every one in turn and had endless questions to ask in regard to the story of each. Monsieur was the only person he had ever met who always had another story on hand. Everything suggested a story, a story was hidden in every nook and corner of Monsieur's brain, they fairly bubbled over in their eagerness to be told, and June was as greedy for more as the pigeons were greedy for corn, and he thought up new questions while the old ones were getting answered.

Once Monsieur recited something in verse to him, and that reminded June of his own poem.

"I made up one coming," he announced, "do you want to hear it?"

Monsieur did. Monsieur was very fond of verse, so June recited it with evident pride:

"Bravo!" said Monsieur, "you will be a poet and a soldier too!"

"I'd like to write it down," said June, "so I can hang it on the tree."

"To be sure, to be sure," said Monsieur, "you will find pen and ink in the table drawer. Not that!" he cried sharply as June took out a long sealed envelope. "Give that to me!"

June handed the packet to Monsieur in some wonder and then continued his search.

"Here's a corkscrew," he said, "and some neckties, and a pipe. Here's the pen! And may I use this fat tablet?"

When the materials were collected, June stretched himself at full length on the floor and began the difficult task.

"I never did write with a pen and ink afore," he confided to Monsieur, "you will have to tell me how to spell the big words."

The room grew very silent and nothing was heard but the scratch, scratch of June's clumsy pen, and the occasional question which he asked. A strange change had come over Monsieur; his face, which had been so kind and friendly, grew hard and scheming. He had drawn himself painfully up on his elbow and was intently watching June's small fingers as they formed the letters. Presently he drew the long envelope from under his pillow and held it in his hand. It was a very fat envelope with a long row of stamps in one corner, but there was no address on it. Twice he put it back and shook his head, and twice he looked longingly at the map of France, and at the flag over the window, then he took it out again.

"Will you write something for me now, at once?" he demanded in such a hard, quick voice that June looked up in surprise.

"Another poem?" asked June.

"No, a name and address on this envelope. Begin here and make the letters that I tell you. Capital M."

"Do you like wiggles on your M's?" asked June, flattered by the request and anxious to please.

"No matter," said Monsieur impatiently, "we must finish before twelve o'clock. Now—small o—"

June put his tongue out, and hunching up his shoulders and breathing hard proceeded with his laborious work. It was hard enough to keep the lines from running uphill and the letters from growing bigger and bigger, but those difficulties were small compared to the task of guiding a sputtering, leaking pen. Once or twice he forgot and tried to rub out with the other end of it and the result was discouraging. When a period very large and black was placed after the final word, he handed the letter dubiously to Monsieur.

"Does it spell anything?" he asked. Monsieur eagerly read the scrawling address. "Yes, yes," he answered, "now put it inside your blouse, so. When you get home wait until nobody is looking, then put it in the mail-box. Do you understand? When nobody is looking! Nobody must know, nobody must suspect, do you understand?"

"Oh, I know, it's a secret!" cried June in delight. "I had a secret with mother for a whole week once. I wouldn't tell anything if I said I wouldn't, would you?"

June was looking very straight at Monsieur, his round eyes shining with honesty, but Monsieur's eyes shifted uneasily.

"I would never betray a trust," he said slowly, "if I were trusted. But they believed lies, they listened to tales that the beggarly Japanese carried. They have made me what I am."

June was puzzled. "Who did?" he asked.

But Monsieur did not heed him; he was breathing quickly and the perspiration stood out on his forehead.

"And you will be very careful and let no one see you mail it," he asked eagerly, "and never, never speak of it to anybody?" "Course not," said June stoutly, "that wouldn't be like a soldier, would it? I am going to be a soldier, like you and Father, when I grow up."

Monsieur shuddered: "No, not like me. I am no longer a soldier. I am a miserable wretch. I—I am not fit to live." His voice broke and he threw his arm across his eyes.

June looked off into the farthest corner of the room and pretended not to see. He felt very sorry for Monsieur, but he could think of nothing to say. When he did speak he asked if goldfish had ears.

When the noon gun sounded on the parade grounds, Tanaka came trotting to the door with his jinrikisha, smiling and bowing and calling softly: "Juna San! Juna San!"

June gathered his treasures together, a new lead pencil, an old sword hilt, some brass buttons and, best of all, a tiny goldfish in a glass jar.

"Good-bye," he said as he stood by the bed with his hands full, "I am coming back to-morrow if Seki will let me;" then a second thought struck him and he added, "I think you look like a soldier anyhow."

And Monsieur smiled, and stiffening his back lifted a bandaged hand in feeble salute.