Mrs. Fannie Caldwell Macaulay ("Frances Little"), "the lady of the Decoration," was born at Shelbyville; Kentucky, November 22, 1863, the daughter of a jurist. She was educated at Science Hill Academy, Shelbyville, a noted school for girls. Miss Caldwell was married to James Macaulay of Liverpool, England, but her marriage proved unhappy. From 1899 to 1902 Mrs. Macaulay was a kindergarten teacher in Louisville, Kentucky; and from 1902 to 1907 she was engaged as supervisor of kindergarten work at Hiroshima, Japan. From Japan she wrote letters home which were so charming and clever that her niece, Mrs. Alice Hegan Rice, the Louisville novelist, insisted that she make them into a book. The result was The Lady of the Decoration (New York, 1906), for more than a year the most popular book in America. This little epistolary tale of heroic struggle for one's work and one's love, was read in all parts of the English-speaking world. It set the high-water mark, probably, for even the "six best sellers." Mrs. Macaulay's second book, Little Sister Snow (New York, 1909), was the tender love story of a young American and a Japanese girl. The lad sailed away to his American sweetheart, leaving "Little Sister Snow" blowing him kisses from her native shore. Mrs. Macaulay's latest story, The Lady and Sada San (New York, 1912), was published in London under the title of The Lady Married, which was clearer, as it is the sequel to The Lady of the Decoration. The Lady's husband, Jack, sails away to China in pursuit of his scientific duties, leaving her lonely in Kentucky. She decides to make another journey to Japan; and on the way over she falls in with a charming young American-Japanese girl, Sada San, whom she subsequently saves from a most cruel fate. She then finds her husband, ill and exhausted with his long trip, and returns with him to Kentucky. The descriptions of the countries through which she passes are very fine: the best writing the author has shown hitherto. The little volume was reported as the best selling book in America at Christmas time of 1912. Mrs. Macaulay has spent much of her life during the last several years in Japan, but her home is at Louisville. She is a prominent club woman, and a charming lecturer upon the beauties of Nippon.

Bibliography. The Bookman (June, 1906); Who's Who in America (1912-1913).

APPROACHING JAPAN[41]

[From The Lady of the Decoration (New York, 1906)]

Still on Board. August 18th.
Dear Mate:

I am writing this in my berth with the curtains drawn. No I am not a bit sea-sick, just popular. One of the old ladies is teaching me to knit, the short-haired missionary reads aloud to me, the girl from South Dakota keeps my feet covered up, and Dear Pa and Little Germany assist me to eat.

The captain has had a big bathing tank rigged up for the ladies, and I take a cold plunge every morning. It makes me think of our old days at the cottage up at the Cape. Didn't we have a royal time that summer and weren't we young and foolish? It was the last good time I had for many a long day—but there, none of that!

Last night I had an adventure, at least it was next door to one. I was sitting up on deck when Dear Pa came by and asked me to walk with him. After several rounds we sat down on the pilot house steps. The moon was as big as a wagon wheel and the whole sea flooded with silver, while the flying fishes played hide and seek in the shadows. I forgot all about Dear Pa and was doing a lot of thinking on my own account when he leaned over and said:

"I hope you don't mind talking to me. I am very, very lonely." Now I thought I recognized a grave symptom, and when he began to tell me about his dear departed, I knew it was time to be going.

"You have passed through it," he said. "You can sympathize."

I crossed my fingers in the dark. "We are both seeking a life work in a foreign field—" he began again, but just here the purser passed. He almost stumbled over us in the dark and when he saw me and my elderly friend, he actually smiled!

Don't you dare tell Jack about this, I should never hear the last of it.

Can you realize that I am three whole weeks from home! I do, every second of it. Sometimes when I stop to think what I am doing my heart almost bursts! But then I am so used to the heartache that I might be lonesome without it; who knows?

If I can only do what is expected of me, if I can only pick up the pieces of this smashed-up life of mine and patch them into a decent whole that you will not be ashamed of, then I will be content.

The first foreign word I have learned is "Alohaoe," I think it means "my dearest love to you." Anyhow I send it laden with the tenderest meaning. God bless and keep you all, and bring me back to you a wiser and a gladder woman.