List of Illustrations

[1]

At the Emperor’s Wish

I

Far out toward the end of Lower Timber Street, where incurious visitors to the city seldom stray, stands the house of Kudo Jukichi. It is called Lower Timber Street, the Upper end being down in the city where once the stout castle of the Lord of the Clan was the center of all the life of the place. But the name is falsely descriptive, for it leads straight up to the beautiful hills, and ends abruptly in a sheer climb to the top of the[2] pine-clad cone where nestles a famous old Shinto shrine. The narrow path that winds up the steep hillside has been beaten smooth by thousands of pious feet. Below, curving down in gentle slopes, the verdure-covered hills ring in the town, and beyond the billowing roofs of blue-gray thatch and tile stretches the shining, island-dotted sea, warm and soft in the enormous blaze of summer.

To the casual observer there is nothing about the house of Kudo Jukichi to indicate the quality of those who dwell within. A dilapidated fence of split bamboos, that once was tall and fine, partly conceals the weather-beaten little structure and partly reveals it, with the tantalizing indistinctness of a veil over a beautiful face. If a curious stranger should stop and peer through the lattice-like breaks in the fence he would gaze upon wood-work grown soft and gray with age and the flagellation of rains. Even the tiles of the roof, laid with a care cognizant of earthquake and bitter storm, seem to have lost patience and outgrown their pride, and now to await only the semblance of opportunity to loose their hold and slide down. The shrubs along the narrow path that leads from the gate are[3] all unkempt and ragged, and the lone plum-tree that stands like the ghost of a garden sentinel in the corner of the tiny yard, touched by the general air of decay, struggles fitfully in the raw, cloudy days of spring to send forth here and there a spiritless blossom. One must

be to the manner born, or carefully instructed, to detect, from the many signs of ruin all about, the single indication of the state of the householder. Such an one, perhaps, searching closely under the warped roof of the gateway, might find and read the cedar ticket which proclaims, according to law, to any who trouble to stop and read, that in this house of little ease lives Kudo Jukichi, a Gentleman of the Empire.

Kudo Jukichi, Gentleman! In the first year of Meiji, when he fought for the restoration of the young Emperor to the power that rightfully belonged to the Throne, he wore the two swords of a Samurai. But that was long ago. Kudo-san is an old man now, and thick gray hair covers the head where once rose the shining black topknot of a warrior. He sits on the soft mats of his little room with a book, or his pipe, and often falls to dreaming of the years of his youth, of the[4] stirring events that threw down the old established order and brought the Emperor again to his own. And if sometimes there comes to him a twinge of sentimental regret for the lost ways of life of the old régime, it is but natural. It has not been easy for Kudo-san to accept many of the changes that came with the new Western thought. His was not the cast of mind that accommodates itself readily to novel sensations and experiences. Only his passionate loyalty and devotion to the Emperor enabled him to smother the feeling of opposition within him, a feeling purely personal and selfish, in his Japanese conception,

and therefore not entitled to much consideration. Loyalty with him was something more than a mere sense of duty. It was instinctive, from the heart, the very essence of his nature, and because of it he bore without complaint the heavy blows the new order dealt him.

The abolition of feudalism left him helpless, a dependant with none on whom to depend. But the reorganization of the army, and the promotion of the outcast Etas to citizenship and the proud opportunity of military service dazed him. The distinctive privilege of Samuraihood, the right to bear[5] arms, was destroyed, and after that nothing worse could befall. The capitalization of his hereditary income followed as a matter of course, and he accepted with uncomprehending bewilderment the bonds given him by the government he was no longer to serve. The fabric of his life was crumbling and he was powerless to stay its ruin. With hands clasped before him and head reverently bowed he stood in front of his little shrine and solemnly communed with the shades of the Kudos gone before. It was a new situation, and doubtful if they could understand. But one thing he knew, and in gentle voice, with unshaken faith, he announced it.

“It is the Emperor’s wish!”

Fate dealt neither vigorously nor kindly with Kudo. It let him drift. While his bonds ran their income was sufficient for all his needs, but when the time of their redemption came he looked in dismay at the heap of money they brought him. Nothing in all his experience told him what to do with it. Skillfully invested, it would have furnished ample return, but investment was a science utterly beneath the contempt of a Samurai. It was the business of merchants and traders,[6] the men who devoted their lives to the despicable profession of gaining money. He took his fortune home, from the bank where it had been paid to him, wrapped up in a blue cotton bundle-kerchief, and gave it to his wife with the unconcern of complete scorn. He knew that that bundle alone stood between him and necessity, but he did not care. He lived contentedly on his little capital, nor ever let an anxious thought cross his mind because of its constant decrease.

[7]

II

Scarce two hundred yards distant from the house of Kudo Jukichi, around the corner in Azalea Street, there is a most striking evidence of the change the new Western life has brought to the Island Empire. The little shingle at the gate duly sets forth that Mr. Kutami Chobei, a Commoner, occupies that comfortable dwelling, but all the city knows it as the home of Chobei, the Eta. Prosperity radiates from the substantial house and wide grounds with their pleasant garden, and all the place is enfolded in its ample mantle. What cares the Commoner Kutami that his humble station is placarded over his hospitable[8] doorway? But a handbreadth back in the space of years even that poor title seemed a measure of hopeless distinction to him. In the yesterday when neighbor Kudo wore the haughty swords of a Samurai his weapon would have leaped from its scornful scabbard if Chobei the Eta had dared pollute his presence. It was a great advance to be one of the multitude in the oblivion of the Commoners instead of one of the marked few of the Etas, despised, outcast, living apart from

all his fellows except the unfortunates of his class. It had been a bitter life for Chobei, for although his sheer force of will had made him Chief of his village, a man of distinction among his own, that very strength of character made only more keen and poignant the disgrace of his position. The wealth he had accumulated in his business of tanner had little pleasure to give him, and it was the business itself, inherited from his fathers, generation after generation, that made him an Eta. That great stroke of the Emperor’s which had shaken off the shackles of his caste restored him to manhood, and he blessed the fate that had brought the Western ideas to Japan and had set noble and Samurai[9] and outcast all equal before the law, face to face together with the problems of individual responsibilities and rewards.

Money is not yet everything in Japan, however rapidly its power may be advancing. But it is something to the Commoner and it was little better than nothing to the Eta. Kutami was proud of himself, in an humble way; proud that he had something to do with when opportunity to do came to him. More than all he was proud of the new nation, and loyal to it with the last drop of his blood. He was no soldier, but he did his part when the forces of the Empire went over sea to meet the armies of the Chinese in Korea and Manchuria. The business of his outcast days had grown with great strides under the incentive of his new ambition, and from being merely a tanner and dealer in leather he had become as well a manufacturer of boots and shoes. Now it was that the money he had won furnished the means of making return to the nation, and thousands of soldiers marched and fought in the boots Kutami the Commoner gave to his country.

There was no thought in Kutami’s heart of anything but loyalty and gratitude to his[10] Emperor in this, but there was a result he did not foresee. Kudo Jukichi had been shaken out of his retirement by the war. All the old fire was revived in him, and his heart was heavy because he was neither able to offer service himself nor was his son old enough to take a soldier’s part. In spite of the fact that they had lived for years at so little distance from each other, for Kudo it was as if Kutami had never existed. For though he might admit that there was advantage to the nation in some of the great changes of his later years, Jukichi was still at heart the Samurai of the old régime, and to him Chobei was still an Eta. But the gift of the boots touched his heart.

“Some men are called Samurai in name, but are outcasts at heart,” he thought. “That man was called outcast but has acted like a Samurai.”

Straightway he put on his finest silk kimono and stalking out of his gate turned the corner into Azalea Street. There was a flutter of excitement in the house of the Commoner when it was known that Kudo Jukichi had come to call. This was an honor that had been beyond their dreams. For,[11] although there had never been a word between the two families, well the Commoners knew their gentle neighbors, and it was not without a secret sympathy that Chobei had noticed the evidence of hard and harder fortune which increasing days brought to the Samurai. The situation of the Kudos had become, indeed, very much straitened. Jukichi had contrived to sell a few of the treasures of art that had been for generations in the family. But his was no nature for bargaining, and kakemono and vases that were priceless to genuine collectors had gone for the song the first unscrupulous dealer had offered. Valiant soldier and skillful swordsman that he had been, the Samurai was inept in the rough-and-tumble scramble for existence, and Chobei gladly would have made his sympathy practical if he had but known

how.

It was truly a wonderful event for the Commoner when Jukichi voluntarily came to visit him. O-Koyo, his wife, herself fluttered into the room where the distinguished guest was sitting on the soft, white mat, and brought him tea, that fine long leaf with the heavy flavor of the straw mats that had kept[12] it always from the sun, so delightful to the taste of the Japanese connoisseur. Though it was the house of a man possessed of much wealth, there was no display of riches, except in the exquisite fineness of the wood, the beautiful grain carefully brought out in the soft polish and matched with an evenness and skill that betokened unusual pains and thought. In the alcove of the room where Jukichi sat hung a single old kakemono of rare merit, and the signature that caught his eye told him at once of its great value. Beneath it stood a vase of the famous ware that had long distinguished the old artists of his clan, and in it a single spray of blossoms. It was in perfect taste, and the old Samurai, as he sat down, felt a little glow of satisfaction,

as if he had come back at last to the realities of the days before the inrush of Western innovation had done so much to cheapen and make vulgar all that it touched of the island art.

The simple directness of his character had not been changed by his years of vicissitude. The formalities of greeting were hardly ended when Jukichi plunged into the matter that had brought about his visit.

[13]

“I have heard,” he said, “that you have made a great gift to the army.”

A deprecatory smile crossed the face of the Commoner and he bowed very low.

“Ah, it was nothing,” he replied, politely belittling what he had done. “It was only a few boots for the soldiers, who are worthy of very much more than one so humble as I can do for them.”

“Nevertheless it is a fine thing to do,” declared Jukichi, and for an instant there flashed in his eyes something of the old fire. “It is a fine thing for one who is not a soldier to give so much to the army.”

Again Kutami bowed very low, and softly protested the trifling character of his act.

“I have heard that it was an entire division that you supplied,” continued Jukichi. “I congratulate you. It is a very fortunate thing to be able to do so much for the Emperor.”

Lower than ever Kutami bowed and for some time his head remained bent forward. At length he raised it and looked the old Samurai in the face.

“It was nothing at all,” he said in a low[14] voice, “nothing at all. And the Emperor has done everything for me.”

He wondered what Jukichi would do or say to such direct reference to his former condition, but loyalty knew no finer quality in the heart of the Samurai than it found in the breast of the Commoner, and though he insulted his honored guest, or died for it on the instant, Kutami would not have withheld that acknowledgment to his Sovereign. And in making it he touched the deepest chord in the Samurai’s nature.

“I cannot be a soldier myself,” the Commoner went on, after a little, “and my son is not old enough to take my place. But the Empire has given me a great deal, and I am very glad that I can give a little something to the sons of others who offer their lives for it.”

“I, too, cannot be a soldier now,” said Jukichi slowly, after a pause, “although in other years it was my duty and my privilege. And I, too, have a son too young to be of service in this war. But he shall be a soldier some day, and, if Heaven please, an officer of the Emperor.”

The ring of the old clan pride was in the[15] voice and the eyes flashed as if the father already saw the boy leading his men in the swinging charge.

“You are indeed fortunate,” said Kutami gravely; “it is a great honor to have such a son, and it is but fitting that the son of such a father should become an officer.” Again the deprecatory smile crossed his face as he continued: “But it is not for my son to think of so glorious a future. He shall do his duty when the time comes, and serve his country as best he can, but after that I am afraid we could not hope to attain such honor as it would be to have him continue in the army.”

It was Jukichi’s turn to bow and smile in deprecation. Then he rose to take his leave, and when Kutami had thanked him for the great honor he had conferred upon that poor house, he went away with a satisfaction in his heart he did not attempt to explain.

[16]

III

Jukichi’s son was a fine, sturdy lad who already in the public school was laying a solid foundation for the technical training which later was to fit him for an army career. He did not belie his inheritance. His military instinct manifested itself in the ease with which he excelled his mates in the martial exercises that formed part of his school duties. Often, too, it was revealed in his proud bearing toward his fellows. Ambition found large room in his small breast, and it was his determination to rival and even excel[17] the exploits and skill of that great ancestor, Kokan, whose name he bore. Jukichi had begun his instruction in swordsmanship early, and often the old Masamune blade, that had been the pride of the Kudos for generations, was brought out to take its part in the lessons. At fourteen Kokan was captain of a company of his schoolmates, and the stuff that was in him showed in his grief that his years unfitted him to bear a soldier’s part in the war with China.

But the disappointment did not warp him. Rather it tended to confirm his ambition. And if he had needed a spur he would have found it in the boundless pride in him displayed by his sister, who was the playfellow of his home. O-Mitsu-san was four years his junior. As long as she could remember, from the days when she first toddled out into the yard on her small getas, and robed in the wonderful kimono, gay with bright butterflies, the days of her life had been devoted to adoration of her brother. To her he was everything that was fine and noble, and his imperious spirit received as its just due the deferential homage she paid to his years and his sex. She was little more than a baby, in[18] the Western conception, when O-Haru, the gentle mother, went away on the long journey to the Meido and left the house of Jukichi desolate, and it fell to her to take her mother’s place in the management of the household and the anxious care of the slender, steadily diminishing means of support.

“Though the eagle be starving, yet will he not eat grain,” say the Japanese, and Jukichi fulfilled the saying. No one saw better than he the inevitable end of the course he was pursuing. No one felt more than he the need of doing something to secure an income. Kokan would soon finish with the public schools, and before he would be sufficiently far advanced to enter one of the Local Military Preparatory Schools he must have some years of higher instruction, which no school in the city was fitted to give. The only means of possible relief that presented itself to Jukichi’s prejudiced view was some sort of trade, a vile bargaining and selling for the sake of gaining the money which all his life he had despised. Moreover, he knew that he was unfitted by training as well as by nature for such work. The simple honesty of the old soldier, to whom death was a small[19] price to pay for honor, was no match for the unscrupulous cleverness of men whose native sharpness had been developed by years of practice in a profession from which nothing else was expected. And so Jukichi drifted on.

Between O-Haru and Jukichi there had existed a serene sweetness and depth of love such as seems impossible to the Western world, unused to the Japanese way, where marriages are so often matters of arrangement rather than sentiment. Perhaps it was the recollection of what she had been to him, and the profound sense of his loss, that kept Jukichi a widower. But the death of her mother brought some recompense to the little girl in the transfer to her of much of the calm and confident affection which had been O-Haru’s happiness. More and more her father grew to depend on her in many matters in which he had followed the guidance of her mother, and there developed in her a judgment and self-reliance not often found in one of her years. While yet a child in age she was a woman in character. Not much of her time was spent in school, yet her instruction was not scanty for a Japanese girl. Most of it had been given by her father, whose[20] mode of life left him ample leisure for her lessons. She read well and she had the books of the Bunko that had been her mother’s. Of

this “Japanese Lady’s Library” she was diligently studious, and already had attained familiarity with “Woman’s Household Instruction,” and the “Lesser Learning for Woman,” and was intent upon the main part of the work, the profound “Greater Learning.” Besides, she knew the “Hundred Poems,” and often joined with her father and brother in an evening game of quotations. There was little interruption of the quiet current of the family life, and Jukichi loved to put aside pipe or book, when no visitor had come, and play thus with his children. But neither he nor Kokan ever gave a thought to the future of the girl, or noticed the promise she gave of beautiful womanhood.