The Four Corners in Japan

by Amy Ella Blanchard

  CHAPTER XI

  AT MYANOSHITA

  In a comfortable hotel, half European, half Japanese, they foundthemselves settled that evening, with the mountains rearing their topsall around them and Fujisan a nearer neighbor than ever before. Thestream, Hayagawa, babbled noisily within hearing, and the lofty pinesgave out a sweetly pleasant odor.

  "This is the most restful spot I have found in Japan," sighed MissHelen. "I was quite worn out when we reached here, but that deliciouswarm bath has acted like a charm. There must be some quality aboutthese springs beyond their mere temperature."

  "And such lovely bath-rooms, too," agreed Nan, "so clean andsweet-smelling. It seems good to be in the hills again, doesn't it? Weare so used to seeing them at home that one misses them after a time."

  "I should really like to stay here a long while," remarked Mrs. Corner."The gardens are so attractive and the little town has all sorts ofenticing shops, I noticed. Then there are a number of delightful tripsto make, I am told."

  "Oh, dear," sighed Nan. "And we must go to Nikko and to Kyoto and adozen other places which I suppose will be quite as fascinating. Ifonly the twins didn't have to go back to college we could just stay ontill we had seen all."

  "There is no reason why you shouldn't stay on with Helen and Mary Lee,"returned her mother.

  Nan shook her head. "No, once having hold of you I realize how valuableyou are and I don't feel as if I could let you go back without me."

  "Don't let us plan the going back yet a while," interposed Miss Helen."Just when we are beginning to have a sense of peace and rest we shouldenjoy it. Let the morrow take thought for itself."

  Jack and Jean were already down among the wood-carvers in the villageand came back after a while with their hands full of pretty things.They tried to coax the others to make an immediate visit to the shops,but no one was enterprising enough to undertake the errand that evening.

  "We will go to-morrow," said Nan. But alas, when the morrow came itbrought rain again, and no one cared to venture till afternoon, whenfinding time hanging heavily on her hands, Nan ventured forthalone, clad in her rain cloak and carrying a gay oiled paper umbrella.The streets were almost deserted but in front of one of the shops a_jinrikisha_ was waiting. Because she was curious to see who mightbe the other shopper out on that rainy afternoon, Nan entered thewood-carving establishment and came suddenly face to face with NealHarding.

  "Miss Nan!" he exclaimed. "Isn't this luck? I was just wondering inwhich hotel you were staying. The chief has given me a week's leave,as he thought I was a little done up. That is, I am not to be recalledunless some special pressure of work demands, and so I thought thiswould be just the place for me."

  "But why did you seek us in a perfectly strange wood-carver's shop?"asked Nan.

  He laughed. "It does look as if I were making a house to house searchfor you, doesn't it? I had an errand here for one of my friendswho left an order for some carving which has not been delivered aspromised. Where are you stopping?"

  "At the Fujiya."

  "And all stood the journey well, I hope?"

  "Very well." Nan was rather non-committal.

  "And you stopped at Kamakura as you intended and went to Enoshima, Isuppose."

  "Yes, we did all that. We were two nights at Kamakura and have beenhere but one."

  "If I had only known I could get the holiday, I might have been withyou. I feel quite defrauded when I think of it. One of the other menwas to have been off this week, but he found it would suit him betterto get leave later, consequently I was offered the time in his place.May I go with you? Were you going to buy some carvings?"

  "I was going to amuse myself by looking around. After being housedall morning I wanted to get a bit of the outside world." She gave nopermission but he took it for granted and followed on as she went fromone charming object to another. "I may as well be pleasant to him,"reflected Nan, "for he may be my brother-in-law some day," and shebegan to unthaw a little. "You said you had not been well," she began."I hope it was nothing serious and that you are feeling better."

  "Oh, it is nothing very serious. It has been pretty hot and I havebeen working rather hard of late, so I was a trifle run down; that isall. I shall be fit as a fiddle by the end of my stay here. There aresome tremendously interesting excursions to be made from this centre,you know. One is to Lake Hakone and another is to that grewsome spotO-Jigoku. There is a magnificent view of Fujisan from there. You willneed an alpenstock if you go. Here is a good one. Let me get it foryou. You can keep it to carve names on, names of places you visit andpeople you meet. May I put my humble initials on it?"

  What could Nan do but consent? And she stood silently by as he madethe initials of her own name first, placing his own under them, thelittle Japanese shopkeeper looking on with a smile, probably to see howmuch less dextrous these foreigners were than her own countrymen whoproduced such wonders of carving.

  Nan accepted the stick with a meek "Thank you," and felt herself verydisloyal to Jack, this giving her cause to make only a hurried surveyof mosaics and inlaid woods, of dainty carvings and ingenious toys. Shebought one or two things to give countenance to her errand in the rainand then declared she must return, steadily ignoring all suggestionsto visit other shops or to take tea in one of the many pretty littletea-houses. Mr. Harding dismissed his _jinrikisha_ and walked to thehotel with her where he received a warm welcome.

  "You are the one thing needed to make us a complete party," declaredJack. "A lot of women without one man to countenance them is ananomalous organization," and so he was taken in quite as a matter ofcourse.

  A trip to Lake Hakone was arranged for the very next day, if it didnot rain. "We must make the most of you," Jack told Mr. Harding, "forif you have only a week it may rain half of it and we don't want toput off anything that ought by rights to include you." She expected toappropriate the young man as a right, Nan noticed.

  But Jack's plan did not come out entirely as she expected, for asthey were sitting on the verandah that evening, Jean grabbed her twinsister's arm. "Jack, Jack," she exclaimed, "here is that Mr. Warnerthat came over on the steamer with us."

  "Oh, bother!" cried Jack shaking her head with a frown. "I don'tsuppose he will have sense enough to realize that he will be in theway."

  "You couldn't expect him to after being nice to him on the steamer,"returned Jean.

  "Oh, well, that was because he came in handy to walk with and to tuckin my steamer rug and things like that. He is a silly ass, and I don'twant him around. You will have to take him off my hands, Jean."

  "Indeed I shall not then," returned Jean. "I don't like him any betterthan you do, and I am quite sure I never gave him any occasion forthinking so, which is quite the opposite of the way you did."

  "Well, all is, I hope he won't see us," returned Jack, changing herseat so that her back would be to the garden.

  "Who is the man?" Nan asked having overheard the conversation.

  "Oh, he is a softy we met on the steamer. He knows some of our friendsand is perfectly respectable, of course, otherwise mother would nothave allowed us to have anything to do with him. There wasn't any oneelse around, and you know what Jack is. He served her for the timebeing. I don't mean there was anything like a flirtation, but she wasnice to him and he trotted after her as men like that do when a girl ishalf-way kind to him. We thought we were rid of him when we left thesteamer, but you see here he is."

  "Well, my dear, one is very liable to run up against acquaintances likethat when both are traveling in the same country; it happens over andover again. Jack will have to take the consequences, of course."

  But this was precisely what Jack did not intend to do, and for thisvery reason she cajoled and demanded until Mr. Harding was helpless indoing anything but what she expected. Nan, while pleasantly polite tothis young man, gave him no opportunity of returning to a comradeshipand he was more and more convinced that she wished to keep him at adistance.

  Mr. Warner was not one to avoid a group o
f pretty girls and as soon ashe caught sight of Jack the same evening, he made straight for her withevery exclamation of pleasure and surprise. He was not a bad-lookingperson, and was perfectly assured in his own mind that he possessedevery quality a girl could desire. He was an inveterate punster andwas always doing what Jack called "monkey tricks." Nan could see thathe promised to be something of a bore, as he was invariably flippantand frivolous, taking nothing seriously and ready to make jokes ofeverything. No spot too sacred, no object too impressive to become thetarget of his supposed wit. He quite resented Mr. Harding's presence asan admirer of Jack's, and to Nan's amusement always spoke as if he werean interloper whom Jack might reasonably wish to be rid of.

  Because of all this, Nan more than once relieved the situation byallowing the young man to become her escort and met him on his ownground with frivolous speeches, so that he began to think that, afterall, this elder sister was almost as desirable as Jack, and when hecouldn't get pudding he would quite cheerfully take pie.

  However, there were occasions when Nan could not sacrifice herselfeven for Jack, and she would get out of the way, having discovered asecluded spot from which she could get a view of the sea with Enoshimawithin vision, and on the other hand the stately form of great Fujisan.

  The excursion to Lake Hakone did not take place at once on accountof morning showers, but a day later it was agreed upon and with Mr.Warner, an attachment which they would willingly have been rid of, theyall set out through the green mountain-paths, where the high bamboograss colored the landscape vividly, and where many wild flowers peepedfrom the thickets. It would have been a more successful expeditionbut for the persistence with which Mr. Warner joked about everythingin the heavens above, the earth beneath and the waters under theearth, allowing no one to enjoy either beauty or solemnity withoutinterpolating either a pun or a silly speech of some kind, so thatat the last every one was in a bad humor and whisperingly arranged asecret session. Little slips of paper were tucked into the hand offirst one and then another by Jack. Each read: "Meet us at the desertedtea-shed back of the Bachelor's quarters at eight this evening." So byones and twos the conspirators crept forth, keeping out of sight asmuch as possible lest they be seen and overtaken by the marplot, asthey had come to call Mr. Warner.

  Promptly the small company gathered, Jack's three sisters and Mr.Harding. "We simply cannot have our expedition spoiled by that sillymonkey-on-a-stick," announced Jack. "We must get away for our trip toO-Jigoku without his seeing us. He has no better sense than to butt inwithout being invited and we cannot have him. Has any one mentionedthat we were going?"

  No one had, and Jack proceeded to unfold her plan. "I propose that weget up very early and meet somewhere, get breakfast at some littleout-of-the-way tea-house and then start. What do you say?"

  All agreed. "It carries me back to our college days," said Nan, "whenwe used to scheme in order to outwit the sophs."

  "Mother and Aunt Helen are not going, I suppose," remarked Jean.

  "Oh, no, the climb after we leave our chairs will be too hard forthem," returned Mary Lee. "Now we must settle just where we are goingto meet. Of course, we girls will have no trouble, but Mr. Harding mustbe certain."

  "Suppose we say that little place just beyond the last carving-shop;it is unpretentious and no one would think of it; the only trouble isthat one can see right into those places as soon as the _shoji_ arepushed aside."

  "And what is more one can hear," put in Mary Lee. "I don't see how theycan possibly keep secrets in Japan when the partitions between roomsare nothing but screens."

  "Why not meet right here?" proposed Mr. Harding. "We can make a detourand come out somewhere beyond where I will have the chairs meet us."

  This was considered the best arrangement, and the party separated asthey had come, Nan agreeing to tole Mr. Warner off in such direction asshould prevent his seeing from whence the others came.

  Early the next morning they crept forth, climbed the hill to the shedwhere they had met the evening before and, piloted by Mr. Harding,made their way to a spot further on where the chairs were waiting. Themists were rolling up from the mountains and Fujisan's crest was quitehidden. There was no sign of a living creature, but once or twice ablithe lark caroled forth his morning song. The waving green of thebamboo stretched on each side, making a perfect jungle, and trees ofbeech, oak or fir arched overhead. It was decided to stop at one ofthe tea-houses of the little village of Kiga where they could getbreakfast and then continue their journey. A pretty place was chosenwhere there was a garden and a pond of goldfish, a spot not unlike manyothers near by, but it seemed the most attractive, and the smilingmaids were perhaps more inviting than those they had passed by.

  Exultant at having entirely outwitted the ubiquitous Mr. Warner, andrefreshed by their breakfast of tea, eggs and rice cakes, they startedon, stopping to feed the fishes first and to view the pretty littlegarden. Only the rush of mountain streams broke the silence as theywent on to the pass of O Tomi Toge. Here they halted, for the rest ofthe journey must be made on foot and with a careful guide.

  "Oh, look!" exclaimed Nan as she descended from her chair and cast hereyes in the direction of a great valley. "Such a view of Fujisan Inever had."

  "Glorious! Splendid!" came from one and another. The mists were stillcurling around the crown of the solitary peak, but this rendered iteven more beautiful, with a foreground of pines and box-trees, andnearer still, growths of snowy flowers, as if reflected from the snowypeak of the mountain itself.

  "It smells very queer," remarked Jean sniffing daintily, "but thenJapan is so full of queer odors that I am not surprised."

  "We must be near the 'Valley of the Greater Boiling,'" decided Nan.

  "There is no doubt of that," remarked Mr. Harding; "look at thoseblighted trees, and see that stream dashing over those rocks of blackand yellow. This must be the very entrance to the Stygian valley."

  A precipitous and awe-inspiring climb they had now, following the guidewith the utmost caution lest they slip through and become engulfed inthe boiling mud. No vegetation was here, but the earth and the rocksbore evidences of a blasting, sulphurous heat. In some spots, smokeissued and there were ghastly sputterings and splittings of the earth'scrust.

  "Isn't it the very epitome of all that is horrible and frightful?"said Nan. "Jack, please be very careful. I heard of some one who losthis life by falling into that awful place, and more than one has beenburned severely."

  Jack promised and did intend to be very careful, but she was aventuresome young person and could not withstand the temptation to go alittle nearer the edge of the dark stream. But fortunately Mr. Hardingwas watching and dragged her back in time to prevent a misstep into theseething sulphur. Jack herself turned pale as she realized the danger,for the guide, taking a pole, cautiously plunged it into the crust nearwhich she had ventured and immediately it sank deep, deep down intodepths of boiling mud.

  Nan covered her eyes. "Oh, Jack," she quavered, "just suppose you hadgone an inch nearer."

  "But I didn't," returned Jack lightly.

  "You would have but for Mr. Harding." Nan turned eyes still full ofhorror on Jack's preserver, while Jack herself held out her hand.

  "Thank you," she said. "I came near getting into a bad scrape, didn'tI?" She walked off in a direction which gave her safety, really moreovercome than she was willing to admit.

  "I want to thank you, too," said Nan in a low voice to the young man."I cannot face the thought of what might have happened but for yourquick eye and----" She paused and turned her head, unable to keep backthe tears which nervousness brought to her eyes.

  "Don't, please don't," said Mr. Harding coming to her side. "Let usleave this terrible place and go somewhere out of danger where you cansit down and get calm. You are trembling still."

  He led her to a sheltered spot and presently she was herself again.Mary Lee and Jean had already returned, Jean being quite too timidto venture so far as the others. Jack meekly followed behind Nan andher
companion, for once feeling too young to demand attention, andaltogether ashamed of having given her dear Nan such cause for alarm.She sat apart quite in the manner of a younger Jack who so often feltherself a culprit. "We must not say anything to Aunt Helen and motherabout this," charged Nan as she rose to her feet. "Remember, Jack, nota word to any one, not even to Mary Lee or Jean. There is no use ingiving needless worry to them, for even now that it is all over and youare safe, it would distress mother and call up all sorts of visions."

  "Dear me," returned Jack plaintively, "I am sure I shall only be tooglad not to have it known that I was such a silly thing. The worst ofit is," she added, "that I cannot feel that I am superior to Mr. Warnerafter this."

  This brought a laugh and relieved the tension. Then after one more lookat the curling white smoke, the bare, leafless valley, they left theplace and took the narrow path which led them back to what seemed anupper world.

  "I feel as if I had been to the mouth of the underworld," said Nan."It is early yet; suppose we go around by Lake Hakone; it is so lovelya spot that perhaps it will drive away the horror of this. We shallenjoy it more to-day with no punster along, and moreover it is a muchbrighter day and we shall see the reflections more clearly."

  This plan was unanimously approved and returning by another path, theycame to the bottomless lake in whose perpetually cold waters Fujisanwas reflected in all its beauty, for now the mists had rolled away andthe Lady Mountain revealed herself without her veil.

  A tea-house near at hand furnished them with lunch and after a rest andanother stop to feed the fishes in Kiga's tea-house garden they went ontheir way, arriving at Myanoshita to find that Mr. Warner was off insearch of them and could not imagine how they had escaped his watchfuleye.

  "We told him you started very early," Mrs. Corner said merrily, "andthat neither your Aunt Helen nor I had seen you before you went."

  Later on when the young man did appear he was charged with being asleepy-head and so well were the tables turned that he believed himselfalone to blame for being left out of the day's expedition.

  CURIOUS TO SEE WHO THE OTHER SHOPPER MIGHT BE]

  CHAPTER XIINIKKO, THE MAGNIFICENT]