Part 14 (1/2)
”How good it will be to get back to it. Wish I could get a whiff of the air right now. Yes, indeed! I am American to the ends of my fingers, and hallelujah to the day when I sail back.”
I entered into her plans with enthusiasm, reserving my determination never to lose sight of her till she was in safer hands than mine.
She was very eager to begin earning money for her pa.s.sage home, offering to teach, to scrub, and even to learn to cook, if we'd learn to eat it.
I pointed out that, with her ability to sketch and her natural fascination for young girls, the forming of cla.s.ses would be a simple matter. She was only to teach them drawing at first.
To this she demurred; the pay was so poor that she pleaded to be allowed to have one little cla.s.s in English.
I was dubious; but, as it was only a beginner's cla.s.s, I consented--upon her solemn promise to ”cut out all ragtime cla.s.sics and teach plain cats and dogs, rats and mice.”
The process of readjustment in life is sometimes as painful as skin grafting. The pa.s.sing of each day under the new conditions which Zura's coming had brought about marked for both of us either a decided growth or a complete backset. With earnestness I endeavored to make my old eyes see the world and all its allurements from the windows of Zura's uncontrolled youth. Earnestly I then appealed to her to try to understand that life was a school and not a playground and to look without prejudice at the reasonableness of conventions which life in any country demanded, if happiness was to come.
For the first time since I had known her the girl seemed fully to realize that regulated law was a force, and no bogey man which crabbed old grandfathers dangled before pleasure-loving girls, and for her running loose in the green pasture of life was at an end. The bit she must learn to wear would teach her to be bridle wise. However stupid, the process was an unavoidable necessity.
Zura was really serious when we finished our long conference. She leaned over and put her hand on mine. ”n.o.body but father was ever so kind to me. I'll truly do my best.” As if afraid of growing too serious she added: ”But, Miss Jenkins,”--her voice was low and her eyes sparkled, proving how hard the old Zura was dying--”I just bet I kick over the traces some time. I feel it in my system.”
”You what?” I reminded.
”Madam, I have a premonition that this process of eliminating the gay and the festive will be something of a herculean task. In other words, keeping in the middle of the road is a dull, tough job.”
”Oh, Zura!” I cried despairingly.
”Yes'm. But from this minute I am starting down the track on the race for reformation. Give me time. Even a colt can't get a new character and a sweet disposition in a week.”
As the days pa.s.sed it proved not a race, but a hard, up-hill battle, where in gaining one fight she sometimes lost two, and while still aching with the last defeat had to begin all over again. The vision, though, of the home-going to America lured and beckoned her to the utmost effort to conquer not only circ.u.mstances, but herself.
Jane and I helped whenever we could, but there were places so dark through which the girl must pa.s.s alone, that not even our fast increasing love could light the shadows of the struggles.
I realized that a young girl should have young company of her own kind; but there was none for her. In Hijiyama, and especially in our neighborhood, were many high-cla.s.s families. Even members of the royal line claimed it as residence. With these the taint of foreign blood in any j.a.panese marked that person impossible. I dreaded to tell Zura this.
She saved me the trouble by finding it out for herself. Ever afterward, when by chance she encountered the elect, her att.i.tude caused me no end of delight and amus.e.m.e.nt. In courteous snubbing she outcla.s.sed the highest and most conservative to them. In absenting herself from their presence Zura's queenly dignity would have been matchless, had she been a little taller.
As much as possible, I made of myself a companion for her and the most of our days were spent together.
It was a curious pact between young and old. One learning to keep the law, the other to break it, for in my efforts to be a gay comrade as well as a wise mother I came as near to breaking my neck as my well-seasoned habits. Zura had a pa.s.sion for out-of-door sketching, as violent as the whooping cough and lasting longer and the particular view she craved proved always most difficult of access, It severely tested my durability and mettle. I wondered if Zura had this in mind, but I stuck grimly to my task and though often with aching muscles and panting lungs, scrambled by dangerous paths to the edge of some precipice where I dared neither to stand up nor to sit down, but I had longed for excitement and happenings and dared not complain when my wish was fulfilled.
I could always count upon it that, whatever place Zura chose, from there one could obtain the most splendid view of vast stretches of sea, the curve of a temple roof, a crooked pine, or a ma.s.s of blossom. She was as irresistibly drawn to the beautiful as love is to youth. Her pa.s.sion for the lovely scenery of j.a.pan amounted almost to wors.h.i.+p.
I had never been a model for anything. Now I was used as such by my companion indiscriminately, in the background, in the foreground and once as a grayhaired witch. I was commanded to sit still, to not wink an eyelash, though the mosquitoes feasted and the hornets buzzed.
Fortunately the summer holiday gave me some leisure. I absorbed every moment seeking comprehension of youthful ways of looking at things, and in Zura's effort to reduce her wild gallop to a sober pace, the way was as rough for the girl, as the climb up the mountain side was for me.
Often she stumbled and was bruised in the fall. Brus.h.i.+ng aside the tears of discouragement she pluckily faced about and tried again.
There were many battles of tongue and spirit but when the smoke had been swept away, the vision was clearer, the purpose firmer.
That monotony might not work disaster or routine grow irksome our workdays were interspersed with picnics, journeys to famous spots and, for the nights, moonlight sails on the Inland Sea.
Page Hanaford was our frequent guest. To Jane and me his att.i.tude was one of kindly deference and attention. Towards Zura it was the mighty call of youth to youth. She answered with ready friends.h.i.+p. It was easy to see that the boy was buoyant by nature, but the moods that sometimes overtook him were strange. Often at a moment when the merriment was at its height, the hand of some invisible enemy seemed to reach out and clutch him in a dumb horror, confused the frankness of his eyes, left him with bloodless lips. From light-hearted happiness he plunged to silent gloom.