“Yes, dear,” I replied, but I was startled when, from the little bowed figure with clasped hands, came a sudden, “Hello, God!”
I reached out my hand to check her. Then I remembered that I had always taught her to respect her father next to God, and that was the greeting she used to him when he was too far away to be seen. I softly withdrew my hand. Then again I was startled by the solemn little voice, whispering, “Please give me a little sister like Susan’s.”
I was too much surprised to speak, and she went on with “Now I lay me” to the end.
As I tucked her into bed I said, “How did you happen to ask God for a little sister, Hanano?”
“That’s how Susan got her sister,” she replied. “She prayed for her a long time, and now she’s here.”
I went away a little awed, for I knew her prayer would be answered.
The March festival was long past, and May almost gone, when one morning Hanano’s father told her that she had a little sister and led her into the room where the baby was. Hanano gazed with wide-open, astonished eyes upon black-haired, pink-faced little Chiyo. She said not a word but walked straight down the stairs to Grandma.
“I didn’t pray for that,” she told Mother, with a troubled look. “I wanted a baby with yellow hair like Susan’s little sister.”
Clara happened to be in the room, and with the freedom of an American servant, said, “Yellow hair on a Japanese baby would be a funny sight!” and burst out laughing.
“It’s not a Japanese baby!" Hanano indignantly cried. “I didn’t ask for a Japanese baby! I don’t want a Japanese baby!”
Mother took the child on her lap and told her how
