and then, politely bowing good-night, had softly pushed the doors together and retired as gently as if she feared to awake a sleeping child.
“Taki is just like she used to be,” I thought as I lay down on my own bed with a laugh. “People who think Japanese women are always gentle ought to widen their acquaintance.”
But one thing about which I have never laughed was a peep I had into a hidden part of my children’s lives. Hanano always had been brave about bearing silently little troubles that could not be helped, and she seemed so busy and interested in her new life that I did not realize that deep in her heart was a longing for the old home. Our garden had two entrances, one through the house and one through a little brushwood wicket on the path that led from a wooden gate to the kitchen door. One day, just as I reached home, a sudden shower threatened to drench me. So, instead of going around to the big gateway, I slipped through the wooden gate, and ran across the stones of the garden to the porch. Leaving my shoes on the step I was hurrying to my room when I heard the voices of the children.
“This shady place,” said Hanano, “is where Grandma’s chair always was, on the porch. And under this tree is where the hammock was where you took your nap and where Papa almost sat down on you that time. And this is the big stone steps where we always had firecrackers on Fourth of July. And this is the well. And this is the drawbridge. And this is the place where Clara went to feed the chickens. It’s all exactly right, Chiyo, for I drew it myself, and you must not forget again. Don’t tell Mamma, for she would be sorry, and she is our only treasure that we have left. All the rest are gone, Chiyo, and we can never have them again. So it can’t be helped, and we just have to stand it. But you mustn’t forget that
