tell them why you wouldn’t use the cushion decorated with chrysanthemums at the restaurant the other day.”
“I must seem foolish-minded to you, Etsu-bo, with your progressive ideas,” said Sister, with a half-ashamed smile, “but I have never outgrown the feeling that chrysanthemums are an omen of misfortune to our family.”
“I know,” I said, sympathetically. “I used to feel so, too. I didn’t really get over it until I went to America. The name Mary is as common there as Kiku is here, but I had associated it only with sacredness and dignity; for it is the holiest name for a woman in the world. Some people even pray to it. And when, one time, just after I went to America, I heard a shopwoman call roughly, ‘Mary, come here!’ and out ran a ragged child with a dirty face, I was astounded. And a neighbour of ours had an ignorant servant girl by that name. It was a shock at first; but I finally learned that association is a narrow thing. When we apply it broadly the original feeling does not fit.”
“People learn to forget when they travel,” said Sister quietly; “but as far back as I can remember, no chrysanthemum flower was ever brought into our house, no chrysanthemum decoration was ever used on our screens, our dishes, our dresses, or our fans; and, with all the pretty flower names in our family, that of Kiku—chrysanthemum—has never been borne by an Inagaki. Even a servant with that name was never allowed to work for us unless she was willing to be called something else while she lived in our house.”
“Why? Oh, do tell us about it!” pleaded both children.
So again I heard the story, familiar from childhood, but changing continually in its significance as I grew older, until it became fixed in my mind as the hero tale of a brave old samurai who represented the double virtue of a
