then they all make as much fuss and cackle over it as a hen does over an egg. Waste of time, I call it!”
But I liked to waste my time in that way, and while she helped our little maid to make beautiful ‘shirt waists’ for herself on the sewing-machine, I worked among the fragrant twigs of Pine, with Cherry branches, delicate, drooping grasses, and Chrysanthemums. A dear little Japanese lady, a friend of mine, got me the teacher—for they are always to be found. Every well-bred woman has studied this graceful art, without which she is not considered properly educated, in Japan. Such an ugly old woman this teacher was, with a name which meant ‘Wave of the Sea.’ She was an old-timer, with no modern notions, and it was a horror to me to look up from my work to find her grinning at me with glistening blackened teeth. (I like all the old survivals except the blackened teeth and shaven eyebrows of the married women.) She had not one word of English, and I very few of Japanese, and the books my little friend brought me were in characters I could not decipher; but gestures were eloquent, pictures told much, deeds spoke louder than words; there were tongues in the tree branches and intelligence in the Irises, so we progressed. And then some Japanese friends, who had of course studied the art, helped, too, by translating the directions into such dear, quaint
