The House of the Misty Star Part 13

Page joined us, inquiring anxiously, "You are not hurt? I call it plucky, but very foolish. Didn't you hear me call to you?"

Zura, looking up from fastening her shoe, replied stiffly, "Mr.

Hanaford, once is quite enough for you to interfere with my affairs."

The boy flushed, then smiled, and dropped to the rear.

As she spoke I could but notice her voice was a little less joyous. It sounded a note of weariness as if her high spirit, though unconquered, was a bit tired of the game.

In depressed silence our party mingled with the throng on its way to the shrine where the last tribute was to be paid. The place of devotion was in a dense grove, isolated and weird. A single upright post held a frail, box-like contrivance. The inner recess of this was supposed to hold a relic of Buddha--some whispered a finger, some a piece of the great teacher's robe; but whatever the holy emblem, both place and shrine were surrounded with a veil of superst.i.tious mystery and held in awe. A lonely taper burned before the shrine, dimly lighting a small opening covered with ground gla.s.s and disclosed above a written warning to all pa.s.sers-by to stop and offer prayer or else be cursed.

The crowd of worshipers paid tribute, but rather than pa.s.s on, lingered in the shadow, their curious eyes fixed upon the half-foreign girl.

It was splendid for her to brave the fire-G.o.d, but no living soul dared face the Holy Shrine with the scorn Zura's face and manner so plainly showed. Admiration melted into distrust. They would wait and see the end.

One by one my host, his mother, wife and daughter pa.s.sed before the relic and reverently bowed. Then they stood aside in a silent group, slightly apart from Page and me. It was Zura's turn. In the face of Kishimoto San, as he looked at his granddaughter, was concentrated the power of his will and all the intolerant pa.s.sion of his religion. He looked and he waited--in vain. The girl did not move.

When he finally spoke, his voice was low, but his words fairly stabbed the air. "Obey me! Approach and bow!"

Zura seemed to be turned to stone. But her words were as clear and as measured as his own. "I will not! Now or ever!"

Past all endurance of the girl's disrespect, the man made one step forward, grasped Zura by the shoulders, and pushed her towards the shrine. The force sent her forward. As she stumbled she seized a bamboo pole. With it she gave one swift blow. At our feet the little shrine lay shattered, and out of its secret recess rolled a pasteboard box, mildewed and empty.

Then, like the hissing wind, rose the quick anger of the people.

At the same instant Page and the crowd rushed toward Zura, who, with bamboo stick in her raised hand, stood white and defiant.

A coolie made a lunge at her. With closed fist Page Hanaford struck him full in the face; the other arm shielded Zura. Another man spat at her, and met the fate of his brother from Page's well-directed blow. There is nothing so savage as a j.a.panese mob when roused to anger. Knowing them to be cruel and revengeful, my heart stood still as I watched the throng close about Page and Zura. I knew the boy single-handed could not hold out long before the outraged worshipers.

Then above the noise and curses and threats Kishimoto San's voice rang out. "Stop! you crawling vipers of the swamp! How dare you brawl before this sacred place? How dare you touch one of my blood! My granddaughter accounts to me, not to the sp.a.w.n of the earth--such as you! Disperse your dishonorable bodies to your dishonored homes! Go!"

Blind to reason, they cowered before a masterful mind. They knew the unbending quality of Kishimoto's will, his power to command, to punish.

The number grew steadily less, leaving Page and Zura and her grandfather alone.

Kishimoto San turned to the girl and with words cold as icicles, cutting as a whiplash, dismissed the child of his only daughter from his house and home. He cared neither where she went, nor what she did. She no longer belonged to him or his kind. He disowned her. Her foreign blood would be curse enough.

Bidding his family follow, he turned and left. As Mrs. Wingate pa.s.sed her disgraced offspring, with troubled voice and bewildered looks she repeated once more her set formula of reproof, "Oh, Zura! I no understand yo' naughty; I no like yo' bad."

The homeless girl, Page, and I were left in the darkness.

"Come with me, Zura," I said, not knowing what else to do; and the three of us made our way toward the high twinkling light that marked the House of the Misty Star.

As the boy walked beside her, hatless, tie and collar disarranged, I could but see what his defense of Zura had cost him in physical strength. His face twitched with the effort to control his shaking limbs; that strange illness had robbed him of so much.

"Please, Mr. Hanaford, do not trouble to climb the steps with us," I urged. "There is no danger. By now the crowd is doubtless laughing over the whole thing."

"No, Miss Jenkins," he said, "I cannot leave you till you are safely shut in the house. Rather interesting, wasn't it?"

"Interesting! Well, I guess I know now what making a night of it means."

It was my one attempt to lighten conversation. We went on in silence.

Wordless my other companion walked beside me. She gave no sign. Only once, when I stumbled, the hand she outstretched in quick support was shaking and cold.

On reaching the house Page declined to come in; but, seeing the knuckles of his right hand torn and bleeding, I would take no refusal. "Boy, your hand is bleeding. Come right in and let me dress it," said I.

"Don't trouble. It's nothing; only a bit of knocked-up skin. That coolie must have sharpened his teeth for the occasion."

Zura spoke for the first time as I made the room light. "Oh! I didn't know you were hurt, Mr. Hanaford. I am sorry. Let me see." She took his hand in both of hers and held it closer under the lamp. Still holding it, she lifted her eyes with sympathy to his. "I'm not worth it," she said softly.

I did not hear Page's answer; but I thought he was almost gruff when he quickly drew away and walked to the window. He had nothing to say when I bandaged his hand, and he soon left.

It was only a matter of a few minutes to light the lamp and arrange the bed in the guest-room I had taken such pleasure in preparing before for Zura's visit. I went through these small duties without speaking. I bore no ill will to the girl who had been thrust upon me. My thoughts were too deep for anger against the wayward child whose start in life had been neither fair nor just. But in separating herself from her family she had done the most serious thing a girl can do in whose veins runs the blood of a j.a.panese. Everything ready, I said good-night as kindly as circ.u.mstances would permit.

Zura put out her hand and thanked me. A smile twitched her lips as she said, "Never mind, Miss Jenkins. Don't be troubled. No use fighting against fate and freckles." The tears in her voice belied her frivolous words.

Anxious for what might happen, I sat for the rest of the night in the room adjoining the one occupied by my unexpected guest. Twice before the coming of the dawn there reached me from the farther chamber sounds of a soul in conflict--the first battle of a young girl in a strange land, facing the future penniless and heavily handicapped.

It was a lonely vigil and a weary one.

XII

A DREAM COMES TRUE

If becoming a member of my household was a turning-point in Zura's life, in mine it was nothing less than a small-sized revolution, moving with the speed of a typhoon.

The days piled into weeks; the weeks plunged head-foremost into eternity, and before we could say "how d'y' do" to lovely summer, autumn had put on her splendid robes of red and yellow and soft, dull brown.

If once I yearned for things to happen, I now sometimes pined for a chance, as one of my students put it, "to shut the door of think and rest my tired by suspended animation." For I had as much idea about rearing girls as I had on the subject of training young kangaroos. But it grew plainer to me every day my nearly ossified habits would have to disintegrate. Also I must learn to manipulate the role of mother without being one.

Soon after the girl's break with her family the ineffective child-woman who had given Zura life pa.s.sed quietly into the great Silence before the daughter could be summoned. Though Zura was included among the mourners at the stately funeral, she had no communication with her grandfather.

Afterwards the separation was final.

Once only I visited Kishimoto San's house and had an interview with him.

He was courteous, and his formality more sad than cold. He would never again take Zura into his house; neither would he interfere with her. Her name had been stricken from his family register. As long as I was kind enough to give her shelter, he would provide for her. Further than that he would not go, "for his memory had long ears and he could never forget."

It was a painful hour which I did not care to repeat.

I acquainted Zura with her grandfather's decision.

Her only comment was, "His memory has long ears, has it? So has mine, and they'll grow longer, for I have longer to live."

In the first intimate talk I had with my protegee, her one idea was to earn the money to return to America, where there was "more chance to make a living." So far as she knew her father was without relatives.

There was no one to look to for help. But she could work; she knew many girls who worked; and there was always "something to do" in Seattle.