Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories by Alice Hegan Rice

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"I am going to have this a real showy wedding," she said from her point
of vantage by the parlour window, where she sat like a field-marshal and
issued her orders. "Those paper fringes want to go clean across every
one of the shelves, and you all must make enough paper roses to pin
'round the edges of all the curtains. Ever'thing's got to look gay and
festive."

"Mittie don't look very gay," ventured one of the assistants. "I seen
her in the kitchen cryin' a minute ago."

"Mittie's a fool!" announced Mrs. Beaver calmly. "She don't know a good
thing when she sees it! Get them draperies up a little higher in the
middle; I'm going to hang a silver horseshoe on to the loop."

The wedding night arrived, and the Beaver cottage was filled to
suffocation with the _elite_ of Rear Ninth Street. The guests found it
difficult to circulate freely in the room on account of the elaborate
and aggressive decorations, so they stood in silent rows awaiting the
approaching ceremony. As the appointed hour drew near, and none of the
groom's family arrived, a few whispered comments were exchanged.

"It's 'most time to begin," whispered the preacher to Mrs. Beaver, whose
keen black eyes had been watching the door with growing impatience.

"Well, we won't wait on nobody," she said positively, as she rose and
left the room to give the signal.

In the kitchen she found great consternation: the bride, pale and
dejected in all her finery, sat on the table, all the chairs being in
the parlour.

"What's the matter?" demanded Mrs. Beaver.

"He ain't come!" announced one of the women in tragic tones.

"Ben Schenk ain't here?" asked Mrs. Beaver in accents so awful that her
listeners quaked. "Well, I'll see the reason why!"

Out into the night she sallied, picking her way around the puddles until
she reached the saloon at the corner.

"Where's Ben Schenk?" she demanded sternly of the men around the bar.

There was an ominous silence, broken only by the embarrassed shuffling
of feet.

Drawing herself up, Mrs. Beaver thumped the counter.

"Where's he at?" she repeated, glaring at the most embarrassed of the
lot.

"He don't know where he's at," said the man. "I rickon he cilebrated a
little too much fer the weddin'."

"Can he stand up?" demanded Mrs. Beaver.

"Not without starchin'," said the man, and amid the titter that
followed, Mrs. Beaver made her exit.

On the corner she paused to reconnoitre. Across the street was her gaily
lighted cottage, where all the guests were waiting. She thought of the
ignominy that would follow their abrupt dismissal, she thought of the
refreshments that must be used to-night or never, she thought of the
little bride sitting disconsolate on the kitchen table.

With a sudden determination she decided to lead a forlorn hope. Facing
about, she marched weightily around to the rear of the saloon and began
laboriously to climb the steps that lead to the hall. At the door she
paused and made a rapid survey of the room until she found what she was
looking for.

"Joe Ridder!" she called peremptorily.

Joe, haggard and listless, put down his billiard-cue and came to the
door.

Five minutes later a breathless figure presented himself at the Beaver
kitchen. He had on a clean shirt and his Sunday clothes, and while he
wore no collar, a clean handkerchief was neatly pinned about his neck.

"Everybody but the bride and groom come into the parlour," commanded
Mrs. Beaver. "I'm a-going to make a speech, and tell 'em that the bride
has done changed her mind."

Joe and Mittie, left alone, looked at each other in dazed rapture. She
was the first to recover.

"Joe!" she cried, moving timidly towards him, "ain't you mad? Do you
still want me?"

Joe, with both hands entangled in her veil and his feet lost in her
train, looked down at her through swimming eyes.

"Want yer?" he repeated, and his lips trembled, "gee whiz! I feel like I
done ribbeted a hoop round the hull world!"

The signal was given for them to enter the parlour, and without further
interruption the ceremony proceeded, if not in exact accordance with the
plans of Mrs. Beaver, at least in obedience to the mandate of a certain
little autocrat who sometimes takes a hand in the affairs of man even in
Rear Ninth Street.

THE SOUL OF O SANA SAN

O Sana San stood in the heart of a joyous world, as much a part of the
radiant, throbbing, irresponsible spring as the golden butterfly which
fluttered in her hand. Through the close-stemmed bamboos she could see
the sparkling river racing away to the Inland Sea, while slow-moving
junks, with their sixfold sails, glided with almost imperceptible motion
toward a far-distant port. From below, across the rice-fields, came the
shouts and laughter of naked bronze babies who played at the water's
edge, and from above, high up on the ferny cliff, a mellow-throated
temple bell answered the call of each vagrant breeze. Far away, shutting
out the strange, big world, the luminous mountains hung in the purple
mists of May.

And every note of color in the varied landscape, from the purple irises
whose royal reflection stained the water below, to the rosy-tipped
clover at the foot of the hill, was repeated in the kimono and _obi_ of
the child who flitted about in the grasses, catching butterflies in her
long-handled net.

It was in the days of the Japanese-Russian War, but the constant echo of
the great conflict that sounded around her disturbed her no more than it
did the birds overhead. All day long the bugles sounded from the
parade-grounds, and always and always the soldiers went marching away to
the front. Around the bend in the river were miniature fortifications
where recruits learned to make forts and trenches, and to shoot through
tiny holes in a wall at imaginary Russian troopers. Down in the town
below were long white hospitals where twenty thousand sick and wounded
soldiers lay. No thought of the horror of it came to trouble O Sana San.
The cherry-trees gladly and freely gave up their blossoms to the wind,
and so much the country give up its men for the Emperor. Her father had
marched away, then one brother, then another, and she had held up her
hands and shouted, "Banzai!" and smiled because her mother smiled.
Everything was vague and uncertain, and no imagined catastrophe troubled
her serenity. It was all the will of the Emperor, and it was well.

Life was a very simple matter to O Sana San. She rose when the sun
climbed over the mountain, bathed her face and hands in the shallow
copper basin in the garden, ate her breakfast of bean-curd and pickled
fish and warm yellow tea. Then she hung the quilts over poles to sun,
dusted the screens, and placed an offering of rice on the steps of the
tiny shrine to Inari, where the little foxes kept guard. These simple
duties being accomplished, she tied a bit of bean-cake in her gaily
colored handkerchief, and stepping into her _geta_, went pattering off
to school.

It was an English school, where she sat with hands folded through the
long mornings, passively permitting the lessons to filter through her
brain, and listening in smiling patience while the kind foreign ladies
spoke incomprehensible things. Sometimes she helped pass the hours by
watching the shadows of the dancing leaves outside; sometimes she told
herself stories about "The Old Man Who Made Withered Trees to Blossom,"
or about "Momotaro, the Little Peach Boy." Again she would repeat the
strange English words and phrases that she heard, and would puzzle out
their meaning.

But the sum of her lore consisted in being happy; and when the shadow of
the mountains began to slip across the valley, she would dance back
along the homeward way, singing with the birds, laughing with the
rippling water, and adding her share of brightness to the sunshine of
the world.

As she stood on this particular morning with her net poised over a
butterfly, she heard the tramping of many feet. A slow cavalcade was
coming around the road,--a long line of coolies bearing bamboo
stretchers,--and in the rear, in a jinrikisha, was a foreign man with a
red cross on his sleeve.

O Sana San scrambled up the bank and watched with smiling curiosity as
the men halted to rest. On the stretcher nearest her lay a young
Russian prisoner with the fair skin and blond hair that are so
unfamiliar to Japanese eyes. His blanket was drawn tight around his
shoulders, and he lay very still, with lips set, gazing straight up
through the bamboo leaves to the blue beyond.

Then it was that O Sana San, gazing in frank inquisitiveness at the
soldier, saw a strange thing happen. A tear formed on his lashes and
trickled slowly across his temple; then another and another, until they
formed a tiny rivulet. More and more curious, she drew yet nearer, and
watched the tears creep unheeded down the man's face. She was sure he
was not crying, because soldiers never cry; it could not be the pain,
because his face was very smooth and calm. What made the tears drop,
drop on the hard pillow, and why did he not brush them away?

A vague trouble dawned in the breast of O Sana San. Running back to the
field, she gathered a handful of wild flowers and returned to the
soldier. The tears no longer fell, but his lips quivered and his face
was distorted with pain. She looked about her in dismay. The coolies
were down by the river, drinking from their hands and calling to one
another; the only person to whom she could appeal was the foreigner with
the red cross on his arm who was adjusting a bandage for a patient at
the end of the line.

With halting steps and many misgivings, she timidly made her way to his
side; then placing her hands on her knees, she bowed low before him. The
embarrassment of speaking to a stranger and a foreigner almost
overwhelmed her, but she mustered her bravest array of English, and
pointing to the stretcher, faltered out her message:

"Soldier not happy very much is. I sink soldier heart sorry."

The Red Cross orderly looked up from his work, and his eyes followed her
gesture.

"He is hurt bad," he said shortly; "no legs, no arms."

"_So--deska_?" she said politely, then repeated his words in puzzled
incomprehension: "Nowarms? Nowarms?"

When she returned to the soldier she gathered up the flowers which she
had dropped by the wayside, and timidly offered them to him. For a long
moment she waited, then her smile faded mid her hand dropped. With a
child's quick sensitiveness to rebuff, she was turning away when an
exclamation recalled her.

The prisoner was looking at her in a strange, distressed way; his
deep-set gray eyes glanced down first at one bandaged shoulder, then at
the other, then he shook his head.

As O Sana San followed his glance, a startled look of comprehension
sprang into her face. "Nowarms!" she repeated softly as the meaning
dawned upon her, then with a little cry of sympathy she ran forward and
gently laid her flowers on his breast.

The cavalcade moved on, under the warm spring sun, over the smooth white
road, under the arching cryptomerias; but little O Sana Sun stood with
her butterfly net over her shoulder and watched it with troubled eyes.
A dreadful something was stirring in her breast, something clutched at
her throat, and she no longer saw the sunshine and the flowers. Kneeling
by the roadside, she loosened the little basket which was tied to her
_obi_ and gently lifted the lid. Slowly at first, and then with eager
wings, a dozen captive butterflies fluttered back to freedom.

* * * * *

Along the banks of the Upper Flowing River, in a rudely improvised
hospital, lay the wounded Russian prisoners. To one of the small rooms
at the end of the ward reserved for fatally wounded patients a
self-appointed nurse came daily, and rendered her tiny service in the
only way she knew.

O Sana San's heart had been so wrought upon by the sad plight of her
soldier friend that she had begged to be taken to see him and to be
allowed to carry him flowers with her own hand. Her mother, in whom
smoldered the fires of dead samurai, was quick to be gracious to a
fallen foe, and it was with her consent that O Sana San went day after
day to the hospital.

The nurses humored her childish whim, thinking each day would be the
last; but as the days grew into weeks and the weeks into months, her
visits became a matter of course.

And the young Russian, lying on his rack of pain, learned to watch for
her coming as the one hour of brightness in an interminable night of
gloom. He made a sort of sun-dial of the cracks in the floor, and when
the shadows reached a certain spot his tired eyes grew eager, and he
turned his head to listen for the patter of the little _tabi_ that was
sure to sound along the hall.

Sometimes she would bring her picture-books and read him wonderful
stories in words he did not understand, and show him the pictures of
Momotaro, who was born out of a peach and who grew up to be so strong
and brave that he went to the Ogres' Island and carried off all their
treasures,--caps and coats that made their wearers invisible, jewels
which made the tide come or go, coral and amber and tortoise-shell,--and
all these things the little Peach Boy took back to his kind old foster
mother and father, and they all lived happily forever after. And in the
telling O Sana Man's voice would thrill, and her almond eyes grow
bright, while her slender brown finger pointed out the figures on the
gaily colored pages.

Sometimes she would sing to him, in soft minor strains, of the beauty of
the snow on the pine-trees, or the wonders of Fuji-San.

And he would pucker his white lips and try to whistle the accompaniment,
to her great amusement and delight.

Many were the treasures she brought forth from the depths of her long
sleeves, and many were the devices she contrived to amuse him. The most
ambitious achievement was a miniature garden in a wooden box--a
wonderful garden where grasses stood for tall bamboo, and a saucer of
water, surrounded by moss and pebbles, made a shining lake across which
a bridge led through a _torii_ to a diminutive shrine above.

He would watch her deft fingers fashioning the minute objects, and
listen to her endless prattle in her soft, unknown tongue, and for a
little space the pain-racked body would relax and the cruel furrows
vanish from between his brows.

But there were days in which the story and the song and the play had no
part. At such times O Sana San slipped in on tiptoe and took her place
at the head of the cot where he could not see her. Sitting on her heels,
with hand folded in hand, she watched patiently for hours, alert to
adjust the covers or smooth the pillow, but turning her eyes away when
the spasms of pain contorted his face. All the latent maternity in the
child rose to succor his helplessness. The same instinct that had
prompted her to strap her doll upon her back when yet a mere baby
herself, made her accept the burden of his suffering, and mother him
with a very passion of tenderness.

Longer and sultrier grew the days; the wistaria, hanging in feathery
festoons from many a trellis, gave way to the flaming azalea, and the
azalea in turn vanished with the coming of the lotus that floated
sleepily in the old castle moat.

Still the soul of the young Russian was held a prisoner in his shattered
body, and the spirit in him grew restive at the delay. Months passed
before the doctor told him his release was at hand. It was early in the
morning, and the sun fell in long, level rays across his cot. He turned
his head and looked wistfully at the distance it would have to travel
before it would be afternoon.

The nurse brought the screen and placed it about the bed--the last
service she could render. For hours the end was expected, but moment by
moment he held death at bay, refusing to accept the freedom that he so
earnestly longed for. At noon the sky became overcast and the slow
falling of rain was heard on the low wooden roof. But still his fervent
eyes watched the sun-dial.

At last the sound of _geta_ was heard without, and in a moment O Sana
San slipped past the screen and dropped on her knees beside him. Under
one arm was tightly held a small white kitten, her final offering at the
shrine of love.

When he saw her quaint little figure, a look of peace came over his face
and he closed his eyes. An interpreter, knowing that a prisoner was
about to die, came to the bedside and asked if he wanted to leave any
message. He stirred slightly then, in a scarcely audible voice, asked in
Russian what the Japanese word was for "good-by." A long pause followed,
during which the spirit seemed to hover irresolute upon the brink of
eternity.

O Sana San sat motionless, her lips parted, her face full of the awe and
mystery of death. Presently he stirred and turned his head slowly until
his eyes were on a level with her own.

"_Sayonara_," he whispered faintly, and tried to smile; and O Sana San,
summoning all her courage to restrain the tears, smiled bravely back and
whispered, "Sayonara."

It was scarcely said before the spirit of the prisoner started forth
upon his final journey, but he went not alone. The soul of a child went
with him, leaving in its place the tender, newborn soul of a woman.

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