One autumn day, Father's physician, who was a very progressive man and as much friend as physician, suggested that Father should go to Tokyo and consult some doctors of a new hospital renowned for its successful use of Western methods. Father decided to go, and of course he took Jiya with him.
With Father and Jiya both gone, I was desolate. I still feel the heart-pull of those lonely days. Sister was preparing for her marriage, which was to take place in the fall, and her time was taken up with many things. I don't know what I should have done but for my good Shiro, who was equally lonely with me. Shiro really belonged to me, but of course I never called him mine, for it was considered rough and unladylike for a girl to own a dog. But I was allowed to play with him, and every day, as soon as my lessons were over, we would wander around together. One day we had visited the archery ground and were on the long walk where Father liked to trudge up and down for exercise, when suddenly Shiro galloped away from me toward a little house just within the gateway, where Jiya lived alone. Jiya's wife had died before I could remember, but he was a capable housekeeper, and any afternoon during the summer that I might go to his neat porch I would find a square lacquer box holding the most delicious things that a little girl could possibly want to eat between meals—a sweet potato baked in ashes and sprinkled with salt; or some big, brown chestnuts baked until their jackets had burst, disclosing the creamy richness of the dainty that was waiting for my fingers.
I hurried after Shiro and found him pushed close against the porch, his tail wagging and his nose eagerly sniffing in the corner where the lacquer box used to stand.
"Oh, no, no, Shiro!" I mournfully said. "The lacquer box is gone. Jiya is gone. Everybody is gone."
I sat down on the edge of the porch and Shiro snuggled his cold nose into my long sleeve. We were two as disconsolate creatures as could be found, and as I buried my hand in his rough white fur, I had to struggle hard to remember that a samurai's daughter does not cry.
Suddenly I recalled the saying, "To unreasonably relax is cowardice." I bounded up. I talked to Shiro. I played with him. I even ran races with him in the garden. When at last I returned to the house I had reason to suspect that the family felt disapproval of my wild conduct, but because I was all dearness to my father I escaped reproof for his sake. Everyone had a tender heart in those days; for the heaviness of dread was upon us all.
One day Shiro fell sick, and would eat nothing I put into his bowl. I had a childish feeling that if he would eat he would get well, but that day happened to be the death anniversary of an ancestor, and was therefore a day of fasting. We had only vegetables for dinner, and so there were no good scraps for Shiro. As always when in trouble, I went to Ishi. She knew we ought not to handle fish on a fast day, but she pitied my anxiety and smuggled me some fish bones from somewhere. I took them to a distant part of the garden and crushed them between two flat stones. Then I mixed them with bean soup from the kitchen and took them to the kindling shed where Shiro was lying on his straw mat. Poor Shiro looked grateful, but he would not get up; and thinking that perhaps he was cold, I ran to my room and brought my crepe cushion to cover him.
When this became known to my grandmother, she sent for me to come to her room. The moment I lifted my face after bowing I knew this was not one of the times when I was to be entertained with sweet bean-cake.
"Little Etsu-ko," she said (she always called me "Etsu-ko" when she spoke sternly), "I must speak to you of something very important. I am told that you wrapped Shiro with your silk cushion."
Startled at her tone, I meekly bowed.
"Do you not know," she went on, "that you are guilty of the utmost unkindness to Shiro when you do inappropriate things for him?"
I must have looked shocked and puzzled, for she spoke very gently after that, explaining that since white dogs belong to the order next lower than that of human beings, my kindness might postpone for another lifetime Shiro's being born in human shape.
According to transmigration belief, the boundary line between the orders of creation must be strictly maintained. If we place an animal above its proper position we may prevent its advance in the next incarnation. Every devout Buddhist is absolutely submissive to Fate, for he is taught that hardship in his present life is either the atonement for sins committed in the last existence, or the education necessary to prepare him for a higher place in the life to come. This belief has held Japan's labouring class in cheerful resignation through ages of hardship, but also it has taught us to look with such indifference upon the sufferings of creatures below us in the order of creation that we have become, as a nation, almost sympathy-blind.
As quickly as possible to be polite, I thanked my grandmother and hurried to beg Shiro's pardon. I found him covered very comfortably with a matting of soft rice-straw suitable to his station. Out in the garden two coolies were engaged in burning the crepe cushion. Their faces were very grave.
Poor Shiro! He had the best care we could give him, but the next morning his body was asleep under the straw matting and his spirit had passed on to the next state, which I pray was not lower because of my kindly meant mistake. He was buried in the sunniest corner of the garden beneath a big chestnut tree where many an autumn morning he and I had happily tossed and caught the fallen brown nuts. It would never have done for Shiro's grave to be publicly marked, but over it my father quietly placed, on his return, a small gray stone, in memory of his little girl's most faithful vassal.
Alas! Before the chestnut burrs were spilling their brown nuts over Shiro's grave, my dear father had been laid to rest in the family burial ground at Chokoji, and one more tablet had been placed in the gilded shrine before which every morning and evening we bowed in love and reverence.
CHAPTER VI
A SUNNY NEW YEAR
OURS was a lonely house the winter after Father's death. The first forty-nine days when "the soul hovers near the eaves" was not sad to me, for the constantly burning candles and curling incense of the shrine made me feel that Father was near. And, too, everyone was lovingly busy doing things in the name of the dear one; for to Buddhists, death is a journey, and during these seven weeks, Mother and Jiya hastened to fulfil neglected duties, to repay obligations of all kinds and to arrange family affairs so that, on the forty-ninth day, the soul, freed from world shackles, could go happily on its way to the Land of Rest.
But when the excitement of the busy days was over and, excepting at the time of daily service, the shrine was dark, then came loneliness. In a childish, literal way, I thought of Father as trudging along a pleasant road with many other pilgrims, all wearing the white robes covered with priestly writings, the pilgrim hats and straw sandals in which they were buried—and he was getting farther and farther from me every day.
As time passed on we settled back into the old ways, but it seemed that everybody and everything had changed. Jiya no longer hummed old folk-songs as he worked and Ishi's cheerful voice had grown so lifeless that I did not care for fairy tales any more. Grandmother spent more time than ever polishing the brass furnishings of the shrine. Mother went about her various duties, calm and quiet as usual, but her smile was sad. Sister and I sewed and read together, but we no longer wasted time in giggling and eating sweets. And when in the evening we all gathered around the fire-box in Grandmother's room, our conversation was sure to drift to mournful topics. Even in the servants' hall, though talking and laughter still mingled with the sounds of spinning and grinding of rice, the spirit of merriment was gone.
During these months, my greatest pleasure was going to the temple with Mother. Toshi, the maid, always walked behind, carrying flowers for the grave.
During these months my greatest pleasure was going to the temple with Mother or Ishi. Mother's special maid, Toshi, always walked behind, carrying flowers for the graves. We went first to the temple to bow our respects to the priest, my much-honoured teacher. He served us tea and cakes and then went with us to the graves, a boy priest going along to carry a whitewood bucket of water with a slender bamboo