Читать книгу A Japanese Blossom онлайн

4 страница из 30

Then his grandmother spoke, and her words reached the heart of the boy.

“Be not rash, my Gozo. Our dearest daughter, your mother, would have been the first to urge you to filial thought for your father.”

“Grandmother,” cried the boy, “I can’t bear—” He flung his hand across his eyes as though to hide the tears. Now all the children began to weep in sympathy with their big brother. Miss Summer, the daughter of their father’s friend, set up a great wail, declaring between her sobs that never, never, never could she be induced to wash the feet or be the slave of a barbarian woman. For Summer, though but twelve years old, was some day to marry Gozo—so their fathers had said—and in Japan a daughter-in-law is under the command of the mother-in-law.

By patience and reasoning, the grandparents at last exacted from Gozo a promise that he would not leave home until his step-mother came to Japan. It was possible she might never come. Gozo, the proud and stubborn, sullenly gave the promise. During the months that followed, however, he seemed greatly changed in disposition. He became studious, quiet, given to gloomy moods, when he would lock himself up in his room and brood over what he considered the wrong and insult done to his mother’s memory. He would have found it hard enough to bear if his father had married a Japanese woman, but the thought of an American mother overwhelmed him with dismay. He pictured to his young mind her influence upon his sisters Plum Blossom and Iris, twelve and eight years old respectively; in boyish indignation he saw her punishing his little ten-year-old brother Taro, who could not keep his face and hands clean nor keep his clothes whole. One night Gozo dreamed he saw his step-mother in the guise of a hated fox-woman soundly switching with a bamboo stick his little, fat, baby brother Juji. When he awoke in the middle of the night to find it only a dream, he got up from his couch, and, going to where Juji slept, carried him to his own bed. He held the little, warm body closely in his arms. Juji slept on, and snuggled down comfortably in his brother’s arms for the rest of the night.