CHAPTER XIII
CRICKETS AND FIREFLIES
"To-night we must see the Bon-ichi," said Mr. Harding, "for to-morrow will begin the Feast of the Lanterns." The young man had arrived on the scene the day before, surprising every one except, perhaps, his sister.
"Oh, I have read of the Bon-ichi," said Mary Lee. "I think the Feast of Lanterns must be the most wonderful of all. I wish we could see some of the customs in the native houses."
"No doubt that could be managed," returned Mr. Harding. "The Feast of Lanterns, or Bormatsuri, as it is called here, is truly a most beautiful festival. It begins on the thirteenth of July and continues to the fifteenth. It answers somewhat to the All Soul's Day which you know they celebrate in special ways in Europe. I think, however, that you will find the ceremonies here even more interesting."
"Tell us something about them," said Eleanor.
"New mats are woven for this feast to be placed upon all the Buddhist altars. Shrines and altars are decorated with lotus flowers, the natural flowers when possible, when not, paper ones are used. Fresh boughs of anise and other plants are used as well. The little lacquered tables from which the Japanese take their meals, and which you have so often seen, are placed on the altar to hold the food served to the spirits of the departed. In the very poor houses, these offerings of food are sometimes merely wrapped in a leaf and laid on the fresh mats. Wine is not given, neither do they give fish nor meat to the departed friends, but they offer fresh, pure water and give them tea every hour. They serve the meals exactly as they would to living guests, even supplying chop-sticks."
"It is something like the Indian custom, this giving of food to the dead," remarked Mary Lee. "Why is it called the Feast of the Lanterns?"
"Because the prettiest sorts of lanterns are hung each night before the houses. These are in special shapes and have a peculiar kind of paper fringe. At the going down of the sun, torches are placed in the ground before the earthly homes of the ghosts so that they may find their way. Welcome fires, too, are seen all along the shores of the streams, the lakes and the sea where there are villages."
"How perfectly lovely," exclaimed Nan.
"To my mind," Mr. Harding went on, "the last evening, the fifteenth of July, is decidedly the most interesting of all. It is then that the priests offer food to those poor ghosts who have no friends to give them anything, and it is the night when the dance of Bon-odori is given."
"Oh, I should like to see that," said Eleanor.
"But the most beautiful of all the customs," Mr. Harding continued, "is that of sending out the little boats of farewell, with a lantern at each prow and a freightage of dainty food. In these tiny crafts the souls of the ancestors are supposed to return to their ghostly homes by way of the sea, bearing with them written words of loving cheer."
"It must be wonderful to see all the little boats afloat."
"It is a thing not to be forgotten. At the present time it is forbidden to launch them on the sea at the open ports, but in isolated regions they are still sent forth."
"It is all the most fascinating and charming feast that we have heard anything about," declared Mary Lee. "We must go over and tell mother and the rest about it. They will want to go to the Bon-ichi, of course."
"I will go with you," said Eleanor jumping up.
They had been sitting in the pretty garden near where a little fountain splashed softly over rocks and pebbles, washing the feet of slender aquatic plants and then trickling on to form a small pool in which a tiny island was visible. Nan would have followed the two girls, but as Mr. Harding said, "Please don't go," she sank back again into her seat. She would yield to the temptation this once. Jack would be in evidence that evening and she must then efface herself, so she would take these few golden moments for her very own.
"I want you to go with me to the Bon-ichi this evening," said Mr. Harding. "Will you?"
"Why, yes," replied Nan. "We are all going, aren't we?"
"But you will go with me, won't you?"
Nan laughed. "As if it were an opera or the theatre you were inviting me to, I suppose."
"Exactly." He spoke quite seriously and Nan, stealing a glance at him, saw that he looked very grave and earnest.
"Oh, very well, I will consider myself specially invited," she replied lightly, "though I don't see what special difference it will make."
"We were lost in the crowd that night at the temple festival in Tokyo, you remember."
Nan fidgeted with the leaf of a small plant near her. It made her very happy to have him talk this way, yet she wished he would not. No, she did not wish he would not. She would like to be lost in any crowd so long as he was by her side. She wondered if Jack really did like him so very much, and wasn't it disloyal to Carter to encourage Jack to smile on any one else?
Mr. Harding interrupted these conjectures by repeating, "You do remember, don't you?"
For answer Nan said, "I have the wee rabbit to remind me."
"And Kamakura?"
"I have this." She took the little jade figure from the small bag she carried and held it out.
Mr. Harding took it in his hand, looked at it with a smile and handed it back saying, "Will you mind very much being lost again?"
Nan shot him a swift look. She felt the color rising to her cheeks as she answered, "I will not mind." Then fearful of further temptation she arose and fled, not even turning her head as Mr. Harding called after her, "Please, Miss Nan, don't go. Please come back."
Back she would not come, but she was happy, happy. She would let herself go for this one time. Surely so much was her due. In a little while these happy days would be over. Mr. Harding would be returning to his work. In the meantime let him choose between her and the younger girl. She would let fate decide.
Why Mr. Harding had gone so far as to venture on such an invitation, Eleanor might have explained. She adored Nan and had charged her brother with fickleness. Had asked why he treated Nan with such coldness when at first the two had seemed to be the best of friends. He had replied that it was all Nan's own doings, that she had turned the cold shoulder, and that he could but accept his position. "I think she wishes me to understand that some one else has a prior claim," he said at last.
Eleanor considered this before she replied. "I don't believe a word of it. I am quite sure she is not engaged to any one, but I shall make it my business to find out from Mary Lee. If she isn't and even though she may be interested in some other man, I don't see why you haven't as good a chance as he has. There isn't a girl in the world I would rather have for my sister, Neal, old boy."
"You are a trump, Nell," returned her brother, but he did not say that there was no girl he would rather she should have for a sister, an omission which Eleanor thought of in the light of after events.
By some hokus-pokus, Jack found herself in the society of Mr. Montell when they all started off for the Bon-ichi. This young man had come up with Neal Harding, and it is to Eleanor's credit that she managed to hand him over to Jack rather than to accept his escort for herself. Jack did not mind the experience in the least, although if it had been given her to choose, she would have selected Mr. Harding.
Between the flickering light of lanterns and torches all the way down the street moved a crowd of people and soon the party of Americans became a part of the throng, themselves, though soberly clad, conspicuous above the little women in bright garments and the small men in blue or black or gray. In spite of this, Nan and her companion were soon separated from the rest. They had stopped long before a booth where were sold lotus flowers and leaves for the ceremony of the morrow.
They lingered, too, to look at the bundles of hemp sticks, the crude dishes of earthenware, made especially for the ghostly visitors. As they turned away from these last, Mr. Harding looked down with a smile. "Now we are alone," he said with a smile.
Nan understood. Who is so alone as in a crowd? Some distance ahead she caught sight, once in a while, of the colonel's soldierly figure towering up above his companions, and once or twice she could see Jack's hat, and her sparkling face turned gaily toward her escort.
"We have gone back to the temple fair at Tokyo, I hope," said Mr. Harding as Nan grew more and more expansive and chatty.
"We won't talk about goings back," returned she lightly. "It is always better to go ahead. What is done is done. We can control the future somewhat, but we cannot help the past."
"That sounds like one of Confucius' philosophies. I accept the lesson it holds."
Just what did he mean by that? Nan felt that she had been more didactic than wise and wished she had said something else. She must be more guarded. She forgot her introspections in the beauty of the things to be seen at the next stall: wonderful lanterns of most beautiful shapes and colors, although there were some that were a pure luminous white and these were intended for the cemeteries. They stood long looking at them but in time moved on to where queer little figures made of straw were offered for sale. "What in the world are these?" inquired Nan.
"These are horses for the ghosts to ride and oxen to work for them," her companion told her.
"How queer, how very queer, and what is that on the next stall?"
"That is incense."
A little further along they came upon Jean and Mary Lee all absorbed in a display of tiny horsehair cages, from which twinkled and sparkled myriads of lights. Alongside of these were larger cages, though small enough, of bamboo from whose interiors the strident notes of great green crickets came incessantly.
"Aren't they darling?" cried Jean enthusiastically as Nan came up. "You can get a cricket and a cage for two cents, and for one cent you can buy fifteen fireflies in a cage. Mary Lee and I are getting ever so many."
"What for?" inquired Nan.
"Oh, just to give them their freedom. We hate to see the poor little creatures caged. The cages are so curious that we want those anyhow."
"Have they any religious fitness?" Nan asked Mr. Harding.
"Oh, no, they are only for the children."
Nan concluded that she must have a cage, too, and bore away a galaxy of twinkling stars which she declared she would make a ceremony of liberating.
Then while Mr. Harding told her a pretty tale of how the fireflies came to exist at all, and then wandered off into other folk-lore, they moved slowly out of the seething crowd to find their way into shadowy groves and at last to come upon a shrine before which lights were burning but where no one worshiped, for it seemed quite deserted.
"If we could but reach Kwannon-with-the-Horse's-Head," said Mr. Harding, "we could send up a prayer for the animals which have died, and Kwannon might answer."
"And where is Kwannon-with-the-Horse's-Head?"
"Away down near Izumo. I have seen the shrine and it seemed a very pleasant thing to think that these people cared to remember the welfare of their animals, and to want them to enter a better state after the trials of this. Their religion seems very fanciful and, to us, full of all sorts of errors, but one comes across very beautiful customs every now and then."
Nan knelt before the little shrine and opened her cage of fireflies. One after another found its freedom, darting out and floating up into the dimness of further distance. They stood watching them glimmering fitfully under the dark trees. "They seem like departing souls, themselves," said Nan. "They make me think of 'Vital spark of heavenly flame.'"
"Then you have found in them a symbol that the Japanese seem not to have discovered. I knew you would surprise me with something of the kind."
"How did you know?"
"I divined it as one sees with the eyes of his spirit."
"There is one poor little firefly left," said Nan suddenly observing a faint glimmer still coming from the tiny cage. "I am afraid he is hurt. If I knew what to feed him on I would take him home and keep him till he is able to fly."
"They feed the crickets on eggplant and melon rind. We can get some on the way back, or we can find out what to give this little fellow."
"Then that is what we must do, though I wonder if we take him so far away if he can find his way back to his companions. Do you suppose he will want to? Or does it make no difference to a vital spark where it is liberated?"
"I don't imagine it will make any difference. I know my soul could find its way to – " He stopped short fearing he was growing too bold.
"To where?" asked Nan.
"To its kindred soul," was the reply which was not exactly what was first intended.
Nan sighed. It was all so dreamily mysterious out there in the mild warm air under the trees. It was a great temptation to stay and listen to perhaps more daring speeches. They were both silent for a little while, Nan watching the feeble glimmer of the imprisoned insect, and Mr. Harding watching her in the light of the lantern hung before the shrine. "It is very lovely here," said Nan at last, "but I think we should go back."
"Must we? I could stay forever."
"It is very lovely," repeated Nan, but she began to move away from the spot.
They passed a temple where people were coming and going and heard the clanging of its gong, the shuffle of feet upon the stairway leading to it, the murmur of voices. "Shall we go up?" asked Mr. Harding.
Nan shook her head. "No, I don't care to, do you?"
"No, I would rather stay a little longer in the shadow of my dreams." They stood apart for a moment watching the moving throng, and then they turned away, each dwelling in a world far away from that which they saw, the land of Heart's Desire.
For some reason, Nan noticed that whenever Jack started off with Mr. Harding alone, after the night of the Bon-ichi, she was not allowed to go far without being joined by either Mary Lee or Eleanor, but when she, herself, happened to come upon either of these two latter in the young man's company, some mysterious errand would take one or the other to another part of the house or grounds. She was too happy to search very far for the cause of this and accepted what fate brought her in the way of a tête-à-tête. That it was anything more than accident she did not ask, that it was really a conspiracy she did not for a moment imagine. For one short week she would enjoy herself and then let come what must.
The last day of the Feast of Lanterns was the great one. On its morning Mary Lee came to her. "I want you to do something for me, Nan," she said. "I suppose you will think it is foolish, and of course I don't in the least believe in these queer religions, for who could? But I do want to do one thing. It seems as if somehow Phil might know that I am sending him a message and it would comfort me to pretend. I want to launch a little boat on the river this evening. Will you come with me?"
"Of course I will," said Nan heartily. "I don't think it is foolish at all. I should feel exactly the same under the circumstances. Where will you get the boat?"
"Oh, I have it. I managed all that. I shall not do as the Japanese do, of course, and load it with food. I shall only write a little letter and shall send out my boat with the lantern on it. I hope Phil will know," she said wistfully.
Nan's eyes filled with tears. This was the romance of Mary Lee's life she understood. All the poetry and romance of her nature was centred in the memory of the young lover she had lost. "I am sure, if our dear angels know anything of what we do, he will know," she answered her sister gently. "Are we not compassed about by a cloud of witnesses?" she added. "He must know, Mary Lee."
"I am glad you remembered that," returned her sister. "It is comforting. I will come for you, shall I? or will you come for me?"
"Whichever you say."
"Perhaps you'd better come for me, then we can steal away by ourselves more easily. I know just the spot."
The sun had set, but there was still light in the sky, when Mary Lee and Nan set out for a secluded place along the riverside. The little straw boat which Mary Lee carried was carefully screened from view and it was not till they reached the river's brink that she took it from its wrappings to set it afloat with its tiny lantern and the written message of love and longing. Very carefully Mary Lee lighted the small lantern, very cautiously set the tiny craft afloat and watched it drift off adown the current to join the fleet further along. The twinkling lights from many another frail bark showed that a host of phantoms were supposedly moving out upon the current to find the sea at last.
The two girls stood silently watching the boat slowly making its way down-stream. When its tiny spark at last vanished around a bend in the river Mary Lee turned away with a quick sob. "Sometimes I feel as if I could not bear it," she said.
Nan put her arms lovingly around the younger girl and laid her cheek against the fair hair. "I know, I know," she whispered, "but he is always there, dear, and always yours."
"Yes," returned the other, "and that is all that comforts."
"Suppose you had been obliged to give him up to some one else, loving him as you did, wouldn't it have been harder?"
"I don't know. Perhaps. Yes, he is mine, forever mine, and he may not be very far away if I could only have faith to realize it. I shall think he does know and is glad to have me do what I have done to-night."
They returned slowly saying little. As they neared the hotel, they saw Jack and Mr. Harding sauntering through the garden paths. They appeared to be having an animated conversation. "Do you like Mr. Harding as much as you did at first?" inquired Mary Lee.
"Oh, yes," returned Nan in as indifferent a manner as she could assume though she felt the color rush to her face. Mary Lee stole a glance at her, and remembered what Nan had forgotten. It was when she did not talk freely of any special man that she might be counted on as feeling the deeper interest. Nan rarely discussed Neal Harding and Mary Lee drew her own conclusions.
"I wonder what Carter would say if he saw Jack now," she said after a pause.
"He knows what Jack is," replied Nan, "and moreover I don't know that he has any right to criticize her actions. We only assume that he has any claim. Jack has never said so."
"No, she is a perfect sphinx upon the subject. Sometimes I think she doesn't care a rap for him and again I am convinced that she would never consider any one else."
"She is too young to know her own mind."
"I knew my own mind when I was younger than she."
"Well, I think she ought to have her chances."
"And you think Neal Harding is one of them."
"I think it within the bounds of possibility."
"Nonsense!"
"Why nonsense? He attracts her and I think she would attract him if – "
"If what?"
"If propinquity were made a factor."
"Do you think she would be happy married to Neal Harding?"
"Certainly. Why shouldn't she be? He is a fine, honorable gentleman with a good mind and with excellent prospects. I cannot imagine how any one could find fault with him."
Mary Lee smiled wisely. "Oh, I am not picking flaws. I think he is fine but I don't concede that he would suit Jack in the least."
"Oh!" Nan seemed a little bewildered, but Mary Lee, watching the pair wandering around the garden together, made up her mind to several things which she did not reveal to Nan.
Jack espied her sisters as they came forward. She ran to meet them exclaiming: "Why, where have you all been? We have been looking all over for you. Mr. Harding wants us to see the great dance, the dance called Bon-odori. Eleanor and the rest are waiting for us. The others have gone on ahead."
There was nothing to do but follow out the suggestion and in due time the party reached the temple court where the strangely-fascinating, weird dance was going on. It was one of those peculiar religious rites performed in many countries on special feast days, though varying with the time and place, a quaint and rhythmical march, accompanied by the clapping of hands, the beat of a drum. A procession of maidens swaying, turning, stepping lightly, moving gracefully around the temple court; this is what they saw. Presently others joined the procession, men and again other women. Then began the songs, curious antiphonal chants rising with more and more volume as the company of marching figures grew larger.
"It reminds me of some strange old Scriptural rite," said Mrs. Corner to the colonel. "One might imagine the daughters of Israel going out to meet David, or dancing before the golden calf. It is very Oriental, but really very beautiful. The hands are very expressive and the rhythm is perfect."
"I have seen the dance done in different parts of Japan," returned the colonel, "and it is never quite the same, but it is always interesting."
They tarried till a booming bell gave signal that the dance was over and then they joined the throng of toddling women and shuffling men who turned toward their homes.
"To-morrow," said the colonel, "the fishermen can go out again, for those who have parents need not go without meat, although those who have lost a parent must wait a day longer before they can have fish to eat."
"But we shall have fish," said Mrs. Craig with decision. And so ended the great Festival of the Bonku.