The Four Corners in Japan

"Did you ever know such luck?" whispered Nan as they were going to their rooms. "Aunt Helen, we certainly started out under a lucky star. What would Honolulu have been without Mrs. Beaumont? And here come Mrs. Craig and Mr. Harding to act as cicerone for us here. Nell Harding of all people! I can't get over my surprise yet."

"Were you very intimate with her at college?" asked Miss Helen.

"Not quite as much so as with Rita Converse and one or two others. Still we were very good friends, especially during our senior year. Do you remember, Mary Lee, that she was the one who wrote to her brother about that horrid Oliver Adams, when you were taking up the cudgels for Natty Gray?"

"Indeed I do remember," returned Mary Lee. "She was so nice about it; I have always liked her better ever since that time. What do you think of this brother, Nan?"

"Pleasant sort of somebody. Looks as if there might be a good deal in him. Not specially good-looking, but he has nice eyes and a well-shaped head that looks as if he had more than ordinary intellect. I think we shall all become very good friends. Don't you like Mrs. Craig, Aunt Helen? I am sure she is great, and is going to be no end of help to us."

So the talk went on while the night opened up new stars to their vision, and the coming day promised new friends, new scenes and new experiences.

CHAPTER IV

TEMPLES AND TEA

"And aren't we to go to Tokyo to-day?" asked Mary Lee as she sat up in bed the next morning.

"Don't ask me," replied Nan. "We supposed we were, and as it is only twenty miles away we may be going yet though Aunt Helen did not say anything about it last night. She and Mrs. Craig were plotting all sorts of things for to-day while we were talking to Nell and her brother. I caught a word here and there about temples and tori-i and things."

"And we, too, were making plans meanwhile, so it looks as if we might have a busy day, Nan."

"Yokohama and Tokyo are practically the same city," Nan gave the information, "for they are so near one another. Because of that we may be going to carry out the original plan. I'll go ask Aunt Helen." She pattered into the next room to find Miss Helen already up. "What's the first thing on the carpet to-day, Aunt Helen?" she asked.

"Why, let me see; breakfast, of course."

"Decidedly of course, but I didn't mean anything quite so obvious."

"Then Mrs. Craig is coming for us and we are to take a drive to see some temples, and this afternoon we are to call on a Japanese friend of Mrs. Craig's."

"A real Japanese?"

"A really, truly one whom Mrs. Craig knows quite well."

"And we shall have the chance of seeing a veritable Japanese house? Good! I've been hoping we might have such a chance. Where is the house?"

"In Tokyo."

"Then we are to go there as was first planned."

"I think so; it is more attractive than in Yokohama, and you know Mrs. Craig is stopping there. She and her nephew came to Yokohama simply to meet Miss Harding whom they will take back with them to Tokyo, so it seems to me we would be better off there ourselves."

Nan uncurled herself from the foot of the bed where she was sitting and went back to her sister. "Tokyo it is to be," she announced. "Tokyo and temples and a visit to a Japanese home; that is the day's programme. Isn't it great? You'd better get up, Mary Lee; Aunt Helen is all dressed."

The two girls made haste to join their aunt and before very long were ready for their morning of sightseeing. This time they were to go, not in jinrikishas but behind Mrs. Craig's stout little ponies which carried them along at a good pace to a spot where suddenly arose before them a great stone stairway.

"Oh, where do those steps lead?" asked Nan, all curiosity.

"They are the first intimation we have that we are nearing a tera or temple," Mrs. Craig told her.

"And do we climb that long flight?" asked Mary Lee.

"Assuredly."

They all alighted from the carriage and began the ascent. At the top they confronted a queer gateway.

"Is this what they call a tori-i?" asked Nan.

"No, it is merely a gateway in the ordinary sense," she was told.

"We must stop and look at it," Miss Helen decided, and they all stood looking up at the strange structure.

"What an odd roof," Mary Lee observed, as she regarded the peaked pagoda-like affair.

"And such carving," exclaimed Nan. "Do look at all those queer gargoylish lions' heads, and see the dragons on the panels; snakes, too."

"And there is Fuji." Miss Helen, who was resting after her exhausting climb, and was enjoying the view, directed their attention to the great mountain whose dim peak arose above the town at their feet.

Nan turned from her regard of snakes and dragons that she might look off at the scene. "No wonder one sees Fuji on fans and panels and pretty nearly everything in Japan," said she. "I don't wonder the Japanese honor and adore their wonderful mountain."

After giving further examination to the gateway, they all walked on, presently coming to another one which showed more dragons and gargoyles. Through this they passed to enter a sort of courtyard. The girls looked with curiosity at an array of stone objects which they supposed to be monuments. "What are they?" Mary Lee asked.

"Stone lanterns," Mrs. Craig told her, "and yonder are the Buddha lions." She pointed out two strange, fantastic stone figures in sitting posture each side the way.

"And does Buddha live here?" asked Nan with a smile.

"He lives in many places," Mrs. Craig replied with an answering smile.

Just ahead they perceived three steps leading to a low edifice. Men and women were going and coming from these, stopping to kneel at the entrance of this, the temple which they had come to see. Most of these people tarried only a very short time, bending their heads in silent prayer for a few minutes, while they joined their hands reverently. Some clapped three times quite slowly, though noisily. There were many contributions made, small coins thrown into the big wooden box at the entrance.

The girls stood watching the worshippers curiously. "It would be interesting to know how much their offerings amounted to," said Mary Lee. "I suppose very little in our money."

"Very little indeed," responded their guide. "When you consider a rin is one-tenth of a sen and that a sen is only about equal to one of our cents you can see that a very small contribution suffices."

"What is inside the temple?" asked Nan.

"The shrine of Buddha, but he is not on exhibition except on feast days. If you go in you will have to take off your shoes, so perhaps we would better wait till some other time."

They decided that they would not attempt an entrance at this time, but they peeped through the paper-screened sides of the building to see a dim interior whose contents were in such obscurity that they could not make them out.

"Do you always have to take off your shoes before entering a temple?" asked Mary Lee.

"Oh, dear, yes, and not only upon entering a temple but before entering any house. You know all floors are furnished with soft matting rugs which it would never do to soil. When one considers how much mud and dust we carry into our homes on our shoes and skirts I am inclined to think the Japanese have more than one custom which we might adopt to advantage. If you want to see a tori-i, Miss Nan, I think we can find you one not very far away."

"I don't exactly understand what a tori-i really is," confessed Mary Lee.

"There are two theories concerning them," Mrs. Craig told her. "Many assert that they were originally perches for birds, one meaning of the word being a bird-rest, and it is supposed that they were used as a sort of altar on which fowls were offered to the gods; others maintain that the word means simply a gateway. One can easily see how either meaning could be accepted, for they do look like a perch as well as a gateway."

After another drive through a labyrinth of streets, where were queer little houses and queerer signs, they arrived at the bottom of another hill where again a flight of steps arose before them.