The Breath of the Gods. Sidney McCall
the train, stopped, it would seem, in the very midst of a grove of "umè" flowers, just coming into bloom. It is an old orchard, knowing many generations of loving care. It is trimmed and tended for beauty alone, the small sour fruit called by foreigners "plums" being uneatable, and no more to the Japanese marketer than are "rose-apples" to us. The trees, set close together so that tips of branches met, were entirely leafless, and frosted over with a delicate lichen growth. On this silver filigree of boughs the blossoms shone, white, crimson, or pink—translucent gems of flowers. The odor, stealing softly to Yuki in little throbs, smote her as with an ecstasy of remembrance. There is no subtler necromancer than perfume. Through it the past may be reconstructed, dead love quiver into life, and sorrow, often more precious than joy itself, steal back like a loving ghost.
Yuki seemed to wake suddenly, as from a troubled sleep. "Why," she cried to herself, "I am at home again! This is Japan!" She sat upright now, eager and vivid, looking from one window to another, a new brightness in her face. The locomotive, which had been restlessly inactive for a few moments past, gave a long, shrill whistle, drew itself together, and prepared for another run. Just as the wheels were turning, a broad-faced woman of the peasant class, with a fat baby on her back, a toddler of two years led by one hand, and a pair of squawking geese held in the other, wriggled herself through the turnstile and waved the shrieking fowls, as signal for the train to stop. The gatekeeper, clutching after her, seized a limb of the sleeping infant. Instantly a human scream added to the clamor of the geese. Heads were thrust from car windows—the guard, dropping the infant's leg, seized its mother by the sash. He chanced to be a small man, she an unusually large woman. As a consequence she dragged him after her. At this sight a train official, leaning as far outward as he could for laughing, signalled the engineer to "back." The victorious one hurled herself and her living burdens into an already overcrowded third-class car. A place was made for her, not without many exclamations, such as "Domo! Osoi!" (It is late.) "Kodomo-san itai ka!" (Is Mr. Baby hurt?) and a few gruff sounds of "Iya desu yo!" (How disagreeable!) The locomotive, as if conscious of a good deed, tooted more loudly than before, and made another start.
Yuki sparkled with delight. "Think of a train official doing that in America!" she laughed aloud.
Iriya's answering smile was pathetic in its quickness of response. She moved closer, pressing against Yuki's smart, foreign shoulder. The two began to watch, like happy children, the passing scenes.
Tetsujo drew forth his pipe and smoked himself into serenity. He listened now to what the women said. There were other passengers, of course, but Tetsujo and his companions had preëmpted a little corner in the rear. Iriya spoke of old Suzumè, who was waiting so impatiently at home to see her charge—of little Maru San, a distant connection of Suzumè, who, since Yuki's departure, had been employed as maid-of-all-work about the house. Messages of welcome from friends and relatives were given. At the last, dropping her voice impressively, Iriya spoke of the coming war. "It is inevitable," she said. "Prince Haganè informed Tetsujo only this morning. There can be no doubt."
The old scenes, the old interests, glowed anew in the girl's heart. Really they had never left it, but, like certain writing, illegible except in warmth, the pictures slept until the breath of her own land awaked them. She had a strange sense of being slowly turned back to a child. In an English fairy-book a certain Alice could grow tall or short at will by nibbling at a magic mushroom. There had always been magic mushrooms in the East, long, long before that book was written—strange mountain growths which are the only food of the ghost deer that attend the genii of the forest. Perhaps the little brown sembei which she had just bought at Omori from an insistent peddler was, in reality, a scrap of an enchanted mushroom. Perhaps she was really turning back into the little Japanese Yuki who had never been to America at all, who had never known a foreign lover, or given a promise which her reason told her to refuse. Her heart stopped beating for an instant. She took a second bite of sembei. Again the trouble faded. Yes, surely, it was a magic mushroom.
Now merry talk flowed from her smiling lips. Tetsujo moved nearer. She called him "Chichi Sama," as in baby days, and her mother "Haha San."
The train made its final stop. A torrent of blue-robed occupants poured out from every car. The sound of wooden clogs upon the concrete floor was like innumerable hollow shells scraped, lip down, upon an empty box. Yuki's heart swept in with the throng. She loved the noise, the bare station, the hissing car, the very dust of the travellers' feet. Tetsujo and Iriya exchanged glances behind her back, and smiled. Their eyes said, "This is our dear one—our own; not an American changeling, but the daughter for whom we have been yearning."
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