The House of the Misty Star, Frances Little [great reads .TXT] 📗

something that looks like mystery, and a wild, untamed, wilful girl?"

  To which my companion replied: "But just think what love would do to them both!"

  I guess the difference in Jane's sentiment and mine is the same as between a soft-shell crab and a hard-shell one.

VII AN INTERRUPTED DINNER

  The next two days passed happily, if a little giddily, and Jane and I commanded every resource to entertain our guest. Zura saw and responded like a watch-spring suddenly released. She found in two simple old women perfect subjects on which to vent her long-suppressed spirits. She entered into the activities of the household with such amazing zest, it seemed as if we were playing kitchen furniture. While it surprised me how one young girl could so disturb regular working hours and get things generally a-flutter, I could easily see that all she needed was a chance to be herself. That was the point that Kishimoto had to understand and would not.

  "Please let me be Santa Claus this time, and give out the cod liver oil and the milk and the bibs to the babies," Zura begged one day when these articles were to be distributed; "and mayn't I keep the kiddies for just a little while to play with?"

  An hour later, attracted by much noise, I walked out into the garden and saw Zura with a clean, but much-patched baby on her back, one in each arm, and a half-dozen trailing behind. The game was "Here we go 'round the mulberry bush," sung in English and played in Japanese.

  "Oh, Miss Jenkins," cried the merry leader, "come quick. We need a bush and you will make such a nice fat one."

  Before I knew what was happening I was drawn into the mad frolic, reckless of all the work piled up on my desk in the study. I thought maybe I was growing feeble-minded, but the way to it was delightful, if foolish.

  Strangely enough, during this time Page Hanaford did not appear. We explained to Zura that he was present the day she made her brief call.

  "Oh! do you mean the day I flew into the 'Misty Star' and right out again? Yes, I remember his outlines. Where did you find him? Looked more like a sure-enough man than anything I've seen in Japan."

  Jane monopolized the talk at breakfast that morning, describing to Zura the good looks of Page Hanaford and the charm of his romantic story.

  Zura seemed more amused by Jane's manner and the funny twist in her tongue than impressed by her description.

  Miss Gray finally turned to me and urged once again, "Do let's have him to-night. I'll get the dinner."

  Zura clapped her hands and said eagerly, "Oh, let's do! I haven't been to a party in a century. If Miss Gray will be the 'chefess,' I'll be assistant potato peeler. I can make the best salad. It's called 'Salade de la Marquise de Chateaubriand'; but it won't hurt you. It is only peanuts and cabbage. Daddy and I used to feast on it once a week."

  There was no resisting her enthusiasm, and I sent a note to Page Hanaford asking him to come that evening for dinner.

  After all there was nothing I could label a reason why he and Zura should not meet.

  Domesticity was the last thing anybody would suspect a characteristic of either Jane or Zura. Not knowing what the result would be, I gave the cook a holiday and turned the incongruous pair loose to do as they pleased in kitchen and dining-room.

  All the afternoon I was busy with my writing, but from time to time there penetrated through the closed doors of my study sounds of swift-moving feet and gay laughter. The old house seemed infected with youth. Contact with it was sweet. Some of my dreams were coming true. I found myself repeating a long-forgotten poem as I took up another stupid report. I even hummed a tune, something I had not done in twenty years.

  Just before the dinner hour Jane and Zura came into the living-room. Evidently their work in a common cause put them on the friendliest terms. They were arm in arm, and I knew by the set of Jane's collar and the rose in her hair that young and skilful hands had been at work. Zura's white dress was dainty enough, but it seemed to melt into nothing about the neck and sleeves. It must have been brought from America, as I had seen none like it. Nobody could deny, however, that with her face, all aglow beneath her lustrous hair, she was a goodly sight for young and old.

  "Isn't she the very sweetest thing?" asked Jane as they approached, adding wistfully, "But I truly wish her dear nose didn't tilt up!"

  Zura with stern, forbidding brows, but laughing eyes, rebuked the wisher. "See here, Miss Jinny Gray, that is the only nose I have, if it is sudden. I've worked hard to coax it in the straight and narrow path. I've even slept on my face for a week at a time." Then with swift, dramatic gestures as the gong sounded at the entrance-door, she whispered, "Hush! The man of mystery doth appear!"

  Page Hanaford came in. All our tempting tonics and special dishes had failed to curve the angles in the boy's face and body. He still looked ill. The brooding sadness that frequently overshadowed his lighter moods troubled me.

  When he caught sight of Zura, his alertness of manner was pleasing and the kind of joy-look in his eyes did me good. I guessed he was downright glad to see something youthful hovering around the "Misty Star." I was glad too, but the situation did not seem to call for hurrahs and fireworks. Two young American people meeting, shaking hands, and courteously greeting each other was an unusual sight to me, but after all a natural one. Page said he had been obliged to forego the pleasure of seeing us, as he had been very busy organizing his new classes. He was glad to come again.

  We went at once to dinner. I wondered from where the new "chefess" and her assistant "potato peeler" had procured the materials necessary to so pretentious a meal. Though surprised, I soon learned that Jane Gray was mistress of the art of making something beautiful out of nothing.

  We sat down to the softly-lighted table. The china was old and somewhat chipped, but on its white background a design in tender blue just matched the fresh larkspur used for table decorations. With the bringing in of each dish prepared by the new cooks the little party grew gayer and friendlier. The quaint old dining-room had never witnessed festivities like these. In the long ago it served as the audience chamber of a Daimyo's 'Besso' or play place. It was here that the feudal lord had held council of war and state. The walls had never before echoed the laughter of joyous youth. Now even the grotesque figures on the carved beams seemed to awaken from a long sleep and give back smile for smile.

  Pine Tree and Maple Leaf, gay in holiday dress, usually so precise and formal, fluttered about like distracted butterflies as they served the dinner, often stopping to hide their faces in the long sleeves when Zura honored them with side remarks for, of course, she was the source of all the merriment, the life of the party. She also reduced Jane to a state of helpless laughter. I felt the years dropping away from me, and the face of the boy whom I had learned to love was less strained and brighter than I had ever seen it. He said little at first, but his eyes smiled, and he listened eagerly to all Zura's chatter and seemed to be hearing once again of joys dreamed of and a world lost to him.

  I knew myself growing happier every minute. The after-dinner coffee was not necessary to make, somewhere near my heart, little thrills jump up and down, like corn in a hot popper. I was getting what my soul craved—companionship, contact with life, and a glimpse into the doings of youth's magic years.

  We soon returned to the living-room. Page prepared to smoke, and we settled down to a friendly, intimate time.

  The talk turned to school. Jane had been telling of a Japanese woman, who, handicapped by the loss of an arm, and no longer being useful in field work, trudged every morning eight miles to school where she could learn sewing so as to help husband and babies.

  "Well!" remarked Zura doubtingly. "I can't sew with two hands, and my tongue thrown in. I do not see how she manipulates anything so contrary as a needle, single-fisted."

  "Oh! my dear," said Jane, "you can believe with one hand just as hard as you can with two. It's hoping with all your might, while one is doing, that makes our dreams come true. I'm afraid you never really loved school."

  "Oh, yes, I did in spots," she said. "Especially if there were a fight on—I mean—a contest. I could bear with cheerful resignation all the V.P's., the B.B's., and chilly zeros they tagged on to my deportment, but I would have worked myself into a family skeleton, before I would permit another girl to outclass me in a test exam! I could forgive the intellectual her sunset hair, but her Grecian nose—never!"

  The methods employed by the two contestants as related by Zura had called forth my unqualified sympathy for the teacher when once again the gong on my front-door rang out and a voice was heard asking for Miss Wingate.

  Zura jumped up from her seat and greeted the visitor with frank delight. "Oh!" she said, "it's Pinkey Chalmers! Who'd believe it! Hello, Pinkey! My! but it is good to see somebody from home."

  There was ushered into the room a well nourished looking chap, who greeted Zura by her first name familiarly. I did not need to be told that he was the young man with whom she had been seen on the highway. He was introduced to me as Mr. Tom Chalmers; I was told he had earned his nickname, "Pinkey," by contracting the pink-shirt habit.

  The youth was carelessly courteous and very sure of himself. My impression was that he had seen too much of the world and not enough of his mother. He declined my invitation to dine, saying he had had late tea before he left the ship which was coaling in a nearby port.

  "I started early," he went on, "but maybe you think I didn't have a great old time finding this place. You said in your note, Zura, it was the 'Misty Star' at the top of the hill. Before I reached here I thought it must be the last stopping-place in the Milky Way. Climbing up those steps was something awful."

  Mr. Chalmers mopped his rosy brow, but later conversation proved his sensitiveness to feminine beauty quite overbalanced his physical exhaustion, as on the way many pretty girls peeped out from behind paper doors.

  Page kept in the background, plainly arranging a mode of escape. He soon excused himself on the plea of work, saying as he left, "I'll drop in some time to-morrow for the book. You'll find it by then."

  With the look of a disappointed child on her face, Jane called to her little attendants, went to her room and resumed her knitting.

  The unbidden guest was gaiety itself, and there was no denying the genuine pleasure of the girl. As the night was warm and glorious, I suggested that Zura and her guest sit on the balcony.

  I picked up a book and sat by my reading lamp, but my eyes saw no printed words. My mind was busy with other thoughts. I