VOL. XLVI

No. 4

"OH! Botheration! It is snowing harder and harder!" And Elizabeth Caldwell tossed her head angrily until the curls whipped her cheek. "Now Uncle Arthur will not come until next Saturday. And that 's years and years!"

"Maybe he 'll come to-day, Sis. Don't give up the ship," said her brother Harry, looking up from the rug before the fire, where he lay sprawled over a big volume of sea stories, apparently quite content in spite of the weather.

"No; he won't. He said distinctly, 'If it stops snowing.' I got the telephone message myself. And my heart is just set on the matinée. I'd just like to take the old snow and roll it up into a bundle and throw it somewhere."

"Where would you throw it?" Harry laughed. "It seems to be everywhere now. It is too bad, sisterkin; but if Uncle Arthur does n't come to take us to the matinée this week, he will next. So it is only a pleasure de-lingered, as Misao used to say."

"You and Misao are just alike," Elizabeth answered, between a smile and a pout. "You take everything so calmly. I think you are a Japanese yourself, Hal."

"He is a very golden one, then," said a sweet voice from the doorway. "And yet -blonde as he is he was born in Japan -a little flower of the iris, just at the season of their bloom!" And Misao, in her pretty gray silk kimono, glided into the room and sat on the rug beside Harry.

He was the pride of her heart, the little boy whom she had nursed when he came into the world in her own far-away country. It was for love of him that she had consented to accompany the good doctor and Mrs. Caldwell across the sea to distant America. Misao loved Elizabeth, too, and Baby Frank, upstairs, but Elizabeth always declared teasingly that Harry was her favorite.

It rather embarrassed Harry sometimes to be called "Iris flower" and to have Misao look at him with such open adoration, but he loved her as dearly as she

loved him and there was a close bond between them.

"What wind is jangling all your bells this morning, Elizabeth?" Misao asked.

"It is n't the wind that does it. It is the snow," said Harry.

And Elizabeth explained in an aggrieved tone: "Uncle Arthur 'phoned early this morning and said, if it stopped snowing, he'd come for luncheon and take us to the matinée. And if it did not stop, we 'd have to wait until next week. He is n't supposed to go out in bad weather. And it began right then to close up all the little blue spaces in the sky and shut out the sun and get grayer and grayer. And now just look at it!"

Harry smiled sympathetically and turned again to his book, while Misao sucked in her breath consolingly and, taking a bit of saffron silk from the depths of her kimono sleeve, began to embroider upon it. Elizabeth came over to the rug and sat beside her.

"Were n't you just crazy about the theater when you were little? Or did n't they have any in Japan? And was it ever as good as 'The Blue Bird' and 'Peter Pan?'"

Elizabeth had a habit of asking "three or four questions in a bundle," as Harry said. But Misao was accustomed to her quick-thinking, eager little charge and answered the whole bundle of questions very calmly.

"The plays I saw were very different. Yes; I think they were as beautiful,—some of them, but there was not the " she hesitated for a word, and then, looking at the bit of silk in her hand, said smilingly, "the embroidery."

too-the ones I love. I saw 'Little Women' three times. But you said, 'to hear them'. And I said, 'to see them'. Is n't that funny? I suppose you say 'hear' because there is n't the embroidery in yours."

"And also because the No are chanted, not spoken."

"Chanted? As in church?”

"More like little operas, I guess," said Harry, who was listening between chapters of his book.

"Yes; on a little platform, with a little backboard very simply decorated. And the stories are simple, too. But the actors are so clever that they do not need scenery. They make you see everything without it. They can even make you know that it is snowing, Elizabeth."

"I don't want to know that," she pouted, reminded of her grievance.

"And yet there is one about the snow that I loved best when I was your age. And I love it still, very much.”

Misao looked off dreamily, lost in some old memories of her home.

Elizabeth peered closely into Misao's eyes, and quickly put her arms about her, because she thought she saw a mist there.

Misao smiled tenderly upon her.

"Please tell us about the No-the snowy one," Elizabeth begged, and Harry laid down his book and urged: "Say yes, Misao. Please!"

"If she says yes, she has to say No," laughed Elizabeth.

Misao put her work away and began: "There was a little hut in a snowy plain. It was early evening and cold, bitter cold. The snow had fallen like the light feathers of the goose, as a poet has said. The

and everything?"

"Yes. The No were very simple. But the stories were good and true."

"The what were very simple, Misao?" "The No. That is the name of little plays for the people. They must be good, because they have been played for years and years and still the people love to hear them."

"Yes. I like to see plays over and over,

it seemed as if one could touch it. And the chill wind was blowing, so that a man must huddle in his clothes like a crane in his feathers.

"Even the smoke of the volcano Asamayama, at the edge of the plain, looked cloudy and cold and gloomy.

"In the little hut there was no fire, and the icy wind penetrated the sliding, paper doors."

mixed with barley. But this was awa alone. It is not very palatable-not nearly as good as the porridge you do not wish to eat for breakfast, Elizabeth. It did not tempt the woman, hungry as she was.

"She allowed herself a few tears, since her husband was not in the hut and she could weep without increasing his sorrow. "He had gone to the little stall behind the hut to tend the worn and miserable old horse who stood there.

"On his way back, he saw, in the shelter of his hut, three potted trees."

"Dwarf trees. I know," said Harry. "Yes. Three little dwarf trees in pots. They were very fine specimens, all that were left from a great collection that this poor man had owned once long before. His eyes, too, filled with tears when he

bloom throw perfume wild and free in the first rays of the rising sun, which you resemble, you give me hope of a better dawn. Perhaps when you bloom again in the springtime, my fortunes may bloom too.'

"And then the man went away into the snowy fields to see if he could find and cut a few dry faggots.

"Meanwhile, from the other direction, a pilgrim priest was advancing wearily, plowing his dragging feet through the deep, wet snow.

"He scaled the Oi-yama, a high mountain where the wind whistled, and crossed the river Usui, hoping that the plain would be more protected from the cold. But the valley was a floor for the blasts.

"The sight of the little hut, small and

bare and poor as it appeared, was welcome to his eyes. For it might mean food and shelter and warmth. A bird seeks even the bare thicket in a storm.

"There came a rap at the door, as he stood under the eaves of the hut, and the woman opened it, sliding back the shojithe paper screen.

"Who is there?' she asked in timid surprise.

"A pilgrim,' responded the stranger. 'And he asks for a night's lodging.'

"Alas! I fear we have nothing to offer. And my husband is not at home.' "The pilgrim bowed politely. “Then I will wait here under the eaves until he returns,' he said.

"'As you wish,' said the poor woman, not very encouragingly. 'And I will go to inform my husband.'

"I am sure that it is well enough for me. I hope that you will receive me,' pleaded the stranger.

"The poor man did indeed yearn to take the pilgrim in, but he thought of the tasteless bowl of awa and the fireless hearth; and pride made him close heart and door.

"Alas! I regret it is impossible for us,' he said. 'We ourselves can scarcely manage to live here to-night. But there is a little village under the mountain, about eighteen cho from here, where you can find a comfortable inn. Before the sun sets, you had best hasten thither," "

"Oh, dear! The poor pilgrim!" Elizabeth interrupted.

And Harry asked, "How far is eighteen cho?”

"About a mile and a quarter," Misao

"He had not succeeded in finding any wood fit for burning and shook his head sadly at the landscape, thinking how he had enjoyed the snow in the days when he was warmly clad and luxuriously housed. Then it had seemed gentle and beautiful; to-day it was ugly and cruel. He turned as his wife approached, calling to him.

""What brought you hither in this great snow?' he asked.

"A shugyo-ja-that is, a pilgrim priest -'asks for a night's lodging. Knowing the bareness and emptiness of our home, I hoped he would depart when I told him you were absent. But he said he would await your return.'

"The man looked deeply troubled. ""To be too poor to afford hospitalitythat is the depth of wretchedness,' he said sadly. 'Where is the shugyo-ja?"

""There he stands, under the eaves.' "The two went back to the hut to greet the tired pilgrim.

"The sun is still in the sky,' said he, after polite salutations were exchanged; 'but the clouds and the earth are so heavy with snow that I can scarce travel farther. I request a lodging for the night.'

"My wish is to grant it. But my cottage is not fit to shelter a guest.'

very long way to the man, you see. But the pilgrim asked once more, "Then you cannot take me in?'

"No-to our deep regret.'

"And I regret, too, that I waited and pleaded in vain,' said the shugyo-ja, politely, and turned away with these words and began plodding through the snow.

"The man and wife stood in silence a long time, looking after him.

"A pity that we have come to this!' said the woman at last. 'But perhaps it is because we have failed in good deeds in some past life that we suffer now. And perhaps, by doing such acts of hospitality as we can in this existence, we may be rewarded in the next world. I wish we had asked him in, after all.'

“‘I am not thinking of reward, here or afterward,' said her husband. 'But, as I see his bent and weary figure struggling against the drifts, and his head bowed as if he were blinded by the snow and lost, I am ashamed that pride made me send him away. I will recall him.'

"So he made a horn of his hands and called out: 'O traveler! Return! Come and stay with us to-night.'

"But the wind's horn was so much larger than the man's hands, and the wind's voice so much louder than his, too,