Tama

FUKUI was in an unwonted state of excitement. For days the people had talked of but one event. Even the small boys, perilously astraddle the bamboo poles, the scullery wenches of the kitchen, the very mendicants of the street, the highest and lowest of the citizens of Fukui talked of the coming of the O-Tojin-san (Honorable Mr. Foreigner).

For at last the exalted Daimio of the province had acceded to the pleadings and eager demands of the students of the university, and, at great expense and trouble, a foreign professor had been imported.

Signs of preparation were everywhere visible. Vigorous housecleaning was in evidence. The professional story-tellers, who took the place of newspapers in these days, reaped small fortunes in their halls. Some of them opened booths on the streets and regaled their auditors with strange accounts of America and its people.

Already the Tojin-san’s house and household had been chosen for him, from the Daimio’s high officer and the four samourai body-guard, who were to protect him from any possible Jo-i (foreign hater), down to his body-servant.

An enormous old historical Shiro (mansion), two hundred and seven years old, was assigned as his residence, and was now undergoing certain remarkable changes. For heavy woollen carpets, with flowers and figured designs, were being nailed down over the ancient matting in the chief rooms. Strange articles of furniture, massive and heavy as iron, were pushed into the great chambers, under the supervising hand of a dapper, rosy-cheeked young samourai who was to serve as interpreter to the Tojin. His name was Genji Negato, and he had already lived among foreigners in the cities of Tokyo and Yokohama. He spoke the English language very well indeed, and his knowledge of the white man and his ways was extraordinary.

Now, as he ordered this or that article set in place, his full red lips curled smilingly under his little bristly mustache. He called the servants in one by one, lecturing each in turn in regard to his especial duties. Incidentally he regaled them with tales of the habits and desires of the white man.

Food sufficient for six ordinary mortals must be prepared for his individual consumption. Raw meat and game, slightly scorched before fire, were essential. A never-failing spring of what the original American had aptly called “fire-water” must be constantly flowing at and between meals and day and night. Such was the thirst of the white man. Brooms must be in readiness to follow the trail of the dust and mud-laden boots of the professor, since he would not remove them even in the house. Finally, his supreme favor could be won by having at hand always the sweetest and prettiest maidens to entertain and caress him. And so on through a strange list.

If the students of the college where the Tojin-san was to teach were elated at the prospect of his coming, their joy was hardly shared by his household. It was in a flutter of excited fear. Even the stolid, impassive-faced samourai guard discussed in undertones among themselves the degrading service to which they were reduced in these degenerate days. To guard the body of a mere Tojin! Well, such was the will of the Daimio of Echizen, and a samourai is the right hand of his Prince. His the task to obey even the caprice of his lord, or take his own life in preference to service too far beneath his honor.

In the humbler regions of the Shiro, however, the servants discussed the matter less pessimistically. Some rumor of the generosity and wealth of foreigners had floated across the vague tide of gossip. Anyhow, the preparations for his coming went blithely on here, and already odors of vigorous advance cooking were being wafted from the kitchen regions, warming and savoring the great chambers, and awakening into noisy life the vast army of rats and bats which had long made their homes in the eaves and rafters of the old deserted mansion, now for the first time in years to be occupied by a tenant.

Everything was quite in readiness when the cook’s wife’s baby’s nurse (for his entire family were, of course, also domiciled in the Shiro) missed a portion of her rice. She had turned about to give better attention to master baby-san, when, so she averred, a “white hand” reached out of nowhere and seized the remnants of her supper. She ran squealing with her tale to her mistress, who, in turn, rushed with it to her lord, the cook. He put aside his apron and sought Genji Negato, who solemnly called a council of war. To the four samourai guard the entire household looked for a solution and ending of the impending trouble.

Measures should be taken at once, it was unanimously decided. It would be to their Prince’s everlasting disgrace should the exalted foreign devil also become a victim of the dreaded Fox-Woman of Atago Yama, for, undoubtedly, this mischievous and irrepressible sprite of the mountains was at her tricks again. In the names, therefore, of the august Tojin-san, nay, in the very name of the Imperial Daimio of Echizen, it was the duty of the honorable samourai to spare in no wise the witch should she be caught trespassing upon the estate of the Prince’s guest and protégé.

They fell to telling weird tales of the latest doings of the fox-woman. A Tsuruga child had followed the witch-girl into the mountains, believing her glittering hair to be the rays of the sun, and stretching out his tiny hands to touch and hold it. To propitiate the dread creature, the parents had set out daily food at the foot of the mountains, and thus, for a time at least, the hunger of the fox-woman had been satisfied, but the child had never been the same again, fretting and crying constantly for the “Sun Lady.” As its peevishness continued, the parents revenged themselves upon its abductor, and ceased to set out the nightly repast, bravely facing down their fear of the witch’s certain anger and retaliation.

Since then she had been forced to seek her sustenance elsewhere. A basket of fish disappeared overnight from a vendor’s locked stand. A bag of rice was found on the mountain-side of the river, as if the thief, finding it too heavy, had dropped it in her flight.

And now—could it be possible that the most distinguished (though augustly degraded) guest Fukui had known in years was to suffer by the depredations of the fox-woman?

Samourai Iroka voted in favor of killing the witch outright. But not by the means of his own personal sword, for he was unmarried and had no descendants to pray for his soul should it be forced to pass along on a journey.

Samourai Asado feared for the safety of his wife and family in the event of his honorable sword being stained by the blood of the witch-girl. Once a similar goblin had torn the head and arms from the body of a sleeping babe, in revenge for the mere pin-prick of a samourai sword.

Samourai Hirata suggested referring the matter to the Daimio himself; but was urged against this by the others, for was not the fox-woman the one black blot upon the escutcheon of their exalted Prince, seeing she was indeed, and alas! of his own blood?

Finally, Samourai Numura, an ancient, grizzled warrior of the most stolid common sense, gruffly insisted that the matter was the affair of the Tojin himself, and from him alone should they receive commands upon the matter. It was agreed, therefore, that they should wait for the coming of the Tojin-san. Out of his vaunted western wisdom certainly should he be able to suggest the solution of the problem.

And, in the Season of Greatest Cold, while the snow whirled in feathery flakes over all the Province of Echizen, and the winds blew in laughing, whispering murmurs through the glistening camphor and pine trees, across the sacred bosom of Lake Biwa, and over the snow-crowned mountains between, the Tojin-san came to Fukui, the “Well of Blessing.”

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