The Motor Maids in Fair Japan | Page 3

set at rest, for the long, low-ceiled drawing-room of the villa was furnished in European fashion with plenty of comfortable arm-chairs and sofas made of bamboo. The floors were covered with thick soft mats and the front walls facing the piazza were really sliding panels covered with opaque paper through which the light cast a soft mellow luster. As a matter of fact, Dr. and Mrs. Spears, the owners of the villa, had kept it as Japanese as possible without interfering with their foreign ideas of comfort. The only ornaments were several beautiful scrolls and screens and a few vases.
Instead of sitting down quietly and being served to tea, which was evidently the next duty expected of them by these formal domestics, Billie and her friends rushed from one room to another in a state of eager curiosity. They poked their inquisitive little noses into the charming bedrooms and even peeped into the mysterious kitchen quarters where O'Haru reigned supreme,
"It's Japanese enough to be pretty and American enough to be comfortable," observed Nancy, arranging her curls at one of the bedroom mirrors.
"I don't know why you call it 'American,'" objected Billie. "I think you should say 'international,' since beds may be imported from Turkey, Russia, Prussia, England, or France, to say nothing of Germany and Italy."
"Well, no matter what nationality it is, I'm glad I'm going to sleep on a bed instead of on the floor as Japanese girls do, with a little bench for a pillow to keep from rumpling my hair."
Just then a Japanese girl appeared in the doorway. She was quite young, perhaps seventeen, perhaps older, and enchantingly pretty.
"Her eyes are like stewed prunes," wrote Nancy to her mother that night, "rich and black and luscious. Her hair is as black as father's ebony box and quite as shiny; her skin smooth and creamy. She has a little rosebud mouth and a small straight nose and she wore the most beautiful kimono, all blue with a cerise sash or obi, as it is called. Her name is 'Onoye' and she's the daughter of the cook, O'Haru. She is just one of the maids in the house, I suppose, but she seems better class and she speaks a little English. Her mother adores her and I suppose Onoye is being spoiled Japanese fashion, which is very different from American fashion. Japanese girls are the most unselfish, uncomplaining, considerate, everything-that-I'm-not little souls I ever saw."
Nancy's description of O'Haru's daughter was not exaggerated in the least. Little Onoye, pausing timidly at the entrance to their bedroom, was a vision to charm the eye. She blushed, smiled deprecatingly and hung her head.
"Will honorable ladies be pleased to employ humble refreshment?" she announced in a funny high voice with a prim, precise accent.
The girls would have laughed if it had not been impolite. All their impulsive actions must be checked in this land of perfect manners, or they would certainly appear rude and rough.
"We should be most pleased and happy, I am sure," answered Billie, feeling that she must not be outdone in lofty expression, "But what excellent English you speak. Do you live here, too?"
Onoye looked up and her face brightened.
"I make studying of American language one time," she said.
"And are we to have tea now?" asked Nancy as the Japanese girl backed out of the room.
"If pleasingly to gracious ladies," she answered.
With bobs and bows, she led the way to a summer house in the garden where the others were already installed in comfortable chairs.
"These are certainly the most hospitable servants I ever saw," Miss Campbell was saying to Mary and Elinor. "They make one feel like a guest in one's own house. I am sure if I lived here long, I should learn to meet myself at the front door and invite myself to take refreshments in the garden."
The girls smiled lazily. They seemed somehow to have entered into a land of unrealities and dream pictures. The bamboo and rice paper villa was a doll's house, the lovely garden, a stage setting and the picturesque band of Japanese servants gliding noiselessly about, the chorus.
And while they talked and sipped their tea, a fat, decrepit pug dog came slowly toward them down the walk on spindle legs. As the aged creature approached, O'Haru paused and made it a profound bow. The girls choked and sputtered in their tea and Miss Campbell laughed outright. They learned afterwards that this venerable animal was "Nedda," the Spears' pet pug, eighteen years old, and that every servant attached to the household regarded her with great respect because they believed that she was really Mr. Spears' grandmother.
Old Nedda was very pleased to meet with a little human company of her own social status. She wagged her twisted tail cordially and when she heard American voices