The Motor Maids in Fair Japan | Page 7

she had not
then decided.
CHAPTER III.
SHOPPING IN JINRIKSHAS.
"I feel very much like a baby in a baby carriage," observed Miss Helen
Campbell as Mr. Campbell almost lifted her into the graceful little
two-wheeled vehicle. "And is that poor soul going to turn into a horse
and pull me?" she demanded.
"You aren't such a heavy load," replied her cousin. "I doubt if the S. P.
C. A. would get excited over it. I am only sorry you have to be alone,
but I suppose those four inseparables are paired off as usual. Billie with
Nancy and Mary with Elinor."
"Indeed, I much prefer to be alone," said Miss Campbell. "Then I can
hold on with both hands in case I am upset backwards."
"You never will be. They will treat you like spun glass. You will take
good care of the ladies, Komatsu," he said to the 'riksha man who,
leaning against the garden wall, resembled a bronze figure, brown and
muscular.

"Gracious lady of fearing not need," answered Komatsu with an
ingratiating smile as he stepped between the shafts of the 'riksha.
"It is impossible to tell how much English they know and how much
they don't know," Mr. Campbell confided to his relative in a low voice.
"They never ask twice and they always make some kind of an out at a
reply. But I think, until I can go with you, it is safer for you to go in the
'rikshas. The common people here aren't used to motor cars and there
are still some fanatics in Japan, you know, who are opposed to every
sort of progress and the invasion of foreign customs."
"Good-by, Papa," called Billie, "I do wish you were not a working man
so that you could go with us."
"I am sorry I must be a laborer in the vineyards, Miss Wilhelmina," he
answered, "but it's only that you may ride in a fine carriage and wear a
silk robe."
"Silk robe?" repeated Miss Campbell. "That's just what I want.
Komatsu, we wish to go to a silk shop," she ordered the man-servant,
speaking very loud and distinctly as if she were addressing a deaf
person.
Komatsu grinned amiably.
"I bring honorable lady to fine shop with quickness."
The next moment the three vehicles were flying along the road drawn
by three tireless individuals, whose good nature, like the widow's cruse,
knew no diminishing.
It would be difficult to find in all the world a more beautiful city than
Tokyo at this season of the year. It is really a city of gardens and
everywhere are palms and pines and waving willow trees, magnificent
arbors of wisteria not yet in bloom and splendid azalea bushes bursting
into masses of white and pink blossoms. Even the humblest brown
cottage has its bit of garden, for the love of flowers is innate in every
Japanese nature: it is a national trait.

"There is no prospect that isn't graceful and picturesque," thought Mary
watching an old fruit and vegetable man in front of them. He wore a
dull blue cotton tunic much faded but still a heavenly color, and on
either end of a pole resting on his shoulders was a flat brown basket
filled with small oranges and vegetables of an unknown variety. Behind
him walked an old woman in a dull brown and purple dress with an
orange sash around her waist. Her back was burdened with a great
bundle of bark. The sun was hot and many of the wayfarers carried
paper umbrellas. Most of the women had babies swung on their backs
and sometimes shiny little black eyes peeped out from the front of a
kimono, the mother's arms being engaged in supporting another burden
on her back.
"It seems to me the women work very hard in this country," remarked
Elinor severely, pointing to a cart filled with charcoal propelled by two
women and a man. One of the women had a baby on her back and
another child holding to her skirts.
"They do," said Mary. "Even the women in the upper classes have to
work hard. Don't you remember what the missionary on the steamer
told us? The wife is always the first one up in the household no matter
how many servants she has. She has to bring her mean old
mother-in-law a cup of tea and get out her husband's clothes. The
mother-in-law has had to work so hard when she was a daughter-in-law
that she takes it out on her son's wife later."
"I'd like to see an American wife ridden by her mother-in-law that
way," broke in Elinor indignantly.
"But then the Japanese daughter-in-law's turn comes later," said Mary
laughing, "when she gets to be a mother-in-law. So it's all nicely
balanced."
But