to grumble.  Certainly I pay for it.  I tip everything from the proprietor to the water-pitcher.  But the sum is so disproportionate to the pleasure and the comfort returned that I smile to think of the triple price I have paid elsewhere and the high-nosed condescension I got in return for my money.  Japanese courtesy may be on the surface, but the polish does not easily wear off and it soothes the nerves just as the rain cools the air.  It goes without saying that I did not arrive in Nikko without a variety of experiences along the way.

Two hours out from Yokohama, the train boy came into the coach, and with a smile as cheerful as if he were saying, “Happy New Year,” announced that there was a washout in front of us and a landslide at the back of us.  Would everybody please rest their honorable bones in the village while a bridge was built and a river filled in.  The passengers trailed into a settlement of straw roofs, bamboo poles and acres of white and yellow lilies.  I went to a quaint little inn—­that was mostly out!—­built over a fussy brook; and a pine tree grew right out of the side of the house.  My room was furnished with four mats and a poem hung on the wall.  When the policeman came in to apologize for the rudeness of the storm in delaying me, the boy who brought my bags had to step outside so that the official would have room to bow properly.  I ate my supper of fish-omelet and turnip pickle served in red lacquer bowls, and drank tea out of cups as big as thimbles.  Jack says Japanese teacups ought to be forbidden; in a moment of forgetfulness they could so easily slip down with the tea.

It had been many a year since I was so separated from my kind and each hour of isolation makes clearer a thing I ’ve never doubted, but sometimes forget, that the happiest woman is she whose every moment is taken up in being necessary to somebody; and to such, unoccupied minutes are like so many drops of lead.  That, with a telegram I read telling of the increasing dangers of the plague in Manchuria, threatened to send me headlong into a spell of anxiety and the old terrible loneliness.

Happily the proprietor and his wife headed it off by asking me if I would be their guest for this evening to see the Bon Matsuri, the beautiful Festival of the Dead.  On the thirteenth day of the seventh month, all the departed spirits take a holiday from Nirvana or any other seaport they happen to be in and come on a visit to their former homes to see how it fares with the living.  Poor homesick spirits!  Not even Heaven can compensate for the separation from beloved country and friends.  As we passed along, the streets were alight with burning rushes placed at many doors to guide the spiritual excursionists.  Inside, the people were praying, shrines were decorated and children in holiday dress merrily romped.  Why, Mate, it was worth being a ghost just to come back and see how happy everybody was.  For on this night of nights, cares and sorrows are doubly locked in a secret place and the key put carefully away.  You couldn’t find a coolie so heartless as to show a shadow of trouble to his ghostly relatives when they return for so brief a time to hold happy communion with the living.  He may be hungry, he may be sick, but there is a brave smile of welcome on his lips for the spirits.