However, so unusual a creature as Zura Wingate could neither escape notice nor outspoken comment in a conservative, etiquette-bound old town like Hijiyama.  Through my pupils, most of them boys and eager to practise their English, I heard of many startling things she did.  They talked of her fearlessness; with what skill she could trim a sail; how she had raced with the crack oarsman of the Naval College; and how the aforesaid cadet was now in disgrace because he had condescended to compete with a girl.  Much of the talk was of the girl’s wonderful talent in putting on paper Japanese women and babies in a way so true that Chinda, a withered old man in whom the love of art was the only sign of life, said, “Except for her foreign blood the child would be a gift of the gods.”  I had dwelt too long in the Orient, though, to hear with much peace of mind the girl’s name so freely used and I discouraged the talk.

Even if I had thought it best to do so, there was no chance for a repetition of my visit to Kishimoto San’s house.  The demands upon my time and my resources were heavier than ever before.  The winter had been bitterly cold.  As the thermometer went down and somebody cornered the supply of sweet potatoes, the price of rice soared till there seemed nothing left to sustain the working people except the scent of the early plum flowers that flourished in the poorer districts.  Sheltered by a great mountain from the keen winds, they thrust their pink blossoms through the covering of snow and cheered the beauty-loving people to much silent endurance.  The plum tree was almost an object of worship in this part of the Empire.  It stood for bravery and loyalty in the face of disaster, but as one tottering old woman put it, as she went down on her knees begging food for her grandbabies, “The Ume Ke makes me suffer great shame for my weakness.  It gives joy to weary eyes, courage to fainting heart, but no food for babies.”  In the outlying districts many children on their way to school fainted for want of food; hospitals were full of the half-starved; police stations were crowded with the desperate; and temples were packed with petitioners beseeching the gods.

It was near the holidays.  My pupil teachers and helpers worked extra hours and pinched from their scant savings that those they could reach might not have a hungry Christmas.  They put together the price of their gifts to each other and bought rice.  In gay little groups they went from door to door and gathered up twenty feeble old women, brought them to my house and feasted them to the utmost.

Hardly a day passed without some new and unusual demand, until learning to stand up and sit down at the same time was almost a necessity.

Had my own life lacked absorbing interest, Jane Gray’s activities would have furnished an inexhaustible supply.  As she grew stronger and could come and go at her pleasure, her unexpectedness upset my systematic household to the point of confusion.  She supplied untold excitement to Pine Tree and Maple Leaf, the two serving maids earning an education by service, and drove old Ishi the gardener to tearful protest.  “Miss Jaygray dangerful girl.  She boldly confisteal a dimension of flower house and request strange demons to roost on premises.”