The Four Corners in Japan. Blanchard Amy Ella

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      The Four Corners in Japan

      CHAPTER I

      STARTING OFF

      "I feel a migratory fever stirring within my veins," remarked Miss Helen Corner one morning as she sat with the elder two of her nieces in their Virginia home.

      Nan put down the book she was reading; Mary Lee looked up from her embroidery. "You are not going to desert us, Aunt Helen?" said Nan.

      "Not unless you girls will join me in my flight."

      "But where would you fly?" asked Mary Lee.

      "What do you say to Japan?"

      "Japan? Oh, Aunt Helen, not really."

      "Why not? Every one goes there these days. We could make the trip by way of California, stop off for a few days at Honolulu, and see some of the strange things I have been reading about this winter. I am strongly inclined to make the trip if you two will go with me."

      "And would we start soon?" asked Nan. "In time for the cherry blossoms, the lovely flowery Japanese spring and all that?"

      "It was what I was planning to do."

      "What about mother and the twinnies?"

      "We should have to make up our minds to leave them behind. I believe your mother has declared against going with us. She thinks the twins should not be taken out of college and that she should be within call while they are there. That should not prevent your going, however. Nan, what do you think about it?"

      "You know me, Aunt Helen," responded Nan.

      "What about you, Mary Lee?"

      "Oh, 'Barkis is willin';' that is if mother approves."

      "I consulted her before I mentioned it to you, for I did not want any one disappointed. Therefore, young ladies, consider yourselves booked for a personally conducted trip. I think we might start next month, and we need not burden ourselves with too much of an outfit."

      "I should think not," returned Nan, "when such lovely and cheap things can be had in Japan. Hurrah! Mary Lee, let's go tell Jo."

      The two girls started off together. The month was February, but already the first hints of spring could be found in the warmer sunshine, the longer days, the swelling of buds on trees and bushes. A few yellow stars were already spotting the forsythia which clambered up one end of the front porch of Dr. Woods's house which they soon reached. They entered without knocking, for their friend Josephine Woods was like a sister, and would have resented any formality. They knew where to find her, for it was after her husband's office hours; he was off making his professional visits, and Jo would be up-stairs attending to certain housewifely duties.

      They discovered her in the little sewing-room surrounded by piles of house linen.

      "Hallo," cried Nan, "what in the world are you doing, Jo?"

      "Marking these towels for Paul's office," she returned soberly.

      Nan laughed. "It is so funny to see you doing such things, Jo. I can never quite get over your sudden swerving toward domesticity. We have come over to tell you something that will make you turn green with envy."

      "Humph!" returned Jo. "As if anybody or anything could make me turn green or any other color from envy. I am the one to be envied."

      "She still has it badly," said Nan shaking her head. "What is there in marking towels to make it such an enviable employment, Mrs. Woods?"

      "Because it is being done for the dearest man in the world," replied Jo promptly.

      "I wonder if you will still continue to be in this blissful state of idiocy when we get back from Japan," put in Mary Lee.

      "Japan!" Jo dropped the towel she was holding, barely saving it from a splotch of indelible ink.

      "Aha! I knew we could surprise you," jeered Nan. "She is green, Mary Lee, bright, vivid, grass green."

      "Nothing of the sort," retorted Jo. "Of course I always did long to go to Japan, but I wouldn't exchange this little town with Paul in it for all the Japans in the world."

      "You are perfectly hopeless," said Nan. "I wonder if I shall ever reach such a state of imbecility as to prefer marking towels to going to Japan."

      "I wouldn't put it past you," returned Jo. "Just you wait, Nan Corner. I expect to see the day when you are in a state that is seventy times seven worse that mine ever was."

      "If ever I do reach such a state, I hope the family will incarcerate me," rejoined Nan.

      Jo laughed. "This does sound like the good old college days," she remarked. "But do tell me what is up, girls. Are you really going to Japan?"

      "So Aunt Helen says," Mary Lee told her.

      "And when do you go?"

      "Next month."

      "The whole family?"

      "No, the kiddies will have to continue to grind away at college. I think it probable that mother will go back with them after the Easter holidays and stay there till summer, when they can all go away together."

      "And how long shall you be gone?"

      "Don't know. All we know is that we are going. We didn't wait to hear any more till we came over to tell you. What shall we bring you, Jo?"

      "I think I should like a good, well-trained Japanese servant," returned Jo with a little sigh.

      "Poor Jo; there are serpents even in Paradise, it seems. Does the last kitchen queen prove as unworthy to be crowned as her predecessors were?"

      "Oh, dear, yes, but never mind, I am still hoping that the one perfect gem will at last come my way. Meantime I am learning such heaps of things that I shall become absolutely independent after a while. You will see me using fireless cookers, and paper bags, and all that by the time you get back."

      "Well, good luck to you," said Nan. "We must be off. You shall have the next bulletin as soon as there is anything more to report."

      They hurried back to find their mother, being entirely too excited to stop long in one place. After talking the plan over with her, they hunted up their Aunt Helen to join her in consulting maps, time-tables and guide-books. Before night the date was set, the route was laid out, the vessel upon which they should sail decided upon.

      At last one windy morning in March the Virginia mountains were left behind and the little party of three set their faces toward the western coast. California was no unknown land to them and here they decided to tarry long enough to see some of their old friends, making Los Angeles their first stop.

      "Doesn't it seem familiar?" said Mary Lee as they approached the city where they had lived for a while.

      "The very most familiar thing I see is out there on the platform," returned Nan as she observed Carter Barnwell eagerly scanning each car as the train came into the station. Nan hailed him from the car window and he was beside them before the train came fairly to a standstill.

      "Glory be to Peter! But isn't this a jolly stunt you are doing?" he cried fairly hugging Miss Helen. "Why didn't the whole family come, as long as you were about it?"

      "By the whole family you mean Jack, of course," remarked Mary Lee.

      Carter laughed a little confusedly. "That's all right," he returned; "I'm not denying it. Where are your checks and things? Give me that bag, Miss Helen. You are going straight to the house; Mrs. Roberts is counting the minutes till you get there."

      The three were nothing loth to be settled in Carter's automobile and to be whirled off through summerlike scenes to Pasadena where Mrs. Roberts's home was.

      "Do let us go past the little house where we used to live," said Nan who was sitting on the front seat with Carter. "I suppose it is still there."

      "Oh, yes," was the reply, "and I hope it always will be. It was there I first saw Jack, you know; the little rapscallion, how she was giving it to that youngster." He laughed at the recollection. Then in a lower voice and more seriously he asked, "Did she send me any message, Nan?"

      "We didn't see