"A Half Caste" and Other Writings

Two Converts

✻ two converts After a hard day, spent in going over his new parish and the mission church and school, the pretty, trim little house on the hill, with its sloping roofs and wide balconies, looked refreshing and restful to the Reverend John Redpath. Everything about it was dainty and exquisite. His predecessor was leaving the American chairs, tables, and beds behind, but apart from these it was furnished entirely in Japanese fashion. The Reverend John Redpath was past forty, but he had the guileless conscience of a boy whose ideals are as yet unsmirched by bitter experience. It was with boyish enjoyment and curiosity that he sat down to the queer little repast prepared for him, and to which, of course, he was wholly unaccustomed . His predecessor talked to, or rather at, him during the meal, but John, while apparently listening, was absently noting the quaint pattern of the shoji, the dim light of the andon, and the bamboo mats and tall vases. There was a faint odor about the place that delighted him. Tiny as the house was, John found that he was now the master of three servants. One was a jinrikiman, one a coolie and gardener, and the last his housekeeper and maid-servant. In the morning the glorious sunshine of Japan poured its wealth into his room, waking him from a strangely refreshing sleep. He found, after he had bathed in the delightful water, subtly perfumed like everything else, that he was averse to drawing on his heavy shoes and treading on the exquisite matting. The thin partition-walls, the freshness and cleanliness of everything, delighted him. Immediately after his breakfast, the smiling, round-faced little maid, curtsying and bobbing between the parted shoji, announced that some one awaited him in the zashishi (guest-room), and the minister hastily left the table. His visitor sat in almost the centre of the room; and as he entered she put 12 Part 1: Short Fiction her head prone down on her two hands, spread palm downward on the floor. She remained in this apparently cramped position for some time. “How do you do?” he said, pleasantly. As soon as he spoke, the girl rose to her feet. She was very pretty, despite the demure drooped head, little folded hands, and plain gray kimono, and he felt instinctively that the greater part of her dignity was affected. When he drew forward one of his American chairs, and motioned courteously for her to be seated, she seemed childishly timorous. The chair was so big, and she so small, that she almost disappeared in its depths, her feet reaching only quarter-way to the floor. The minister smiled cheerfully at her, and encouraged thereby, the girl smiled back at him, her face dimpling and her eyes shining, so that she seemed more than ever a child, and very bewitching. “You wish to see me on business?” queried the minister. “Yes. I hear you come at Japan to make nice speeches at our most augustly insignificant and honorably ignorant nation. That so?” She waited a moment for him to say something, but he merely smiled at the way she had put it, and she continued, with a little argumentative air: “Now what I most anxious to learn is, how you going to make those same great speeches at those ignorant people if you don’ can speak Japanese language ?” “Why, I shall have to learn the language, of course,” said John. “Ah,” she said, “tha’s just exactly what I riding after.” “You what?” “Riding to—a—a—maybe you don’ quite understand. Tha’s just liddle bid silly barbarian slang. Excuse me.” “Oh, I see,” he said. “Now what is it you—ah—” “I like to teach you thad same language, so’s you can make those beautiful speeches.” “Ah, that’s it, is it?” He sat down opposite her, and drew up his chair. “You’ve come to apply for a position as teacher; is that the idea?” She inclined her head. “You’ve had some experience?” “Ten years,” she solemnly prevaricated. “Good gracious!” said John. “Why, why, you are much older than I thought.” She bowed gravely. “Well—er—whom do you teach? Have you classes, or—” “I am visiting teacher. I come unto you to teach.” “Have you many pupils?” Part 1: Short Fiction 13 “Most pupils of any teacher in all Tokyo.” She produced a...