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Updated: June 26, 2025
Some weeks before she had returned to Hijiyama practically penniless, which was bad, and a widow, which made it very difficult to marry her off again; but worse still was the half-breed child she had brought with her, a daughter of about seventeen. This girl, whose name was Zura, I soon found was the sore spot in Kishimoto San's grievance, the center around which his storm of trouble brewed.
He surprised me this day by referring in detail to the bitter grief which had come to him in years gone by through his only child. I had heard the story outside, but not even remotely had Kishimoto San ever before hinted that he possessed a child.
Then from the way my visitor half shut his eyes and looked at me, I knew something more was coming. "Americans are a great people, but disagree with their wonderfulness." "You mean they are inconsistent?" I suggested. Kishimoto San, being too much in earnest to search for the proper English, dropped into Japanese "Yes, the old proverb fits them, 'A physician breaking the rules of health."
She entered into the activities of the household with such amazing zest, it seemed as if we were playing kitchen furniture. While it surprised me how one young girl could so disturb regular working hours and get things generally a-flutter, I could easily see that all she needed was a chance to be herself. That was the point that Kishimoto had to understand and would not.
To me she was like some wild, free bird, caught in a net, old, but very strong, for its meshes were made from a relentless law. I made my adieu with what grace I could and left. On my way home I met Kishimoto San. Omitting details, I told him Zura declined to come to my house for lessons. "So! My granddaughter announced she will not? I shall give her a command to obey."
He was like a figure of the Past demanding reverence and a hearing from the Present. For the time he won his point and I was glad, for it was Kishimoto San's last public speech. Soon after he was stricken with a lingering illness. In previous talks he had neither asked after his granddaughter nor referred to her.
Then one day, about a month after my family had been enlarged, I had just wheeled my newly acquired responsibility out in the garden to sun when Kishimoto San called. He often came for consultation. While his chief interest in life was to keep Hijiyama strictly Japanese and rigidly Buddhist, he was also superintendent of schools for his district and educational matters gave us a common interest.
From accounts the situation between Kishimoto San and his granddaughter was not a happy one. The passing weeks had not brought reconciliation to them nor to the conditions. It had come almost to open warfare.
Darkness, tender as love itself, folded about them, and I went my peaceful way. Two long-to-be-remembered months passed swiftly. Mr. In the fullness of her joy Zura was quite ready to forgive and be forgiven, and said so very sincerely to her grandfather. Kishimoto San replied in a way characteristic.
But both law and religion failed him when it came to dealing with this child who had come to him from a free land across the sea and whose will had the same adamant quality as his own. While I was turning over in my mind how I should help either the girl or the man, I ventured to change the subject by consulting Kishimoto San upon important school matters. The effort was useless.
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