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Updated: June 14, 2025
About this time another event occurred which occasioned no small excitement in our little community. Robineau, the striker from the blacksmith establishment at Sugar Creek, near the Four Lakes, arrived one very cold day at the Agency. He had come to procure medical aid for Mâtâ's eldest daughter, Sophy, who, while sliding on the lake, had fallen on the ice and been badly hurt.
It was as if Mata's face looked suddenly upon her with the old abbot's eyes. Fantastic possibilities crouched, ready to spring from every shadow. The low shrubs held themselves in attitudes of flight. This was a world in which she had no part. She knew herself a paradox, the violator of a mood; but the enchantment held her. She had reached now the edge of the pond.
In the deep, following silence each knew that old Mata's ear felt, like a hand, at the crevice of the shoji. "Father, are you sure, have you yet spoken to to him," Umè-ko faltered at last. "Would he augustly condescend?" "Condescend!" echoed the old man with a laugh. "Why, he demanded it last night, even in the first hour of meeting. He was angered that I did not give you up at once.
Warruk glided out upon the sand so silently and stealthily that he was like a shadow flowing over the ground. Straight as an arrow he went, retracing his steps of the previous afternoon and in a few minutes he stood before the entrance of Mata's shelter. None stirred inside but his ears caught the sound of deep breathing. There was no hesitation, no indecision. One quick bound and he had entered.
A moment later he had finished his meal, and rose to go. Kano moved restlessly on the mats. He drew out the solace of a little pipe, but his nervous fingers fumbled and shook so, that the slim rod of bamboo tipped with silver escaped him, and went clattering down among the empty dishes of the tray. Mata's apprehensive face showed instantly at a parting of the kitchen fusuma.
They made a train that filled the neighbors' eyes with wonder and Mata's swelling heart with pride. There were lacquered chests and cases of drawers, all filled with clothing. Each great square package was covered with a decorated cloth, and swung from a gilded staff borne on the shoulders of two stout coolies.
With Mata's assistance, not to mention a small colony of hirelings, the floors were fitted with new mats, the woodwork of the walls, the posts, and veranda floors polished to a mirror-like brightness, and even the tiny garden set with new turf and flowering plants.
Umè-ko, now in her little chamber across the narrow passage, with a bit of bright-colored sewing on her knees, could hear each word of the dialogue. Mata's shrill voice and the priest's deep tones each carried well. The girl smiled to herself, realizing as she did the conflict between love of gossip and disapproval of Shingon priests that now made a paltry battlefield of the old dame's mind.
She listened now with bated breath, thinking that by some unconscious cry she might have aroused the others. No, Kano breathed on softly, regularly, in the next room; while from the kitchen wing came unfaltering the beat of Mata's nasal metronome. In one such startled interval of waking her caged cricket had given out its plaintive cry.
"O kinodoku Sama, my spirit is poisoned by your grief," murmured the other, sympathetically. "Yet, in your place, I should find great comfort in the outfit of your mistress. Never, even in the sewing halls of princes, could more beautiful silks be gathered." She looked about slowly, with the air of a professional who sees something really worthy of regard. Mata's face cleared.
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