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Updated: May 29, 2025
"Ah, Komatsu old maid. He not marry." "No, no, Komatsu is a man," said Billie trying not to laugh. "Old maid is a woman who has no husband, like Miss Campbell." "Old maid," repeated Onoye, and because of what happened that very evening, it was evident that the retentive Japanese memory had not lost the words. In the afternoon there came a characteristic note from Mr. Campbell to his cousin.
Billie surprised the little Japanese girl sitting up examining her arm, which was wrapped in bandages. "Why, Onoye, I didn't know you had been injured," she exclaimed, running over and kneeling beside the sick girl. Onoye was speechless. She tried to cover her arm with the sleeve of her kimono and to apologize and bow all at the same time. "Not muchly badly," she said at last in a low voice.
And now the little son, for whom the two women had yearned with a passion that is extraordinarily deep in Japanese women, had been gathered to his forefathers. Onoye was dumb and silent with misery during his brief illness. When he died, she had disappeared for a few days and returned at last calm and still. No one had seen her shed a tear.
The next morning Mr. Campbell engaged another night watchman. His duty was to patrol the inside of the house, making his rounds every hour through the halls and living rooms. Between times he sat in the library. "Where is Onoye, O'Haru?" Miss Campbell asked, a few days after the excitement in the library. "Honorable Madam, Onoye much business."
He had been sent with a telegram from Mr. Campbell's office, but it had been written in Japanese and had to be translated. Mr. Campbell hurried back to the house and called Onoye: "Read this for me if you can," he ordered. Onoye looked at the strange script a long time. Then she read slowly: "'O'Nainci San gone Tokyo. No honorable telling before for why she make those journey "
"I want you to go back to America with me and be educated, child," said the kind little lady, "and after a few years, you may return to Japan and teach the women here how to be independent." Onoye had joyfully and gratefully consented to this arrangement, providing she might act as Miss Campbell's maid in the meantime. O'Haru had made an heroic effort to be glad, also.
"There is nothing like a little pleasure for driving acidity out of the system," she thought, as she finished the last spoonful of her dessert of beautifully preserved fruits. Onoye had entered, carrying a small lacquered tray on which lay a square, foreign-looking visiting card. "A lady calling to the honorable old maid," she announced calmly at Miss Campbell's elbow. "The what?" cried Mr.
The Japanese reasons thus: if the work is done properly, it is of no consequence who does it. Certainly the machinery of the household moved on without a hitch. There was no cause for complaint, but it seemed to Miss Campbell that if Onoye received wages she should appear about the house.
They exchanged low, ceremonious bows and Onoye hurried away, while O'Kami turned to the mystified young-Americans with an apologetic smile. "Receive excuses and pardon grant," she said. Billie made a superhuman effort not to laugh, while Mary stooped to break off a spray of azaleas and Elinor examined intently a stunted pine tree planted in a big green jar near the path.
At this juncture in the conversation, Onoye announced a visitor who proved to be a detective. He was a quiet, self-contained young Japanese who spoke excellent English. He had been sent out in a motor car by the Chief of Police to find out all he could from the Americans regarding Mme. Fontaine. The Widow of Shanghai, he informed them, was the child of a Russian father and a Japanese mother.
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