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Updated: June 1, 2025
Yuki Chan's house was typical. The paper screens were carefully put away during the day, that the breezes might play unobstructed through the house. At night the heavy wooden doors were fitted into grooves and served not only to keep out the night air, but also the evil spirits that come abroad when the great sun ceases watching.
The boy, looking on, began to laugh, a laugh that began in his eyes, ran over his face and down into his throat, whence it came again in a shout of boyish merriment. Yuki Chan, looking from him to the smiling jinrikisha man, grew crimson with anger. With a swift movement she ran toward the ditch. Divining her purpose by the look in her eyes, Dick Merrit went gallantly to the rescue of the kitten.
She carefully directed the tying on of the various trunks and bags, and placed the family just where they should stand that the greatest honor might be done the departing guest. As Merrit came out of the little house and reached for his shoes, which stood waiting at the side, Yuki San started toward him, eager to serve him to the last. Merrit motioned her back. "Don't come too near, Yuki San.
"No, not until you and Kid have had dinner," gayly contradicted the girl. "We've had ours. But Yuki always has something ready. Kid, if you'll show Mr. Ashton where to wash, I'll tell Yuki." She darted through the open doorway into the house. At a curt nod from Gowan, Ashton followed him around to the far side of the house, leaving Knowles in the act of hastily reloading his pipe.
When the men of the Yuki tribe in California were away fighting, the women at home did not sleep; they danced continually in a circle, chanting and waving leafy wands. For they said that if they danced all the time, their husbands would not grow tired.
That night Yuki San lay once more on her soft futon and watched the shadow of the night-lamp play upon the screens. Nothing was changed in the homely room since she had lain there in her babyhood: the same little lamp, the same little Buddha on the shelf looking at her with inscrutable eyes. Yuki San stirred restlessly. "Dat most nice girl in picture," she said to herself.
This, too, fell short of her ideal, so she decided to send simply two words of which she was quite sure: "Please come." The days that followed were crowded with busy preparation. The difficulty of providing the ease and comfort that the presence of so honorable a guest demanded taxed to the utmost Yuki San's resourceful nature.
The things, however, that made Yuki Chan clap her hands and the nesting birds perk up their heads at the sound of her clear, sweet laugh were the funny little lacquer carts in which the royalty was supposed to ride, drawn by impossible fat bullocks, so bow-legged that their curves formed a big round O. Yuki Chan made her red lips into the same shape, and called her mother to look.
This was the third day of the third month, which in the long ago was set apart as the big birthday of all little girls born in the lovely island, and was celebrated by the Festival of Dolls. Yuki Chan lay with her slim body stretched in the warmth of the sun.
Five times Yuki San rewrote the short message, finding her fingers less deft than her tongue in framing an English sentence. Gravely and with effort she wrote: "I give you all my house. Your lovely friend, Yuki." But she shook her head over this and tried again: "You have the welcome of my heart. Yuki."
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