CHAPTER XXIII: CHIYO
We were sitting on the doorstep of the back parlour one evening, looking out across the porch at the moon sailing round and clear in a cloudless sky, and I told her how in Japan, on that very night, every house, from the palace of the Emperor to the hut of his humblest subject, would have on the porch or in the garden where it could catch the glow of the full moon a small table with fruits and vegetables—everything round—arranged in a certain manner, in honour of the goddess of the moon.
“Oh, how pretty!” cried Hanano. “I wish I could be there to see!”
There was the rustling of a newspaper behind us.
“Etsu,” called Matsuo, “there is some kind of a child’s story about that celebration. I remember once when my elder sister and I had been teasing our little sister, who was a timid child, that my aunt told us a story of gentle Lady Moon and naughty Rain and Wind who tried to spoil her pleasure on an August full-moon night.”
“Oh, tell me!” cried Hanano, clapping her hands and running to her father.
“I’m not much on stories,” said Matsuo, taking up his paper again, “but your mother will know it. Etsu, you tell it to her.”
So Hanano came back to the doorstep, and I tried to recall the half-forgotten story of
LADY MOON AND HER ENEMIES
One pleasant evening in August the beautiful Lady Moon was sitting in front of her toilet stand. As she lifted the powder puff to clear and soften her bright colouring she said to herself:
“I must not disappoint the Earth people to-night. Of all the nights of the year they look forward to the ‘Honourable Fifteenth,’ for this is the time when my beauty is at the crown of its glory.”
Turning the mirror a trifle, she carefully arranged her fluffy collar.
“It seems a poor sort of life—to do just nothing but smile and look happy! But that is my only way to gladden the world, so to-night I will shine my brightest and best. And,” she added, as she peeped over the edge of her balcony and saw the Earth beneath, “after all, it is a pleasant duty—especially to-night!”
It was no wonder she smiled with pleasure, for the whole world was decorated in her honour. Every city and town, every little village, every lonely hut on the mountain-side, and every humble fisher cot on the shore had upon its porch or placed in front where it could be seen by the eye of the Lady Moon a tiny table laden with treasure balls. There were rice dumplings, chestnuts, potatoes, persimmons, peas, and plums, and, standing in their midst, two circular sake vases, holding, stiff and upright, their folded white papers. Everything had been carefully selected as being the nearest a perfect round in shape that could be obtained, for “round” is the symbol of perfection, and on this night only the very best of everything was considered worthy to be shown to the pure and perfect “Lady of the Sky.”
Mistress Rain, who lived near Lady Moon, peered through her misty windows with envious eyes. She saw the Earth houses decorated in honour of her neighbour,