d
drank tea out of cups as big as thimbles. Jack says Japanese
teacups ought to be forbidden; in a moment of forgetfulness they
could so easily slip down with the tea.

It had been many a year since I was so separated from my kind and
each hour of isolation makes clearer a thing I 've never doubted,
but sometimes forget, that the happiest woman is she whose every
moment is taken up in being necessary to somebody; and to such,
unoccupied minutes are like so many drops of lead. That, with a
telegram I read telling of the increasing dangers of the plague in
Manchuria, threatened to send me headlong into a spell of anxiety
and the old terrible loneliness.

Happily the proprietor and his wife headed it off by asking me if I
would be their guest for this evening to see the Bon Matsuri, the
beautiful Festival of the Dead. On the thirteenth day of the
seventh month, all the departed spirits take a holiday from Nirvana
or any other seaport they happen to be in and come on a visit to
their former homes to see how it fares with the living. Poor
homesick spirits! Not even Heaven can compensate for the
separation from beloved country and friends. As we passed along,
the streets were alight with burning rushes placed at many doors to
guide the spiritual excursionists. Inside, the people were
praying, shrines were decorated and children in holiday dress
merrily romped. Why, Mate, it was worth being a ghost just to come
back and see how happy everybody was. For on this night of nights,
cares and sorrows are doubly locked in a secret place and the key
put carefully away. You couldn't find a coolie so heartless as to
show a shadow of trouble to his ghostly relatives when they return
for so brief a time to hold happy communion with the living. He
may be hungry, he may be sick, but there is a brave smile of
welcome on his lips for the spirits.

The crazy old temple at the foot of the mountain, glorified by a
thousand lights and fluttering flags, reaped a harvest of _rins_
and _rens_ paid to the priests for paper prayers and bamboo
flower-holders with which to decorate the graves. The cemetery was
on the side of the hill, and every step of the way somebody stopped
at a stone marker to fasten a lantern to a small fishing-pole and
pin a prayer near by. This was to guide the spirit to his own
particular spot.

A breeze as soft as a happy sigh came through the pines and gently
rocked the lanterns. The dim figures of the wor