CHAPTER III
THE new life which opened up for June was brimming over with interest.Seki San lived in a regular toy house, which was like a lot of littleboxes fitted into one big one. One whole side was open to the garden anda tiny railed balcony ran around outside the rooms. The walls were madeof white paper, and when the sun shone all sorts of pretty shadowsdanced on them, and when it rained everybody ran about to put up thewooden screens, and fasten the house up snug and tight until the showerwas over. A flight of low steps cut in the rock led down to a bamboowicker, and here green lizards sunned themselves all day and blinked infriendly fashion at the passer-by.
The night June arrived he had looked about blankly and said:
"But Seki, there isn't any furniture in your house; haven't you got anybed, or chairs or table?"
And Seki had laughed and told the others and everybody laughed untilJune thought he had been impolite.
"I like it," he hastened to add, "it's the nicest house I ever was in,'cause, don't you see, there isn't anything to break."
It was quite wonderful to see how easily one can get along withoutfurniture. After one has sat on his heels, and slept on the floor andeaten off a tiny table no bigger than a footstool, it seems the mostsensible thing in the world. June did hang up one picture and that was aphotograph of his mother. She had left him two, but one was taken withher hat on.
"I don't like for her always to look as if she was going away!" he saidto Seki San when she wanted to put them both up.
The life, interesting as it was, might have proven lonely, had it notbeen for Seki's younger brother, Toro, who was two years older thanJune. Although neither could understand a word the other said, yet avery great friendship had sprung up between them. "We understand justlike dogs," June explained to Seki San.
All day long the two boys played down by the river bank, paddling aboutin the shallow shimmering water, building boats and putting them out tosea, sailing their kites from the hill top, or best of all, sitting longhours on the parade grounds watching the drilling of the soldiers.
Sometimes when they were very good, Seki San would get permission forthem to play in the daimyo's garden and those days were red-letter daysfor June. The garden was very old and very sacred to the Japanese, forin long years past it had belonged to an old feudal lord, and now it wasthe property of the Emperor.
From the first June had cherished a secret belief that somewhere in itsleafy bowers he would come across the Sleeping Beauty. It was all so oldand so still that even the breezes whispered as they softly stirred thetree-tops. In the very heart of the garden a little blue lake smiled upat the sky above, and all about its edges tall flags of blue and goldthrew their bright reflections in the water below. A high-arched bridgeall gray with moss, led from one tiny island to another, while along theshore old stone lanterns, very stiff and stern, stood sentinel over thequiet of the place. Here and there a tempting little path led back intomysterious deeps of green, and June followed each one with the halfexpectancy of finding the cobwebby old place, and the vine-grown steps,and the Sleeping Beauty within.
One day when they were there, Toro became absorbed in a little house hewas building for the old stork who stood hour after hour under the coolshadow of the arching bridge. June, getting tired of the work, wanderedoff alone, and as he went deeper into the tangle of green, he thoughtmore and more of the Sleeping Beauty.
It was cool and mysterious under the close hanging boughs, and thesunshine fell in white patches on the head of an old stone Buddha, whosenose was chipped off, and whose forefinger was raised in a perpetualadmonition to all little boys to be good. Just ahead a low flight ofstairs led up to a dark recess where a shrine was half concealed by atangle of vines and underbrush. June cautiously mounted the steps; hewas making believe that he was the prince in the fairy-tale, and thatwhen he should push through the barrier of brier roses he would find theSleeping Beauty within the shrine.
As he reached the top step, a sound made him pause and catch his breath.It was not the ripple of the falling water that danced past him down thehillside, it was not the murmur of the wind in the bamboos overhead; itwas the deep regular breathing very close to him of some one asleep. Fora moment June wanted to run away, but then he remembered the golden hairand blue eyes of the princess and with heart beating very fast, hepushed through the underbrush and stumbled over some one lying in thegrass.