University of Virginia Library

So long ago that it seemed like a vague dream she remembered a fond little mother, who had waited on her hand and foot, and had obeyed her small imperious will. She remembered that they were on a dream ship, which went sailing on and on and on. There had seemed to be no ending to that long, tedious journey. Small wonder—it had taken them ten months to come from Japan to America in one of the old-fashioned, slow-sailing vessels. Yuri had once loved the sea. Always she was with the little mother, who would sit in front of her on the deck and tell her fairy tales of a great and wonderful prince, yes! a beautiful king, who had come all the way from a great country called "America," just for the sake of marrying poor little Madame Sunbeam, and this great prince was Yuri's very own father. They were going to America to seek him. Then the mother would tell Yuri how his hair shone like the bright gold in the Kwannon [2] temple; his eyes were blue as the endless glow of the sea, and he was tall, tall as a young pine tree. And so Yuri's heart became surfeited with tales of this wonderful father of hers, whom she had never seen, but whom they were going to.

Then one night a big, foreign, red-haired man, dressed in dark blue clothes, with big gold buttons on his coat, strolled across the deck and talked jestingly with the little mother. It was a beautiful night. Yuri remembered it distinctly, for the moon touched the waters to a silvery shimmering splendor that gave it the glow of magic.

"You sit up late, Madame Sunbeam," he said lightly.

"Yaes. I luf vaery much the—the night."

"Is the mat soft on which you sit?"

"Yaes."

"Let me get you a softer one. Ah! that's better. This your little girl?" He put his hand on Yuri's head and patted it, then he turned her little face up.

"She is very pretty. Does not look Japanese at all," he said with puzzled eyes.

Yuri's mother smiled happily.

"Ah! august Americazan, my child ees nod Japanese. Her fadder—a beautiful prince mans from the West;" she waved her hand across the water.

The officer whistled under his breath.

"And where are you going?"

"To my hosban'—an tell him thad he got one liddle childs—six years ole. I tekin' her there long time ago, bud whad kin I do? I mus' stay at Japan, mek money for thad old modder and fadder. Now they daed—we going now to thad hosban'," she added after a moment very softly, "an' thad fadder."

The tall man got up abruptly and took a few slow strides across the deck. Yuri crept nearer to her mother.

"Does my fadder loog' lig' thad?" she murmured.

"No," the mother answered reproachfully, "jus' liddle bit lig' thad" (they always spoke English to each other), "he grade deal more beautifullest."

The strange man came back to them.

"What was your husband's name?" he inquired.

"Willum."

"William what?"

She shrugged her shoulders, smiling confidently.

"Heavens! how do you expect to find him?"

Madame Sunbeam smiled blissfully. She drew a dainty card from the bosom of her kimono. The American took it. It bore the name of one of Chicago's most prominent citizens—a millionaire, and—a married man! Perhaps the officer meant to be kind. I do not know. But he told Madam Sunbeam the truth, adding in a strangely muffled voice that it was best she should not be deceived any longer.

Yuri remembered all this very distinctly, because her mother had cried out for a moment, and then had left her all alone, a pitiful, lonely, crying heap on the deck. Yuri crept down to the little cabin, as children do, toddling tumblingly down the stairs, one little foot following the other. The mother was lying on the floor—asleep. Yuri crept to her and kissed her, for she was smiling and looked very beautiful. Then something dark and red colored her little hand and she screamed aloud in terror, for she was very frightened as she knew not what.

Yuri cried all that long night through, for they carried her mother from her—two big, tall men. Some of the beautiful ladies on the ship had cried, and one of them had taken Yuri in her arms and tried to soothe her. She never saw her mother again. That was years and years ago.

Yuri was nineteen years old now. She wore American clothes—a cotton shirtwaist and cloth skirt, but in her bosom she, too, carried a little card, as her mother had done, and the girl knew it bore her father's name.

Some kind American woman had given the little waif a home when they had arrived. She was a poor woman, however, and as soon as Yuri was old enough she secured her a position in one of the large dry-goods stores of Chicago, and here the girl had worked ever since. Her life had been uneventful since then. She worked from eight in the morning till six at night, and her beautiful little half-foreign face bore the pallor of the shop-clerk. The girl was a dreamer. If she had ambition it had been smothered from the stern necessity of the moment. Her kind benefactor had died, and she was left utterly alone in the world and altogether dependent on herself. Mechanically she took up the burden of life, going to and from work each day, ever gentle and courteous to her fellow-workers, never familiar with them, knowing none of them intimately. Instinctively the girl felt she was different from them, and she shrank in her supersensitiveness from mixing with companions who were as foreign to her as if they had lived in different parts of the world all their lives.

Yuri was beautiful, with a wild, inexplicable beauty that defied description. She did not look Japanese. She did not look American. Her face was mysterious in its dusky mixed beauty, but the immeasurable wistfulness and sadness of the half-breed were stamped indelibly on her features and reflected in the somber depths of her dark eyes.