Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-05-07


But love, they say, is hei'nin as we'll as
shiSokn, commoner as well as noble And
the shut-up Island people who reached out so
eagerly to grasp the many things they saw to be
good in Western civilization do not marvel if
now and again there creep into their lives
phases of possibility they had not contemplated.
There is nothing about the house of Kudo
Juklcm to indicate the quality of those who
dwell within except the little wooden slab fast
ened over the door. No spacious grounds sur
round it. Its walls show the soft gray of rain
beaten age. Even the tiles of the roof laid
with care cognizant of earthquake and bitter
storm, seem to have lost patience and to be
ready to slide down in scorn of their owner The
lone plum-tree, that stands like garden sentinel
in the corner of the little fower-plot in front,
touched by the general air of decay, struggles
ftfully in the cloudy spring to thrust forth
here and there a blossom in remembrance of
happier days. To the casual passer-by there is
no object to attract attention, except perhaps
the single over the door, proclaiming accord
ing to law, to all who care to stop and read
that in this house of little ease, at No on
Lower Timber-st., lives a gentleman of the
Empire, Kudo Jtlichi by name
Scarcely hundred yards distant, around the
corner on Azalea-st there confronts the curious
observer a striking evidence of the change the
Western life has brought Prosperity
radiates from the substantial house and pleasant
garden, and all the place is infolded in its
ample mantle. But money is not everything
in the Island Empire yet, however rapidly its
power'is advancing, you may see by reading
the cedar ticket over the door, duly setting
forth, without attempt at subterfuge the fact
that comnoner occupies that comfortable
dwelling, Mr. Kutami Chobei
What cares the commoner Kutami that his
humble station is thus pacarded over his hos
pitable door? But hand-breadth back in the
space OF years even that poor title seemed a
measure of hopeless distinction to him. In the
yesterday when neighbor Kudo wore the
naughty sword of Samurai his weapon would
have leaped from it's scornful scabbard if Kutam
the Eta, however accidentally, had polluted his
presence. Better far to be one of the multitude
in the oblivion of the commoners than one of
the marked few in the despised class of the out
t. cast Etas. And so Kutami blessed the fate
that had brought the Western ideas, abolishne
Samurai and Eta, and setting both free and
equal before the law, face to face with the
world-old problem of life and its individual
opportunities and rewards
He was proud of himself in a humble way,
proud of the success he had won from stub
born conditions by his wit and work, proud
of the son Soichi, who had helped him SO we'll
proud of the new nation that had given him
chance and loyal to it with the last drop of
blood OF himself or his family And yet with
that the great change meant to him and to
son, it was not without a secret sympathy that
saw the hard and harder fortune increasing d;
brought to his gentle neighbor. He was used
the buffets of unkind circumstance They troub
not at all the erstwhie Eta, accustomed from
earliest recollection to sights and scorn, and
hard struggle for himself. But Kudo the Samui
valiant soldier and skilful swordsman that he /
been, was 1nept IN the rough-and- tumble scram
Tor existence. And perhaps deep down in his he
kutam still found some of the time revere,
for the nobly born.
He was revolving these things in his mind