the years of only one man’s life—represented such a marvellous advance in national growth that sometimes I looked upon him almost with awe, wondering how much real value should be attached to antiquity. “Perhaps,” I sometimes said to myself, “it would be better not to look back with such pride to a glorious past; but instead, to look forward to a glorious future. One means quiet satisfaction; the other, ambitious work.”
One evening, after Matsuo and I had been over to call on the General, Miss Helen walked back with us across the drawbridge. Matsuo went on to join Mother on the porch, and Miss Helen and I sat down on the step of the bridge, as we often did, to talk.
“When Father told that story about Molly Pitcher,” said Miss Helen, “I wondered if you were thinking about Japanese women.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Well,” she replied hesitatingly, “several times I’ve heard you say that American women are like Japanese. I don’t see that Molly Pitcher is much of a Japanese specimen.”
“Oh, you don’t know Japanese history,” I exclaimed. “We have many women heroes in Japan.”
“Yes, of course,” said Miss Helen quickly. “In every country there are heroic women who rise to noble sacrifice on occasion. But they are exceptions. Books and travellers all speak of Japanese women as being quiet, soft-spoken, gentle, and meek. That picture doesn’t apply to the American type of women.”
“The training is different,” I said, “but I think that at heart they are much the same.”
“Well,” said Miss Helen, “when it becomes the fashion for us to wear our hearts on our sleeves, perhaps we will appear gentle and meek. But,” she added as she rose to go, “I don’t believe that Japanese men think as you do.
