Emmerich Manual High School - Ivian Yearbook (Indianapolis, IN)

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The Soul of Japan DURING the Great Peace in Japan there were two clans, the Fujiwara and Taira. The Taira were all powerful. The Mikado was but a puppet in its hands, since he was kept in its stronghold and surrounded with all manner of weaken- ing influences. Now the leaders of the Fujiwara were two powerful bakufu (nobles), Hojo and his brother. Hojo, early trained as a Samurai, most honored of the land, was set in his purpose to remove his Mikado from the influence of the Taira and make him what he was thought to be, the ruler of the world. So he received the two swords, the armor and the ring of the Samurai, and after two years ' comradeship with them, he had pledged a band to rescue the Mikado. A month before the time set for an attack upon the Taira stronghold, Hojo was guarding a cleft in a precipice on the seacoast near his own castle. Not far away was an eta village. From time beyond which the oldest men had no knowledge, the eta had been outcasts. They were considered of another race, and were prohibited from living with, or worshipping the same gods as, the Samurai. Their touch was contam- ination and they were forced to perform the most menial of tasks. It happened one day that as a maiden approached, his companions shrank, menacing her with their swords, crying, Eta ! eta ! Hojo likewise shrank back, for what right had an eta to walk on the ground trod by a Samurai ? But for an instant their glances met, and thenceforth there was no peace in his heart. As he watched on the cliff with the sea thundering beneath him he thought of her constantly. He, a Samurai, loved a despised eta. In the night he went to the Shrine of the Silver Lake. The moonlit lake reflected the ringed bamboo half hiding the sacred shrine and was polluted by the image of a Samurai, traitor to his vows. He felt his ancestors raging at him, and scorning him, who had betrayed their faith. To get the maiden meant everlasting separation from his country, his Mikado and his own blood. His ambition to rescue his Mikado would be lost. The maiden, seemingly carried by the moonlight, floated across the lake and beckoned to him. Ungirding his swords and armor he laid them beside the shrine, and with one last look at the spot to which he could never return, went down the path, through the Torii, or Sacred Gateway, to his own castle. He told his brother and aged father of his struggle and decision. He finished, fell upon his knees and begged forgiveness, but his father drew away. Do you forget you were a Samurai and bakufu, and now are an eta? You are no longer my son ; I have but one son. Go! A band of Tartar sea rovers had been beaten off, and the dead were yet lying where they had fallen. Near a heap of slain invaders, blocking a cleft in a great cliff, lay an old man in the garb of an eta. Over him a woman crouched and wept. With his right hand he pressed a sword of the Samurai to his forehead and on his finger was a curiously wrought ring with the letters Yamato Damashi, meaning the Soul of Japan. Lex Dickey, ' 06. Eng. VII.

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A First Valentine HE first valentine that I have cause to remember was received when I was six years old. On the morning of February the four- teenth of that year I was very much disappointed not to receive my usual valentine from my parents when the mailman came. Being assured that the St. Valentine Day ' s Santa Claus would bring it after I was in school, and as my brother was to allow me to go with him to spend all of ten cents for a valentine to be given his teacher, my disappointment was soon forgotten. Oh, the pleasure of purchasing that valentine! First we stood a long time before the gayly decorated drug-store windows, partly to determine upon the valentine we liked best, but most of all to enjoy the consciousness that we had more right than any of the other children to stare in at the beautiful love- offerings, for were we not to spend more money than any of them 7 Then after taking a trip of inspection to the windows of another drug-store in the vicinity, we decided on the first one. Although we entered pompously, we were overcome with nerv- ousness by the time we reached the counter and the grave-looking drug-store-man asked us what we wished. However, when one of us failed in words, the other was ready to take up the request, and between us the clerk was made to understand that we wanted the prettiest valentine in the window. But, alas, it cost more than ten cents. Then we had to make another choice and somehow there wasn ' t half as much time to make it in as there was when we were outside. Finally we decided on one, and what a brilliant one ! Every color of the rainbow was represented and the gold and lace paper were not lacking. Inside was written in beautiful verse, the undying love of the giver and the humble request that the recipient would be his valentine. Not that we selected it for what it said — oh no, for no one paid any attention to that ; all that was necessary was a pretty picture with lace paper, and the more colors, the better. How proudly my brother carried that valentine to school, holding it stiffly with both hands before him ! As a special favor he allowed me to carry it while he counte twenty-five. All that morning I found myself thinking of the wonderful valentine and how pleased the teacher would be with it. Imagine, then, how surprised I was wher I met my brother coming home from school carrying disconsolately under his arm, tb valentine. In answer to my excited questions I found that he Didn ' t like that teacher nohow, and after much diplomacy, that she had caught him whispering and had put him in the corner. And then came the joyous part of it all. He presented me with the valentine saying, Now Sis, I ' m going to give you this valentine, but you must promise never, never, never to tattle-tale on me, and you must always do just ezackely what I say, and you must give me half of all your cakes an apples for morether nor two weeks, So little to give for so much happiness! ®