Page:Eminent Authors of Contemporary Japan.pdf/105

Rh up freshly in the night, but sad thoughts weighed heavily upon her mind.

The next day, she was able to dress herslfherself [sic] and was going to school as usual, for she felt she must study very hard, or she would have to stay one more year in her present school. Just as she was leaving, Ohatsu told her of her own experience when she first became a woman.

“With me, it was very late. It happened when I was seventeen. I wish I had told you about it earlier. I have often thought of speaking to you, but I feared it might be too early, so I kept silence until now. I think that you better absent yourself from the gymnastic lesson today, Sode-ko-san.”

Uneasy and anxious, blushing and confused at the mere thought of this thing, Sode-ko went off to school. She wanted hard to understand this change, which, once gone through, seems quite a natural thing, and she puzzled hard over the possible reasons for its occurrence. She had been told everything by Ohatsu, but she ardently wished that her dear mother were yet alive and could have folded her in her arms and comforted her at such a time. When she arrived at school she had a feeling that she was not quite the same as usual. She seemed to have lost her freedom, and felt constrained and depressed. She seemed to have been suddenly separated from her playmates of yesterday, and looked sadly at the other children playing merrily with their teacher at ball and skipping-rope in the corner of the playground.