Chapter 7

“Seki San, have you got a big enderlope?” June asked the question from the door-step where he was sitting with his chin in his hand and a very worried look in his face.

It was two days after his visit to Monsieur and the big letter was still buttoned in his blouse. He had started to mail it as soon as he reached home, but just as he was ready to drop it in the box, he discovered that every “s” turned the wrong way! It was a dreadful blow to his pride, for the rest of the address was quite imposing with big flourishing capitals that stood like generals over the small letters, and dots that would have surely put out all the “i’s” had they fallen on them. He never could send Monsieur’s letter with the “s’s” looking backward, he must try to set them straight again.

So, very carelessly, in order not to excite suspicion, he asked Seki for pen and ink. He had written many letters to his mother and father, but always in pencil, and Seki hesitated about giving him ink.

She said: “Our ink not like your American ink, live and quick as water, it hard like paint. We not use pen, but brush like which you write pictures. I sink it more better you use pencil.”

But June insisted and when he gained his point, he carried the small box into the garden and took out his letter. The jar containing his goldfish was close by, so he dipped his stick of paint into the water and rubbed it vigorously on the paint box. At the last moment just as his brush was poised in the air, he had a moment of misgiving, “maybe ‘s’s’ do turn that way!” he said, but the brush full of paint was a temptation not to be resisted, so he took each little “s” by its tail and turned it inside out. The paper was soft and thin and took the ink like blotting paper. June watched with dismay as the lines spread into ugly blots, and when he tried to make the letters plainer he only made the blots bigger until they all seemed to join hands and go dancing over the envelope in fiendish glee at his discomfort.

For two days he had tried to think of a way out of the difficulty but before he could find one he would get interested in something else and forget about the letter. It was only when it felt stiff inside of his blouse that he remembered, and then he would stop playing and try again to solve the problem. At last in desperation he appealed to Seki San for an envelope.