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By Root 4119 0

Mrs. Mark Whipple's rolling Red Cross bandages. The latter experience had been a trying one, for every woman in the room had at least one son in the Two-Two-Two except Mrs. Whipple, and her husband commanded it. Therefore, the conversation, which most of the Japanese women could not participate in, had to be about the war in Italy and the heavy casualties which the Japanese boys were suffering, but whenever grief began to stalk the room, Mrs. Whipple, one of the Hale girls, invariably brought up some new and cheering fact. Once she said, "President Roosevelt himself has announced that our boys are among the bravest that have fought under the Stars and Stripes." Later she said, "Time magazine this week reports that when our boys reached Salerno on leave, the other troops at the railway station cheered them as they disembarked." Mrs. Whipple always referred to the Japanese soldiers as "our boys," and other haoles in Hawaii were beginning to do the same.

So the afternoon had been, an emotional one, regardless of whether the talk was of casualties or of triumphs, and Mrs. Sakagawa, whose feet were sore from the American shoes she felt obligated to wear, reached home eager for rest. Instead, she found her husband at home rather than in the barbershop, and she knew that something dire had happened. Before she could ask, Kamejiro shouted, "A fine daughter you raised! She's in love with a haole!"

The words were the harshest that Mrs. Sakagawa could have heard. There were some Japanese girls, she had to admit, who went openly with haoles, but they were not from self-respecting families, and there were a few who under the pressure of war had become prostitutes, but she suspected that these were really either Etas or Okinawans. It was unlikely that any Japanese girl, mindful of the proud blood that flowed in her veins . . .

"And Sakai took his daughter out of the barbershop lest she become contaminated too, and Hasegawa is removing his daughter tomorrow." He was about to cry, "We are ruined," but an even deeper concern overcame him, and he fell into a chair, sinking his head on his forearms and sobbing, "Our family has never known shame before."

Mrs. Sakagawa, who refused to believe that her daughter could have brought disgrace upon the family, kicked off her American shoes, wriggled her toes in comfort, and kneeled beside her distraught husband. "Kamejiro," she whispered, "we taught Reiko how to be a good Japanese. I am sure she will not disgrace us. Somebody has told you a great lie."

Violently the little dynamiter thrust his wife aside and strode across the room. "I saw them! She was almost kissing him in public. And I've been thinking. Where was she that afternoon she said she didn't feel well? Out with a haole. And where was she when she said she was going to a cinema? Riding in a dark car with a haole. I heard a car stop that night, but I was too stupid to put two and two together."

At this moment Reiko-chan, flushed with love and the brisk walk home, entered and saw immediately from her parents' faces that her secret had been discovered. Her father said simply, with a heartbreaking gasp, "My own daughter! With a haole!" Her mother was still ready to dismiss the whole scandal and asked, "It isn't true, is it?"

Reiko-chan, her dark eyes warm with the inner conviction that was to sustain her through the impending argument, replied, "I am in love, and I want to get married."

No one spoke. Kamejiro fell back into a chair and buried his face. Mrs. Sakagawa stared at her daughter in disbelief and then began, to treat her with exaggerated solicitude, as if she were already illegally pregnant. Reiko smiled in quiet amusement, but then her stricken father gave an appalling gasp, and she knelt beside him, saying quickly, "Lieutenant Jackson is a wonderful man, Father. He's understanding, and he's lived in Japan. He has a good job in Seattle, but he thinks he may settle here after the war." She hesitated, for her words were not being heard, and then added, "Wherever he goes, I want to go with him."

Slowly her father pushed himself