Japanese nature: it is a national trait.

"There is no prospect that isn't graceful and picturesque," thought Mary
watching an old fruit and vegetable man in front of them. He wore a dull
blue cotton tunic much faded but still a heavenly color, and on either
end of a pole resting on his shoulders was a flat brown basket filled
with small oranges and vegetables of an unknown variety. Behind him
walked an old woman in a dull brown and purple dress with an orange sash
around her waist. Her back was burdened with a great bundle of bark. The
sun was hot and many of the wayfarers carried paper umbrellas. Most of
the women had babies swung on their backs and sometimes shiny little
black eyes peeped out from the front of a kimono, the mother's arms being
engaged in supporting another burden on her back.

"It seems to me the women work very hard in this country," remarked
Elinor severely, pointing to a cart filled with charcoal propelled by two
women and a man. One of the women had a baby on her back and another
child holding to her skirts.

"They do," said Mary. "Even the women in the upper classes have to work
hard. Don't you remember what the missionary on the steamer told us? The
wife is always the first one up in the household no matter how many
servants she has. She has to bring her mean old mother-in-law a cup of
tea and get out her husband's clothes. The mother-in-law has had to work
so hard when she was a daughter-in-law that she takes it out on her son's
wife later."

"I'd like to see an American wife ridden by her mother-in-law that way,"
broke in Elinor indignantly.