Little Ronnie took the mouse in a trap to the cat, opened the trap, released the little mouse upon which the cat pounced, then Ronnie ate the bait which was a peanut.
Oura, dark and anxious, sat in the arbor yesterday looking out toward the blue range and overseeing the garden workers. Miss McKim says he knows none of the polite Japanese language at all, only the strange guttural peasant tongue of his section which few of them here understand. I keep feeling interested in him, such a lonely figure, misunderstood even by his own countrymen, in a position beyond his powers, trying not to fail by desperate effort, somewhat controlled by the big brute army type, Sakashita, watched by Masaki for his reported failures. He is tired of a hard life, tired of waiting for death which is the only release he can see ahead out toward the mountains. He feels hate and dislike all around him. Oura has all the making of revolution in him. Every line of him tells of eating bitterness. He should not be fighting Filipino farmers at all. I think about him, adding each bit of information to the mosaic of his character. I would like to talk with him, hear his story in simple peasant words, then have it translated simply. It would have a tragic power, I am sure. Peg and Jerry
cannot see this—they detest Oura’s mean, narrow provincialism. No one sees what is behind it.