Wason DS825 o J *-* ASIA ■ ■ Plilllil ■JH 8lil!I mmm iliiil Warn / m P§ CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THE WASON COLLECTION THIS BOOK IS THE GIFT OF Nixon Griff is Cornell University Library DS 825.S55 A Japanese boy by himself 3 1924 023 231 032 The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 924023231 032 A JAPANESE BOY BY HIMSELF NEW HAVEN, CONN. B, B. SHELDON & CO, 1889, COPYRIGHTED, 1889, By SHIUKICHI SHIGEMI. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. MY BIBTHPLACE — MY GBANDFATHEB — TENJINSAN, 7 CHAPTER II. OLD-FASHIONED SCHOOL — MY SCHOOLMASTEB — THE SCHOOL-HOUSE, 14 CHAPTER III. THE KITCHEN — DINNEB — FOOD, .... 19 CHAPTER IV. GAMES — NEW SCHOOL — IMITATING THE WEST — MOBE ABOUT MY SCHOOLMASTEB — PUNISHMENTS AT SCHOOL 25 CHAPTER V. BATHS — EVENINGS AT HOME — JAPANESE DANCING AND MUSIC, 33 CHAPTER VI. AMATEUE ACTOB6 AND EEAI. ACTOBS AND AC- TBESSES — JAPANESE THEATBE, . . . .45 CHAPTER VII. WBESTLING — STOBY-TELLEES — PICNIC AND PICNIC GBOUNDS — AN OLD CASTLE AND A TBADITION, 57 3 4 CONTENTS. PAGE CHAPTER VIII. ANGLING— A PIOUS OLD LADY AND HER ADVENT- URES, 67 CHAPTER IX. THE YAITO — A WITCH-WOMAN — AUNT OTSUN*5, MISS CHRYSANTHEMUM AND MR. PROSPERITY, . . 75 CHAPTER X. NEW-YEAR'S DAY — THE MOCHI-MAKING — OLD-TIME OBSERVANCES, 87 CHAPTER XI. KITE-FLYING — HOW I MADE MY KITE — MY UNCLE AND HIS BIG KITE — OTHER NEW-YEAR GAMES — HOW WE END OUR NEW-YEAR HOLIDAYS, . 96 CHAPTER XII. OTHER JAPANESE HOLIDAYS — TANABATA AND INOKO, THE BOYS' DAYS— THE SHINTOISTIC AND BUDDHISTIC ABLUTION MASS, .... 105 CHAPTER XIII. OUR PRIEST AND BOY-PRIEST — OUR DOG GEM — SHAKA'S BIRTHDAY, 112 CHAPTER XIV. THE FESTIVALS OF LOCAL DEITIES — SCHOOL AGAIN, AND SOME ACCOUNT OF MY SCHOOL-FELLOWS — CONCLUSION, 121 PREFATORY LETTER. Prof. Henry W. Farnam: Dear Sir: — My motives in writing this jejune little volume are, as you are aware, two : 1st. There seems to be no story told in this "V country of the Japanese boy's life by a Japanese boy himself. The following rambling sketches are incoherent and extremely meagre, I own ; but you must remember that they are a boy's talks. Give him encouragement, and he will tell you more. 2d. The most important of my reasons is my desire to obtain the means to prosecute the studies I have taken up in America. Circumstances have obliged me to make my own way in this hard world. If I knew of a better step I should not have resorted to an indiscreet juvenile publication — a publication, moreover, of my own idle expe- riences, and in a language the alphabet of which I learned but a few years ago. 6 PREFATORY LETTER. To you my sincere acknowledgments are due for encouraging me to write these pages. This kind- ness is but one of many, of which the public has no knowledge. I am, sir, Yours very truly, Shiukichi Shigemi. New Haven, Ct., September, 1889. A JAPANESE BOY. CHAPTER I. I was born in a small seaport town called Imabari, which is situated on the western coast of the island of Shikoku, the eastern of the two islands lying south of Hondo. The Imabari harbor is a miserable ditch; at low tide the mouth shows its shallow bottom, and one can wade across. People go there for clam-digging. Two or three little streams empty their waters into the harbor. A few junks and a number of boats are always seen standing in this pool of salt- r' water. In the houses surrounding it, mostly very old and ramshackle, are sold eatables and provisions, fishes are bought from the boats, or shelter is given to sailors. When a junk comes in laden with rice, commis- sion merchants get on board and strike for bar- gains. The capacity of the vessel is measured by the amount of rice it can carry. The grain mer- chant carries about him a good-sized bamboo a few inches long, one end of which is sharpened and the other closed, being cut just at a joint. He thrusts 7 8 A JAPANESE BOY. the pointed end into bags of the rice. The bags are rice-straw, knitted together roughly into the shape of barrels. Having taken out samples in the -~ hollow inside of the bamboo stick, the merchant first examines critically the physical qualities of the grains on the palm of his hand, and then pro- ceeds to chew them in order to see how they taste. Years of practice enable him to state, after such simple tests, precisely what section of the country the article in question came from, although the captain of the vessel may claim to have shipped it from a famous rice-producing province. About the harbor are coolies waiting for work. They are strong, muscular men, thinly clad, with easy straw sandals on. Putting a little cushion on the left shoulder, a coolie rests the rice-bag upon it and walks away from the ship to a store-house ; his left hand passed around the burden and his right holding a short, stout, beak-like, iron hook fastened in the bag. In idle moments the coolies get together and indulge in tests of strength, lift- ing heavy weights, etc. At a short distance to the right from the entrance of the harbor is a sanitarium ^ It is a huge, artificial cave, built of stone and mortar and heated by burning wood-fires in the inside. After it is sufficiently warmed the fire is extinguished, the smoke-escape shut, and the oven is ready for *j use. Invalids flock in with wet mats, which they use in sitting on the scalding rocky floor of the oven. Lifting the mat that hangs like a curtain, at the entrance, they plunge into the suffocating hot air and remain there some time and emerge BY HIMSELF. 9 again into daylight, fairly roasted and smothered. Then they speedily make for the sea and bathe in | it. This process of alternate heating and cooling | is repeated several times a day. It is to coojs^out, | as it were, diseases from the body. For some con- stitutions the first breath of the oven immediately after the warming is considered best, for others the mild warmth of later hours is thought more commendable. I, for myself, who have accompa- nied my mother and gone through the torture, do not like either very much. The health-seekers 1/ rent rooms in a few large cottages standing near/ by. In fact, they live out of town, free from busi- ness and domestic cares, pass time at games, or saunter and breathe pure air under pine-trees in the neighborhood. The establishment is opened -^ only during summer time. A person ought to get j well in whiling away in free air those glorious [ summer days without the aid of the roasting j scheme. To the left of the harbor along the shore stands the main body of Imabari. Mt. Mygzin heaves in sight long before anything of the town can be seen. It is not remarkable as a mountain, but be- ing so near my town, whenever I have espied it onv* my return I have felt at home. I can remember its precise outline. As we draw nearer, white- plastered warehouses, the sea-god's shrine jutting y out into the water, and the castle stone walls come )/ in our view. You observe no church-steeple, that pointed object so characteristically indicative of a city at a distance in the Christian community. To be sure, the pagoda towers toward the sky in 10 A JAPANESE BOY. the community of Buddhists; but it is more elabor- ate and costly a thing than the steeple, and Ima- bari is too poor to have one. Facing the town, in the sea, rises a mountainous island ; it encloses with the neighboring islets the Imabari sound. A report goes that on this island lies a gigantic stone, apparently immovable by human agency, so situated that a child can rock it with one hand. Also that a monster of a tortoise,. xj centuries old, floats up occasionally from an t immeasurable abyss near the island t o_sun it self ; land those who had seen it thought it was an lisland. * Very picturesque if viewed from the sea but painfully poverty-stricken to the sight when near, is a quarter closely adjoining Imabari on the north. It is on the shore and entirely made up of fisher- men's homes. The picturesque, straw-thatched cottages stand under tall, knotty pine-trees and send up thin curls of smoke. Their occupants are, however, untidy, careless, ignorant, dirty; the squalid children let loose everywhere in ragged dress, bareheaded and barefooted. The men, •"snaked all summer and copper-colored, go fishing If or days at a time in their boats ; the women sell the fish es in the streets of Imabari. A fisher-wo- + < man carries her fishes in a large, shallow, wooden I tub that rests on her head ; she also carries on her I breast a babe that cannot be left at home. Imabari has about a dozen streets. They are narrow, dirty, and have no sidewalks; man and beast walk the same path. As no carriages and wagons rush by, it is perfectly safe for one to BY HIMSELF. H saunter along the streets half asleep. The first /x. thing I noticed upon my landing in New York -was, that in America a man had to look out every min- ute for his personal safety. From time to time I was collared by the captain who had charge of me with, "Here, hoy!" and I frequently found great truck horses or an express wagon almost upon me. In crossing the streets, horse-cars surprised me more than once in a way I did not like, and the thundering engine on the Manhattan road caused me to crouch involuntarily. Imabari is quite a different place; all is peace and quiet there. In one section of the town blacksmiths reside exclu-*' sively, making the street black with coal dust. In another granite workerB predominate, rendering the street white with fine stone chips. On Temple street, you remark temples of different Buddhist denominations, standing side by side in good fellow- ship; and in Fishmongers' alley all the houses | have fish-stalls, and are filled with the odor of ) fish. The Japanese do not keep house in one place and store in another; they live in their stores. Neither do we have ^gli fiing n1ai ' a y a terrL QJ board -vy ing_houses ; _ Our people have homes of their own, however poor. My family lived on the main street, which is divided into four subdivisions or "blocks." The second block is the commercial centre, so to speak, of the town, and there my father kept a store. My grandfather, I understood, resided in another street before he moved with his son-in-law, my father, to the main street. He lived to the great i age of eighty ; I shall always remember him with 12 A JAPANESE BOY. honor and respect. Of my grandmother I know absolutely nothing, she having passed away before I was born. It is customary in Japan that a man too old for business and whose head is white with the effect of many weary winters, should retire and hiber- nate in a quiet chamber, or in a cottage called inkyo (hjding_Elace), and be waited upon by his eldest son or son-in-law who succeeds him in busi- ness. My good grandfather — his kindly face and pleasant words come back to me this moment — lived in a nice little house in the rear of my father's. Although strong in mind he was bent with age and went about with the help of a bamboo cane. He lived alone, had little to do, but read a great deal, and thought much, and when tired did some light manual work. It was a great pleasure for me to visit him often. In cold winter days he would be found sitting by kotatsu, a native heating apparatus. It is constructed on the follow- ing plan : a hole a foot square is cut in the centre of the matted floor, wherein a stone vessel is fitted, and a frame of wood about a foot high laid on it so as to protect the quilt that is to be spread over it, from burning. The vessel is filled with ashes, and a charcoal fire is burned in it. I used to take my position near my grandfather, with my hands and feet beneath the quilt, and ask him to tell / stories. My feet were either bare or in a pair of socks, for before getting on the floor we leave our shoes in the yard. Our shoes, by the way, are more like the ancient Jewish sandals than the modern leather shoes. BY HIMSELF. 13 In this little house of my grandfather's I erected my own private shrine of Tejjjiugan, the god of 1/ penmanship. The Japanese and theCninese value highly a skilful hand at writing ; a famous scroll- writer gets a large sum of money with a few strokes of his brush; he is looked up to like a celebrated painter. We school-boys occasionally ^» proposed p^nmagshipjatatgsts^ On the same sheet of paper each of us wrote, one beside another, his favorite character, or did his best at one character we had mutually agreed upon, and took it to our teacher to decide upon the finest hand. The best specimens of a school are sometimes framed and hung on the walls of a public temple of Tenjin. He is worshiped by all school-boys, and I also fol- lowed the fashion. My image of him was made of clay ; I laid it on a shelf and offered sake (rice- wine) in two tiny earthen bottles, lighted a little lamp every night and put up prayers in childish zeal. The family rejoiced at my devotion; they 1 finally bought me, one holiday, a miniature toy * temple . It was painted in gay colors; I was delighted with it beyond expression, ■ and my devotion increased tenfold. 14 A JAPANESE BOY. CHAPTER II. . The earliest recollection I have of my school life is my entrance with a number of playmates into a private gentleman's school. At that time the com- mon school system which now exists in Japan had not been adopted ; some gentlemen of the town kept private schools, in which exercises consisted mainly of penmanship ; for arithmetic we had to go some- where else. In Imabari there lived a keen-eyed little man who was wonderfully quick at figures, and to him we repaired for instruction in mathe- matics. "We worked, not with slate and pencil, but with a rectangular wooden frame set with beads, resembling an abacus. It is called soroban; you find it in every store in Japan. I like it better than slate and pencil, for the fundamental opera- tions of arithmetic, but cannot use it in higher ■*' mathematics. I remember seeing a young man of my acquaintance perform algebraic calculations, of which we had some knowledge before the influx of "Western learning, with a number of little black and white blocks called the " mathematical blocks." A knowledge of penmanship and arithmetic is all that is required of a man of business, but a learned man is expected to read Chinese. My schoolmaster was a kind of priest, not of Budd- BY HIMSELF. 15 hism nor of Shintoism, but one of those who go by the name of Yamabushi ; he let his hair grow instead ./ of shaving it off as the Buddhist priest does, wore high clogs and the peculiar robe of his religion. He simply followed his father in the vocation ; he was a young man of high promise and manifested more ardor in letters than at the prayers for the sick or for the prosperity of the people. His house was on the fourth block of the main street, set back a little from the street and with an open yard between the tall, elaborate gate and the mansion. The front of the residence was taken up by the shrine ; the school was kept in the back part of the house. When we first entered the school we were known as the ' ' new- comers" among the older boys, and though bullying was not altogether absent, we had no ordeal to go / through as the Freshmen have in American col- 1 leges. The pupil's equipment in one of these old-fash- ioned schools consisted of a low table, a cushion to squat upon, and a chest for the following articles: white paper, copy-books and a small box contain- ing a stone ink-vessel, a cake of india ink, an earthen water-bottle and brushes. A little water is poured in the hollow of the stone vessel, the india ink rubbed on it for a while, and when the water becomes sufficiently black the brush is dipped in it. Then looking at model characters written down for us in a separate book by the teacher, we try to trace the same on our copy- books, paying close attention to every particular. The first that we must learn is our alphabet of forty-eight letters. 16 A JAPANESE BOY. I recall vividly the trials in making the alpha- betical figures. I tried time and again, but to fail ; \ the sorrow gathered thickly in my mind and soon the grief overpowered all my strenuous efforts not to weep, then the master would send one of the \ older boys to help me. He stands behind me while I sit, grasps my hand which holds the brush, and to my heart's content traces figures like the master's in perfection. . The copy-book is made of the tenacious soft Jap- anese paper, many sheets of which are bound together. Each of the forty-eight characters is studied separately ; it is written large so that the learner may see where a bold stroke is required and where a mild touch. After the alphabet we learn to write Chinese characters. The copy-books be- come black after a while, being dried and used again ; therefore they need not be perfectly white at first ; usually they are made of the sheets of an old ledger. I used to see on the pages of the copy- books made for me by my father, old debts and credits, and the names of the parties concerned in | them, dating back to grandfather's time ; they dis- " j appeared collectively under my wild dash and j sweep of india ink. What an act of generosity to wipe out the remembrance of former money com- . plications ! After a day's work all the copy-books are literally drenched with the black fluid; they are moist and heavy. They must be dried. Every ,, I patch of sunshine about the school is improved, | every breezy corner turned to account. At home * i the kitchen is spread with them at night, so as to | have them dry by the morning. Copy-books that > BY HIMSELF. 17 have done long service are coated with a smooth, [ ""* shining incrustation of carbon — shining if good ink j ~* has been used, but dull if ink is of cheap quality, f The quality of an india ink cake is not only judged by its lustre, but also by its hardness and odor ; a j good one is hard and pleasant and the bad" soft j and unpleasant. After we have practised writing ' the letters for some time, we finally write them on white papers and present them to our teacher, who with red ink makes further necessary corrections. / If the final copy is satisfactory, he sets us at work on a. next portion. Every morning, after breakfast, I gathered to- gether dried copy-books and went after or waited for some boys to come along. We strolled up the street toward the schoolmaster's, calling on other boys as we went. The first task in school upon our arrival was to set the tables in order, get the things out of the chests and go after some water for mak- ing the ink. It was no comfortable occupation, cold winter mornings, to get the water from the well in the windy, open yard in the rear of the house, and dip our hand and the drip-bottle together and keep them in it until all the air escaped by bubbles, and the bottle was full. A bottle though I called it, the receptacle is a hollow, square china vessel, with two small holes on the flat surface — one in the centre and the other in one of the corners. We sit in a house where there is practically no ar- rangement for heating and where we are poorly pro- tected from the gusts from without. The Japanese house is built opening widely into the external air ; it has but a few segments of external walls around 2 18 A JAPANESE BOY. it ; therefore one can select no breezier abode dur- ing the warm months, but in the dead of win er — the mere thought of it makes me shiver. Those immense open spaces could be closed, to be sure, at night with solid pine-board sliding doors ; but in the daytime the question of light comes in. To meet this difficulty our ingenious forefathers had contrived a frame-work of wood pasted with paper. You must know they had no idea of glass. We can scarcely call it a happy solution of the prob- blem, for the paper is soon punched through and / lets in the biting wind. Too much active ventila- tion takes place, whistling through the holes ; and then when a storm strikes us, the whole frail work / shakes in the grooves wherein its two ends are I fitted, like the chattering of the teeth. This sliding paper partition is called shoji, and of late has been somewhat replaced by the more expensive glass / windows. Since the introduction of glass I have seen the shoji partly covered with it and partly with paper, the Japanese thinking it very conven- ient to see through the partition without being at the pains of pushing it aside or making a hole in the paper. Had paper been entirely discarded and glass alone been t used the Japanese house would be * much brighter and warmer. Such a building is a poor place to hold a school in, I but the boys were used to it and they behaved so — , quarreling, weeping, laughing, shrieking — that ' there was little time left for them to feel the cold in their young warm blood, BY HIMSELF. 19 CHAPTER III. When just from school our faces and hands were \/ as black as demons' with ink. On my reaching home my mother would take care of the copy- books, and send me straight to the kitchen to wash before I sat down to the table. The vessel corres- ponding to the basin is made of brass. We have 1 + -V" | not learned to use soap ; old folks believe that it | I would turn our _biacj£. hair red like that of the for- 1 J eignersT There is no~~convenience of faucet or pump ; each house has its own well in the back ! - yard, even in the city; — hence no water- works, ( * no gas-works, and no fuss about plumbing; the ' housewife must proceed to the well for water, rain or shine, and struggle back to the kitchen with a pailful of it every time she needs it. The kitchen itself is not often floored ; the range (of clay and of different appearance from that] which is used here) and the sink stand directly on J mother earth under a shed-like roof which has been / darkened by smoke. The range has no chimney ; i not coal but wood is burned in it, and all the » smoke escapes from the front opening or mouth and fills the entire kitchen, causing the dear black ■/ eyes of the amiable housewife to suffuse with tears. She has the small Japanese towel wrapped round 20 A JAPANESE BOY. her head to protect the elaborate coiffure from the , soot of years, that has accumulated everywhere / and falls in gentle flakes, snow-fashion, on things universally. She works her pair of lungs at the ." fire-blowing tube," a large bamboo two or three feet long, opened at one end for a mouth-piece and • punched at the other for a narrow orifice. The im- prisoned volumes of smoke m the kitchen must crowd out through a square aperture in the roof ; if it be closed on a rainy day, they must escape through windows or crevices the best they may. The water when brought in from the well is emptied into a deep heavy earthen reservoir of reddish hue standing near the sink. With a wooden ladle I would dip out the water into the brass basin (sheet brass, not solid), and wash my- self without soap in the most rapid manner pos- ' sible, yearning eagerly for dinner. The towel is a piece of cotton dyed blue with designs left undyed or dyed black. I grumbled, I confess, when my ,. mother sent_me_backjara more ^thPiPjy£h^ashing ; / but with the utmost alacrity I always salutedThe very sight of viands. Of tentimes I was late and was obliged to eat. a late dinner alone ; but when all of our family sat down together, enough of life was manifested. At one end my witty young brother provoked laughter • in us with stuff and nonsense; next him sat my* younger sister, quiet and good. I assumed my position between my sister and my father and ' mother, who sat together at the head of the row. » I forget to mention that my elder brother, whose place must be next above me, had been ordered to BY HIMSELF. 21 keep peace in the region of my merry little brother. My sister-in-law or my elder brother's wife took'/ her stand opposite us, surrounded by a rice-bucket, a cast-iron cooking-pot, a teapot, a basket of rice- . bowls, saucers, etc. She it was who had to cook I * and serve dinner and wash dishes and take care of \ her babies. It is this that renders a^young married . woman's lot in life very hard in Japan, the princi- 1 cipal weight of daily work devolving upon her. { After all this, if parents-in-law a re . not pleased 1 1 with herjshe is in imminent danger of being turned J"*" oTFTike a hired servant, however affectionate she j may be toward her husband ; and the husband feels i it his duty to part with her despite his deep attach- j ment ; so sacred is regarded the manifestation of j filial piety ! Fortunately for my sister-in-law, my mother, who has four daughters living with their husbands' relatives, made every household tasky' as light and easy as she could for her and ex- \ rice in the bowl and are content. Tea is boiling in the kitchen from morning till night. It is drunk with no sugar or milk; indeed, the scrupulous inhabitants of the "land of the gods" never >»■«- dreamt of tasting the milk of a brute. If a babe ^is nourished with cow's milk, it is believed that wy the hQjns , will grow on his forehead. When no _ palatable dishes are to be had we eat our rice with - pickled plums and preserved radishes, turnips, - egg-plants and cabbage. The preserves are not done up in glass jars ; they are kept in a huge tub of salt and rice-bran. During the summer months when vegetables are plenty and cheap we buy a great quantity of them from a farmer of our acquaintance. He brings them on the back of a $4 A JAPANESE BOY, horse. The poor animal is usually loaded so 1 heavily that only his head and tail are visible -/" amidst the mountain of cabbage leaves. Days are } . spent in washing and scrubbing the roots and bulbs * of the garden, many more in drying them in the sun. House-tops, weather-beaten walls, fences and all available windy corners are utilized in hang- ing up the vegetables. When partly dried they /j^« are packed in salt and rice-bran and subjected to *■* ^pressure in bamboo-hooped wooden tubs, com- Vjnonly by laying pld millstones t on them. Being I but partially dry, the vegetables deliver thef remaining moisture to the powder in which they I are packed, and in course of time the whole con-/ tents become soaked in a yel lowi sh, muddy, pun -l gent liquid. Koko, as the vegetables are then called, can be preserved in this way throughout the ^whole year. They are taken out from time to time, washed and sliced and relished with great satisfac- tion. They are something that is sure to be obtained in any house at any time ; with cold rice and hot tea they make up our simplest fare. When I was late from school I made out my dinner with the rice and koko. Frequently, how- ever, mj^royjdentmother set aside for me sonjs- thing nice. BY HIMSELF. 25 CHAPTER IV. I believe we had no afternoon session in the old- fashioned school ; and the boys had two or three pet games to play in leisure hours. One of them was played in this manner : each one is provided with a number of pointed irousticfe_a few inches long. The leader pitches one of his sticks in soft soil ; the second follows suit, aiming to root out his predecessor's by the force of pitching in his own close to it; then the third, the fourth, and all around the company. Another of the games was played with square chips of wood, on which were painted heads of men, demons and all sorts of fanciful figures. A triangle was drawn on hard level ground and at a distance from its base a parallel line; from which line the boys each in turn threw a common lot of the chips, contributed by all, into the inside of the triangle. It must be done with the same nicety of aim and attitude as in throwing quoits. A habit established itself among us of the players coming down to the ground on all fours immediately after the act of throwing ; it was the consequence of bending too far forward in order to get in all the chips at the peril of neglecting the centre of gravity. The chips that flew outside of the triangle were gathered by the 26 A JAPANESE BOY. next player and those in the inside allowed to be taken by the player, should he be able to throw a chip from his hand and lay it on them one by one. If he failed at any moment, the next player gath- ered together all the remaining, chips and played his turn. A modification of this game consists in J throwing the chips against a wall, and counting | good those only that remain inside a straight line parallel with the foot of the wall, and turning | over to the next player those on the outside. The game is played by gjrls as well as by boys, although they rarely play together. We also used to play hide-and-seek, blind-man's- buff and other games that are familiar in this country. Later in my school days the government under- , went great changes, and it adopted the common ^ school system of the West. My father was to pay a school-tax and I to attend a new school, where /" instruction was not-JH-a enmanship alone but ex- tended over varipus_subjects. Text-books on arithmetic, Japanese" geography and history had / -'Hbeen compiled after the American pattern, but no ^ grammar appeared : the educational department left the language to be taught by the purely indue- / tive met hod. The fact is that the Japanese lan-i 7guage "has no£ been systematized; should one J ( attempt it he would find it a tremendous task. ' When I was on the point of leaving for America my brother put into my hand a Japanese gram- mar in two thin volumes, written by a literary man in Tokio, and said that it was being used in schools. I have them still by me and privately Y~ BY HIMSELF. 27 consider the attempt not a very; great success. / The gentleman tries to follow the steps of the European grammarian; he cleverly makes out "noun " and ".pronoun," " verb " and "adverb "- even "article," (which, in good faith, I never in / the slightest suspected our language was guilty of \ possessing) from the chaos. Upon the whole, the book has the effect of confusing instead of enlight- ening me; after my dabbling in languages, in I Japanese I prefer to be taught like a babe. Japanese di^'pnar""' are for the purpose of hunting up Japanese meanings of Chinese letters, answering to your Latin and Greek lexicons. So much of Chinese has been introduced into our lan- guage in the course of centuries, that it is now im- possible to read one line in a Japanese newspaper, for instance, without coming across Chinese char- acters. In books for women and children and in popular novels Japanese equivalents are written beside Chinese words. In getting lessons we made little use of the dictionaries ; once learned by dicta- tion from the teacher we relied on our memory and that of others; hence fr equent review, was needed to retain them. ASthe new, school!'* system took root, the school books began to have J vocabularies and keys ; and the Chinese classics I pursued by advanced students their " pony ." Just at present a movement is on foot to sim- plify our tongue in its complication with Chinese.^ People generally suppose the two languages are alike ; many of them have asked me" if I could in- terpret to them what the down-town "washees" were so merrily babbling about over their flat- ^g A JAPANESE BOY. irons. It is a mistake; Japanese and Chinese are ( totally different, strange as it may appear. And \ yet I had to learn my Chinese in order to read our standard works. If the common people could un- derstand Chinese as well as the learned persons, I believe we could get along very well with our (language as it is; b ut they do. nqt . It would be 'very inconvenient indeed if, for instance, in this country the "educated" people should use long words all the while, or employ French expressions freely in talking and writing. Just such a pedan- i try exists in my native country, and truly ednca- / J ted men are crying out fi^ jrefosffia&glk There are two parties. OnejjiSyThlnks it can do it by •"'"•using unadulterated Japanese, while t he othe r ,»/Mleems nothing short of the Romanization of_t he whole fabric — that is, the adoption of the Roman alphabet in spelling Japanese words — could accom- plish the end. Opinion is equally divided between Ithem; the second party may appear slightly stronger on account of its members for the greater part being students of other languages beside their own. Bo th these p arties issue periodicals to advo- , ncate their theories and at the" same time to carry ■* their ideas into practice. These are worthy efforts ; as yet they are experiments. We are told that the growth of a language is a matter of gener- ations, that language has life like everything else, and that it must undergo changes despite feeble human efforts. But to return. Happily our former schoolmas- ter was hired by the new organization and still took charge of us. He was a gifted young gentle- St. BY HIMSELF. 29 man, a writer of lucid sentences and also some- / thing of a poet. He encouraged us greatly in polishing our Japanese-Chinese composition. It was his custom to select the best composition from the class, on a given subject, copy it on the blackboard and point out before the class" what ^ elegant epithets c ould be substituted for vulgar/ ones. It was a pleasure with him to do this,/ whereas in mathematics he did not show much' zeal. Above all, he inherited from his father the art of fine penmanship. His brother, too, had a well-formed hand quite like our teacher's; evi- ^, dently it was a case of ^fjrp^'tary cfiniiifl,. At times our beloved master voluntarily offered to recite to us recor ds of famous battles and_herpes that adorn thejpagesjpf Japanese history. He did J .this" from the love of telling them; the boys were ;■*- ' as fond of hearing as he was of telling. He had in ; hand no book to help him ; the gallant exploits of the brave and handsome, the rescuing of the t , virtuous fair, the crash, dash and rush of horses, ' ( lances and swords he called up from memory and decked with his teeming imagination. On such an occasion his language was prolific, his voice modu- lated according to the shifting shades of the sub- 1 ject matter; in short, his whole- man,4teart and | soul 1 jwe.ni_to the makingof_Jhe_jtory_ : _ His eyes f ,nd expressionTTShey often told half his story.* I Many a time the bells surprised us at the midst of H / his soul-stirring recital, and suddenly called usl | back to the unromantic light of modern day and to \ I the homely exercises of school. The stories were • told to us serially, in the hours of intermission and \ 30 A JAPANESE BOY. were a sort of optional course. They were so 1 popular that very few were found playing about the grounds when the eloquent romancer proceeded in his narrative. Yet he was not a man of weak indulgence toward the boys; his sense of duty was equally strong. If a youngster was seen undertaking to do any- thing naughty he would give him a stern look, his cheeks were inflated, his eyes showed the white plainly. The whole room was then silent as a tomb. But if a fun-loving fellow ventured, per- haps, to thrust out his little tongue roguishly or let out a giggle behind his hand, then the teacher irresistibly relaxed the corners of his mouth, and in another moment the hall rang with the hilarious -/"-laughter of reconciliation and good-fellowship. _w Later I came under the instruction of different / masters, but he it was who led me in infancy so carefully by the hand, as it were, to the first step of [the ladder of knowledge, and he it will be who shall remain the longest in my memory. At school the common mode of punishment was to let the culprit stand erect a whole hour to- gether, facing his own class or a class in an adjoin- ing room. Although no dunce-cap was on his Ihead, a roomful of staring eyes struck a burning shame into his soul. Nevertheless, urchins there were who considered it a supreme delight to be taken off the troublesome exercises and carried to the next room on a visit, where they had made many acquaintances at a previous banishment. Indeed, they had become so inured to it that they thought nothing of it afterward. BY HIMSELF. 31 Once the whole school, except a few good chil- dren, incurred the teachers' displeasure. I have forgotten what the offence was ; all were prevented from going home after school and ordered to stand / v up till dark, each with a bowl full of water. There they stood l ike a regiment of begging saints with the bowls in the outstretched arms, which if they moved the water ran over the brim, and the delinquents would have been whipped . At first we thought it capital fun, because so many were in company to commiserate; we laughed aloud, bobbed and courtesied to the teachers in mockery ; ^ i but in time we had to change our minds. The result of standing still like a statue began to tell upon us ; our limbs began to ache and feel stiff ; the j oiliest member gave a cowardly sobj and the patient fellow in the corner, hitherto unnoticed, attracted public attention by dropping the burden. The china went to pieces. He blubbered out, as if s, that was sufficient apology. Through the inter- . cession of some kindly folk we finally came home I to supper and comfort. We were continually threatened with another method of punishment, though I doubt if the teach- ers would have inflicted it on us. It was an intol- erably cruel one: the offender was compelled to stand up with a lighted bundle of senkoes until it burned down close to his hand. The senk&js a slender incense stick burned before the shrine of Buddha and of our ancestors, and manufactured by kneading a certain aromatic powder to a paste and squeezing it out into innumerable very slim, extremely fragile, brownish rods. When dry, these 32 A JAPANESE BOY. are gathered into good-sized bundles and put in the market. A few cents will buy you more senkoes than you need. As the bundle burns away slowly — slowly to prolong the agony, the fire encroaches / on the skin and the flesh. Unless the offender I surrenders himself to the heartless will of his pedagogue he must suffer injury from the heat. •/ ■•M This punishment was actually in practice in old] Jc I days when the tyrannical masters had their way, / J but went out of fashion at the dawn of civiliza- 1 f tion. ' Our teachers carried flexible sticks, which they played with while teaching, or used in pointing at the maps ; they never whipped anybody with them to my knowledge; but in going their rounds among the pupils, if any were engaged in conversa- tion or in any way inattentive, flogged the table • before them in such a manner as to cause the poor fellows to jump into the air. BY HIMSELF. 33 CHAPTER V. When the close of a day called me home from school, and my father's work was done, a sense of contentment and repose brooded over our house- hold. A vigorous scrub at a public bath often gave our tired bodies a renewed muscular tone. I accompanied my father to this resort ; when I was very young, my mother carried me thither. The bath-house is a private establishment of its pro- prietor, and public in the sense that townspeople betake themselves to it without restraint. The charge is only a f ew mill s for the adult, half th e / amount for the child and nothing for t he suckling . If a number of checks (branded, flat pieces of wood) be purchased at one time, the average charge / is still less. In Imabari, there are a dozen or more of these baths; they mostly occupy the corners of the streets like American drug stores. They \ are opened from late in the afternoon till late at ( night ; on holidays accommodation baths are ready / at early daybreak. As soon as a bath is in readi- ness, its keeper places a flag at the eaves, in the » daytime, and a square, paper lantern after dusk. / At the entrance is a stand, where you deposit your fare, and exchange a word on the weather with the keeper if you are neighborly. Advancing a 34 A JAPANESE BOY. few steps, you leave your clogs on a low platform, on the sides of which rise tiers of lockers for clothes. You must bring your own towels ; ladies also take with them little cotton bags of rice^jran. / They close the bags tightly with strings, soak them <_ in hot water and rub their faces and hands with the wet balls. The process isjsaid J^o j:efin£the_textjjr-e V of the sMnjwoaiderfuUy. The bath proper is a great, covered tank, full of hot water, with a terrace-work of planks sloping down on the four sides, where you sit and wash. The ceiling is low enough to bump your head unless I you are cautious; it projects forward and stoops to j prevent the steam from escaping unnecessarily; therefore, even when it is lighted within, it is twi- light, owing to the connned jrapox. One feels in it ~' N -as if working in a mine or tunnel. Older men discuss town topics and business, and young men hum popular airs as they bathe, and intimate friends press each other to rub down their backs. The water is kept warm by a huge metallic heater behind, which is in communication with the tank but covered with planks so as not to scald the bathers' feet. In case the water proves too hot, the bathers consult each other's comfort courteously, and one of them claps his hands. It is answered by a sound at the entrance stand, and immediately / v cold water spouts into the tank. Then the men ^ stir the tank thoroughly on all sides. Being but a child I took great delight in the excitement. I would creep up to the hole and plug it with my wet towel, and after a few minutes pull it out abruptly to see the water spurt forth with re- A : BY HIMSELF. 35 doubled energy. The wall has usually a small j door; pushing it open ijhe fireman p eeps in occa- ' sionally, when there is too much, noise. The first time I noticed it, I was almost scared out of. my wits; for, happening to look around, I saw on the I dim wall a grim human head staring me in their face. Between the tank and the floor is a space paved ' with large, flat, rectangular stones and cemented I with mortar, where the people who think it too close in the tank can step out and wash, sitting on i long, narrow benches ; in some baths this place is overlaid with planks in such a manner that water can trickle down between them. Here we may-^ use soap, but not in the taa k_ Several small wooden tubs are near at hand ; with them we pour the hot water over our body after rubbing, and in them we give our towels a final clean- water wash- ing when through using them. The clear, cold water for the latter purpose is constantly bubbling up in a shallow, well-like enclosure hard by. A couple of dippers float in it, and the people also drink of the water, if thirsty. In well-regulated baths, near the cold-water enclosure is a hot water cistern, constantly fed through a bamboo pipe with boiling water that has not been used. People of cleanly habits, on emerging from the common tank, dip out this fresh, warm, water and bathe / again. Of course, it would be objectionable to < retain the same water in the tank all day and have people bathe in it over and over ; as a matter of fact, a portion of it is drawn off at intervals and v replaced with a fresh supply. 36 A JAPANESE BOY. The ladies' side is precisely the same in arrange- ment as the gentlemen's; a partition, however, separates them completely. If you meet a man on the street in Japan with a wet towel hanging on his shoulder, he is from the public bath. He wears no hat even in sallying forth into the open air from the confined atmos- phere, walks leisurely along, dragging the high V clogs and feeling thoroughly comfortable. In sum- j. / mer evenings, while maidens, mothers and children / are cooling themselves in the breeze on movable j platforms in front of their residences, young men 1 from the bath come strolling up, inquire politely . j after their healt h and mak e themselves agreeable. . }- '\ \ As the after-bathVga rment^ ,ndtloweri,re to be thus / "jC J exhibited before the eyes of their admirers new * • fogh-irma a™ every year in regard to them.' The I fashion changes not so much in tailoring as in the cpjocand pat$erjtL_ "We are not without private baths, too. Large aristocratic families are all provided with them. The bath-house is usually fitted up in a wing at the back of the building; in it a tub large enough to admit a person in a squatting position is placed on a caldron. The loose wooden bottom of the tub is left floating while the water boils, serving as the / cover ; it is fastened afterward. The head of the / 1 family goes in first ; after him, his wife ; then come their children, beginning with the eldest; after them follow the domestics, ranged according to their relative importance. I Evenings at home were always spent very pleas- antly, especially before my sisters were married ^ BY HIMSELF. 3? and went away. There were four of them, exclud- ing the eldest who had left us a good while ago, but used to visit us, and add to our gayety . What did we do to enjoy ourselves? We had music and "Tl dancing very often, singing, of course, parties to which our best friends came, games of cards, social chat and fireside talk — whatever goes to I make home attractive. Mother took great interest +• in them herself ; she chaperoned the girls — we had young ladies of the neighborhood come to us, and our house was looked upon as one of th e soc ia l foci of little Imabari. But a reverse in my father's fortune and frequent change of abode put an end to those happy days of yore. Japanese dancing , I declare without prejudice, is more elaborate a nd graceful than your round and square dances, but may not be as fasci- nating; ladies and gentlemen do not dance to- gether. Moreover, our dancing is not anything that can be picked up at balls and receptions, nor ^ is it learned by hopping and skipping at the danc- -. ing academy. In fact, it is not the simple keeping time with music, not repetitions of the same steps over and over again ; it is composed of posturing and is more like acting , though the manoeuvres are predetermined, in regular order, and not left to l_the dancer's fancy. Here in America dancing is easily acquired by persons who have an ear for music and grace of carriage, and after having learned to waltz "elegantly" or "divinely" they have practically mastered all other figures. In Japan, each figure is emphatically a new one, and ir there are many, many figures with distinct names ; -! 38 A JAPANESE BOY. one cannot learn them all— each figure requires a separate effort for its mastery. A dance lasts / twenty minutes or more ; scarcely two steps in it seem alike. In learning a Japanese dance one^^- begins with little tosses of the head, engaging *i sways of the body and easy movements of the ex i tremities. Many young girls of the town practised the primary exercises in our house ; they came to ask assistance of my second sister, who excelled the rest in dancing. I see her vivacious figure trip up to a beginner, who struck an awkward attitude, Iand correct a twist of the neck as the barber and the photographer fix their customers' heads. She taught my youngest sister very thoroughly in all the dances she knew, and after that mother put Mitsu (that is the name of my little sister) under the special tuition of a lady who had just then arrived from Osaka, a^great^sgatre of enjoynjent X v "-and pjoliteness. The dancing mistress had a very pretty adopted daughter who assisted her, and they together aroused enthusiasm among the peo- / pie of Imabari in t^e_art of g race. A society formed itself naturally with the lady as the nu- cleus, and a scheme was projected for a public exhibition of dances. The parents of the dancing children manifested more zeal than the children themselves. As they came in for it with willing heart and liberal hand, the scheme was pushed forward with surprising rapidity. A mammoth 1 curtain was made that was to be hoisted in the theatre where the brilliant events were to take place ; it had painted on it numerous big fans, and 1 SY HIMSELF. 39 on the fans were written the names of the mem- v bers. My^big brother was busily engaged in paint- i ing scenes and constructing apparatus, my sisters I were diligently selecting stage dresses for Mitsu. { And then the young ladies met in our place to re- hearse the dances, songs and instrumental music, . that made us still more agreeably busy. Weeks were spent in preparation ; and when it came off i at last, the entertainment was a grand affair con- / tinuing for several days ; the town turned out in a S * body. It was more like successful theatricals than anything, and was repeated once or twice after- wards, with the substitution for the former dances of many equally classical pieces. All the dances are accompanied by songs and » instruments. The instrument most commonly used is the samisen; it looks somewhat like a banjo, but is much larger and has a square body * instead of a round one ; the wood-work is of ma- hogany. In playing it the touching is not done with the fingers, but with a plectrum of ivory. IThe samisen is capable of giving out both the jnel- J * low note s of the guitar and the sharp tone-sprays I of the banjo. You hear it played in Japanese homes to the same extent as the piano is in this country. We had in our family two or three 1 samisens,, and every day my sisters practised on I them. Other instruments of music are the koto, the tsuzumi and the drum. The koto is a heavy, thir- teen-stringed instrument, of which by mere de- scription I can hardly give an idea. The player sits before it, and with claws fitted to the fin- 40 A JAPANESE BOY. gers of both hands plays at the two ends. The tsuzumi is an hour-glass-shaped drum which is tapped with the right hand. Two tsuzumis are frequently played by a single person; a light tsuzumi is laid on the right shoulder and held by the left hand, and a heavy tsuzumi is rested on the left knee slightly elevated and pressed down with the left elbow; the right hand is free to move be- tween the two tsuzumis which it beats. The light tsuzumi emits a soft tone, the heavy one a deep / .V sound. The stroke, unless skillfully performed,* often inflicts a violent injury to the fingers. The vellum of the tsuzumi is of fox skin and yellow in color, that of the samisen is of cat skin and white as snow. The drum is not the sort drubbed in a mili- tary band ; it is smaller and more moderate in its intonation. These instruments,— the koto, samisen, taiko (drum) and tsuzumi are frequently played in con- cert; the samisen players — two of them, at any rate, to one of the others — sing in high pitch while their supple fingers twinkle across the chords; the taiko and tsuzumi beaters shriek now and then as they thrum and whack. Do I like it? Isn't it hideous? Well, I can't say how it would strike me now ; yet I used to think it all very fine. There is another stringed instrument, a ridicu- lously simple one that I liked best. It is named ichigecckin. A plain board, a few feet in length, and a few inches in width, with no other orna- ment than half a dozen Chinese characters written on it to indicate the various keys; only a single string along the whole length ; a bamboo ring for f ¥- I BY HIMSELF. 41 the middle finger of the left hand to touch on the keys ; and a small flat piece of horn to pick the string with : these make up an ichigecckin. ^[he^rigin +• of this unpretentious instrument is said to be as follows : a high court noble of amiable disposition and poetic temperament on his way southward! from the ancient palace in Kioto, years ago, was obliged to moor near the beautiful shores of Akashi on account of a heavy storm. The sea tossed about his boat; the sky stretched gray; the thatch overhead became soaked in the rain; the wind sighed among the pines on the deserted shore. A sense of loneliness weighed on his gentle nature. The fading landscape in the dusk, the mournful cry of a sea-gull, the sight of a boat miles away laboring in the waves, peradventure laden with lives — all conspired to produce in him a sadness moxe_thanJmman. In order to beguile his ennui, he constructed himself a rude musical instrument with a board and string, and poured out the feel- ings of the hour in many a celebrated tune. The ichigecckin music is low and simple a nd sweet. On rainy nights, when the candle burns dim and all is quiet, I feel most in the mood to listen. • Japanese music is in a crude state of develop- ment; there are no written notes to go by in playing, nor in singing is there any system like * your "Do, Ee, Mi, etc," to depend upon. As yet it I is strictly an art and not a science ; one is obliged 1 to get it by observation, imit ation and practice, j Music is taught by lady teachers; but a set of blind men, who perform massage for a livelihood, take scholars, likewise. They have their heads 42 A JAPANESE BOY. shaved, walk abroad alone, feeling their way with .u sticks; some of them have been to Osaka and / Kioto for a musical jlegree, conferred on them in certain scEools. In Japan music is not divi ded "^rinto the vocal and the instrumental ; the two •/ are always taught together by the same in- structor. ^^~ Vocal cultivation is conducted in a singular way. During the whiter the girl in training clothes her- /] self comfortably, takes a samisen and ascends every cold night the scaffold erected on the roof / of the house for drying purposes. There she sits I for hours together amid the howling blasts, singing I defiantly and banging away courageously at' the \ samisen. Upon her coming down, she is found worse than hoarse; she can hardly utter a word._^l The training is observed persistently until her for- ; mer voice has entirely left her and gradually ja \ clear new voice. as it were, breaks out in the harsh- \ ness. This voice carustancL a .storm. The disci- pline is now over, a little care neects only to be exercised in the maintenance of the acqui red yoi pe / The practice, I am well aware, will hardly com- mend itself to the gentlewomen of this republic, who are wrapped all winter long in furs and seal- skins and would not think for a moment of leaving ■/ the chimney corner. In my fancy I hear them re- pel it with their passionate " What an idea!" Therefore, I conclude it prudent to say nothing in M praise of the barbarous measure, and simply state J the plain fact that it has produced many an Apollo I in Japan. In the other seasons of the year, after having screamed out her worthless voice, the girl * ¥■ BY HIMSELF. 43 takes a dose of pulverized ginger and sugar to tone/^ up the vocal chords. ~" I digressed from dancing to music; now I wish to return to da ncing again for a few moments. In parlor gatherings and sociables li ght pieces are pre- >«. sented; and such small things as fans, towels, masks, umbrellas, bells, tambourines only are used •'*' in dancing. Fans are most commonly used, many V astonishing tricks being played with them. The guests sit in a body off the arena, where the dancer steps out; the samisen player tunes the instru- ment on one side. The preliminary chords ring; then come the words in song, and in accordance with them the actions of the dancer. The dances- in- tended for the stage are much more elaborate. , Scenes are to be fitted up ; varieties of gew-gaws, — 1 ~> ( artificial flowers, falling paper snow, fallen woolly- cotton snow, painted waves, the outline of a boat, a lantern moon, a gilded* paper crown, baskets, shells, a wooden scythe, a toy tub, high clogs, yards of white silk, etc., etc., — are to be procured. These vain, empty articles rise up in my mind, for I used to see them stowed away in the dusty garret . "*" They were jostled about by other things, lay in everybody's way, became mutilated, and fully re- paid the glory they had received one night behind v the foot-lights. We have spent time and money in getting them up, however; certain things we \ have even sent for to Osaka or Kioto. I remem- 4 ber seeing my sister practise day after day dancing •with the aforementioned long white silk scarfs. The dance was to represent the_Dxocess-_of ..bleach- **• ing by a famous maiden (named Okane) who 44 A JAPANESE BOY. J dwelt beside Lake Biwa. Of all sorts of waves and \ undulations and flutterings she had to produce I with them I recollect one : — it is to shake one scarf / right and left horizontally overhead, and the other/ up and down longitudinally in front. Try it with! your hands and see, reader; you will find it no easy v jt- task. In the stage dances the dancers must dress Vtrue to the conceptions of the characters they un- J dertake to represent. This necessitates a large wardrobe, though the gorgeous costumes are gen- erally made of cheap materials, and the aid of artificial lights is expected to finish off the effects. The face of the dancer is usually painted, / but not so much so as that of a professional actress. The whole affair, however, savors strongly of / stage-play. Several persons sometimes dance to- j gether, carry on dialogues and, indeed, dance part / of a play or drama. BY HIMSELF. 45 CHAPTER VI. Our best friends were not limited to ladies, but comprised several select gentlemen. In Japan we I have more social freedom than people are apt to J think. Many of the young gentlemen entertained us well. Some were beautiful singers, others fine musicians, and still others elegant dancers. One among them, a person of fine appearance who fell in love with the dancing teacher's pretty daughter and who afterward married her, was quite highly accomplished. He possessed artistic tastes, prob- / ably inherited from his father, who was an art I connoisseur — art, as it appeared in china wares,/ scrolls, kakemonoes (wall hangings), old bric-a,-' brae, etc. The young man could sketch, talk brilliantly, render gentlemen's dances creditably, and was handsome to look at. He used to pay us I respects, for his parents, particularly his cheery I bright-eyed little mother, was a dear friend of I ours, and his sisters were great friends of my I sisters. The girls went to sewing school together. You know, as we do not have the sewing machine and as we are to a certain extent our own tailors and dressmakers, Japanese girls must take lessons in sewing, as American young ladies take lessons in painting and on the piano. They do "crazy" 46 A JAPANESE BOY. work and fancy work, too, and talk over their notions extravagantly, rashly confide everything to each other, and exclaim " lovely! " in Japanese. This young man felt from his childhood a passion for the stage. As he grew up his dramatic taste became irresistible ; at last, escaping the vigilance of his family, he ran away to the neighboring prov- Iince of Tosa (ours is Iyo), and committed himself to the care of a noted actor named Hanshiro. The young man told us how he had been launched in the work ; the actor-a pprentice, when admitted to BY HIMSELF. 65 tell which belonged to which of the shattered trunks. The remaining half -burned buildings have since been destroyed piecemeal ; all that now remains of the proud castle is the innermost circle of, masonry, » wh ich cannot so eaSn^beTeveled to" the ground. •T>4lt is not provided with a railing, and in looking J down the steep one feels his heart stand still. The j I vast prospect it commands, extending far beyond | / the town limits, is superb. A. man taking the path ^ j directly below the wall appears no bigger than a „ I dot. Since I have begun a long story about this_gjand ruinjgive me leave to recount a tradition in con- nection with it. Back in the dark ages the super- 1+ )\ /stitious belief existed in Japan, that in building a j [ castle, to secure the firmness of its foundation a [ I human life should be sacrificed . Usually a person \ was burie d alive. Deneaili one of the walls; some 1 declare the efficacy nullified unless the victim be j taken in unawares. The chronicle says, that in j conformity toThe above belief when the Imabari / castle, was being raised a horrible homicide had \ been committed. At first the authorities were much at a loss in the choice of a proper offering. One day a poor, decrepit old woman, either prompted by curiosity or to beg money of the men, approached the work ; little did she dream her life was in peril ; in an instant a sagacious magistrate solved the problem. The signal nod from him, and the castle-builders fell upon the crone and, amid her screams, struggles, entreaties, stoned her to the earth. Henceforward, it is said, in the dead 5 66 A JAPANESE BOY. c * silence of the castle at night a faint. pitiful cry , now drowned in the soughing storm, outside, now y audible in the dreadful pause, echoes from, under •/ the ground. I had the precise spot pointed out to me; it lies in the_ c entre of all the outlying bulwarks ; in passing it I always felt a thrill steal through me, and turned that corner at a greater angle than I would an ordinary corner, with the intention of keeping my feet off the buried bones. In those tyrannical days of feudalism the samu- rais presumed much upon the commoners of theS town. They not only laid claim wrongly to their personal property, but also regarded their lives as Iof no importance. The samurai always carried two swords by his side, one long and one short, to / / arbitrate right an d wrong in altercations. Blades \ * ■ Wi lli W * *** > ^**""""" ' II miii 111 — ii ■ ii * ' " ' ^*J- ||| ^ ^ mi ^^^^^_^ , tempered by certain smiths were particularly esteemed ; and in order to test the cutting edge, he ^would lie in wait nightly at a street corner for a victim. An innocent passer-by was ferociously attacked and, unless he could defend himself, was wantonly slain. Such outrages actually occurred in places ; people, forthwith, seldom stirred abroad nights. Heaven be thanked, those savage times are "gone forever ; the street-lamps light every nook and corner, and the police guard the safety of the citizen. y /+■ BY HIMSELF. 67 CHAPTER VIII. My mother is fond of parties and young people and their keen appreciation of pleasure ; my father is of afar different turn of mind; he has his happi- est moments in smoking leisurely, in manipulating the fishing-rod and line, under the shielding pine- tree, by some quiet river-bank, or in hunting out edible mushrooms in the mountains. He is a respectable, practical Izaak Walton ; quaint rip- ples of smile pass across his face as" the nibbling fish gives his line a tantalizing pull ; he helps me bait, he teaches me -when and how to make sure of my spoil, — for many a victim hangs to the hook just long enough to rise out of water, glitters transiently in the sun and thrills one with joy, and then decides, undeceived, to reject the dainty morsel: there rises an ever widening, ever reced- ing circle on the still liquid surface, a golden flap of the tail, and the fish is invisible, leaving one despondent. I liked mother's and sisters' com- f pany, but also appreciated father's soothing, restful 1 influence. At the simple repast in the open soli- tary scene of the field and stream, after angling all the morning, he said little ; yet the expression of calm enjoyment and honest Imnjor^on his facev% brightened his companion. Those were delightful 68 A JAPANESE BOY. times; I have the scene at this moment before my mental eye: — the broad beach of white sand surrounding the cove, where the river meets the sea, with a lonely s|Qrk^ standing on one leg in / shallow water ; the briny odor from the sea, and the fresh scent from the meadow; the sighing pines overhead and the turbulent water at the . stone abutments of the bridge; the sunny blue ' sea beyond the sand-bar, studded with white sails; a huge cloud of smoke swaying landward, rising from the distant brick-yard; and in the grayish- blue background the silhouette of a grove and knoll, whereon a wayside shrine stands. "See what you can do about here," says my father, taking in his line, " I shall follow the river up and find if they bite." He turns his back and disappears and reappears among the scrub oaks and stunted willows that fringe the margin. I stay where I am like a good son; but being no more successful than before, and bored and wish- ing company, after a reasonable lapse of time, I find myself going after my father. Upon finding him quietly seated under some protruding tree, beneath wh ose m irrored b ranches and near whose knotty rSot the water darkens m a pool, I inquire / into his success. "No, nothing marvelous," he responds gently, gazing dreamily across the river, yet wary with the fish that "cometh as a thief in the night." I take the liberty of lifting the lid of / his basket and peep at the contents ; a large trout / disturbed by the jar I gave it, snaps violently — I let down the lid instantly at that— and then it lies exhausted, working its jaw in anguish for water. ^l 4 1 bY HIMSELF. 69 " Cast your fly and try your luck," says my excel- lent father. Of course I obey him ; and although I was not so successful every time as he, yet could not always help observing privately that the loca- tion he'had selected was a good fishing hole. . The river I have in mind has a characteristic •/ oriental appellation given it — Pragon-fire. It is a small stream at a short distance from theHown of Imabari, having its fountain-heads in the valleys of the mountains visible from the mouth. There isi-V nothing remarkable about this water-course, ex-) . oept a popular belief that, on the eve of a festal/ -"f^» day in honor of the temple situated on one of the* mountains, a mysterious fire rises— Jirom thel enchanting " dragon-palace " in the depths^of the ocean, where a beautiful queen reigns supreme over her charming watery world with its finny and scaly subjects of various species. The myste- ■ rious light, casting an inverted image on the water, moves steadily up the river, under the concen- i trated gaze of thousands who climb the height partly as devotees but mostly as spectators, until , it reaches a massive stone lantern erected upon • ' the ledge of an immense cliff. There it vanishes as strangely as it appeared ; and instead t he lanter n,^ hitherto dark, lights up suddenly. I dislike to question the reality of this astonish- I ing phenomenon, or try to explain it with my I superficial knowledge of physics. A very pious, gracious old lady in our neighborhood had always a ready listener in me in her superstitious talks -» concerning the wonders and charitable doings of ^the Goddess of Mercy, whom she had imposingly . **~. ?0 A JAPANESE BOY. enshria 8dJyB_he r aB&rtment an< * adored unceas- 1 * ingly. Perhaps^youwoulcrwish to know what the goddess looked like. Well, it was a small bronze / statuette in a gilded miniature temple; she wore a / scanty Hindoo costume, a halo around her head and an expression gentle, sweet, serene, godly. — You have seen a reproduction of the ideal Italian picture of Christ, with downcast eyes and a look" of meek submission, benign tenderness and forgive- ness: the Goddess of Mercy seemed quite like that V ^but with slightly more authority . Another con- Iception of the pagan goddess, which I have seen elsewhere, represents her as possessing countless - arms, signifying, I imagine, the countless deeds of - mercy she achieves for mankind. The good ofcPlady di(T"not feel satisfied with the home worship; she must pla y the p ilgrim, / in spite of years and infirmities, and visit, at ' least, the nearest public temples. So she set off with her company, a circle of aged^ zealots like herself, on a journey to a sacred edifice stand- Iing somewhere in the mountain which, in fair weather, shows faintly against the sky west of Imabari, towering far above hills and heights of , nearer distances. The way is long and tedious/ and lies through rocky regions. Difficult passes and precipitous declivities were left far behind by assiduous traveling on foot; but the party lost the way, wandered into mountain wilds, silent and sublime, far, far from home or any human habi- tation; and there was nothing to be heard but the flocks of j£Cks^ cawing inauspiciously among the tree-tops. The day advanced rapidly ; the sun BY HIMSELF. 11 wheeled down without tarrying, and in the track- less forest the evening gloom gathered early. Mute admiration, commingled with despair, seized / the travelers as they surveyed the forest grandeur/ in its twilight robe. The unpruned trees thrust out dry broken arms from near the roots; the leaves sere and sodden covered the damp, black soil ankle deep rustling under the tread. The sunset, how glorious! Our travelers threw down their walking-sticks, stretched out their tired limbs and, seated on rocks, spell-bound, gave them- selves up to the contemplation of the magnificen t fire-painting in the weste rn fir mament. Behold the mountains of living coal, the lakes of molten gold, the islands of floating amber, all irregularly shaped as by a wild genius, distributed not as on the earth's surface, — a mountainous pile super-im- posed on a lake with a stratum of sapphire between ! At length, the whole melted into one grand univer- sal conflagration ; the undulating tops of the dis- tant mountain-chain- appeared boldly against the horizon ; the- needles and cones of a pine branch, pendant near by in the line of vision, depicted themselves sharply on the canvas of crimson splendor. Insensibly to our musing friends, however, the red sinking disc finally departed by the western portal, the after-glow died away slowly; and when they awoke from reveries and heaved a sigh, the question of what to be done came pressing upon them. Now the day being over, there was the danger of wild animals in the woods. That could be averted by building a bright fire, but what was 72 A JAPANESE BOY. to be done for hunger -which began to assert itself strongly? With energy gone and darkness and , peril thickening about them, yet trusting in the / Goddess, the lonely pilgrims peered around for a less exposed spot to nestle in. In this their search, miraculously they came upon what to them looked like a cottage. It was one of the hovels hastily put up with twigs and shrubs by hunters , where they waylay the boar at night and in snow, and where they slice meat, lie by the fire and smoke, / and frequently hold a midnight revel over their if i fat game. Our weary, almost famished tourists entered it, wondering and looking around at each step ; they were at once struck with the snug ap- pearance of the interior. There was a heap of ashes, which when disturbed disclosed a few glow- ing embers ; and in a corner was piled on raw hide / plenty of excellent venison. The hunters must have left not long since. The pious old lady goes on to tell that such a thing as this could not have been otherwise than ^ by the dispensation of her merciful Goddess, and / that she and her fellow believers fell immediately .' on their knees to express their heart-felt gratitude / for her munificence and protection. The fire was rekindled and fed with armfuls of the dried leaves and dead branches that lay strewn plentifully around ; the broad blaze cast an illusive cheerful- ness on objects standing near; each time a stick was thrown in the cloven tongues of the fire emitted sparks, which died in their flight among the masses of the overhanging foliage. Taken in connection with the surrounding scene, there was BY HIMSELF. 73 something inexpressibly wild and primitive about the open fire. The party appeased their hunger and waited the return of the proprietors of the rude cottage. They did not come, though the night advanced far; some of the pilgrims were * extremely fatigued and dropped to sleep in the * warmth, others sat up resolutely, repeating pray- j ers and counting the beads before a pocket im age j of the Goddess. The low night wind bore to their ear, at intervals, th^concer^oJ_wolves_howling in dismal, forlorn cadence; and they were now and then started by one of these savage marauders ap- pearing in their sight at a safe distance. The night was passed in this way, and the dawn came; but how to find the right path? While they were in despair and supplicating aid from the Goddess, one of them descried a figure on the brow - of an eminence not far distant. It seemed, on nearer approach, to be a venerable mountain sire ; his long silver- white beard flowed down his breast ; a pair of clear beaming eyes twinkled beneath his great shaggy eyebrows. Being asked in which point of the compass lay the road to the temple, he slowly lifted his cane, a knotty stem of a shrubs called akaza, and indicated the west. Apropos of . this, the akaza stick is believed to be carried by an * imaginary race of "men hidden in China's pathless wooa^7CT[ d~Tno TmTains, wlro are witnouT"exrepllon very old but never overtaken by riiKe a.se or death and live in serene felicity, gathering medicinal herbs, writing on scrolls and in company with cranes and tortoises. In kakemonoes (wall hang-j ings) they are sometimes depicted as taking aj 74 A JAPANESE BOY. literal " flying " visit on craneback, with the / inevitable scroll in hand, to their brother sennin's (sennin is the name this happy race goes by) grotto in a neighboring hill or dale. Our party of wanderers thanked the kind but dignified old man on their hands and knees and s raised their heads, when he seemed to dissolve ■/ i away from view in a most singular manner. This J opportune guide, according to my garrulous lady, -H is ajcaessengerL-sent^y-Jifir..thou§and^a i rjmgd j fl;£d- I dess to their help; in fine, not a thing occurs but is • Jj^- | ordained by Kwannon the Merciful. The story of \ the adventure was wound up with the safe arrival | in the Kwannon temple, and fervent piety kindled | at the altar. BY HIMSELF. 75 \ tJ -He r CHAPTER IX. I am afraid I have told a long prosaic story in the previous chapter, and betrayed a school-boy- . like delight for the bombastic in the description of V the simset, etc. No one detests more than I any 1 thing that smacks of the young misses' poetry. I / Come, let us inquireTmore relevantly to our" pur- pose, what constituted my childish happiness, sor- qw, fear_and other kindred feelings in Japan. The greatest fear I can yet recall was the ordea l of the yaito. This is a Japanese domestic art of healing a nd_ayejtii"g diseases, especially those of children. The moxa, being made into numerous tiny cones and placed on certain spots on the back, is lighted with the senko already described. Im- \ agine how you feel when the flesh is being burnt ; J I used to hold out stoutly against the cruel opera- tion — would you not sympathize with me ? If I had any presentiment of it, I would slip away and keep from home till I became desirous of dinner. No sooner had I crossed the paternal threshold than II was made a prisoner ; and ailment or no ailment, my severe father and mother insisted upon my having the yaito once in so often. Great was my demonstration of agbny when father held me still and mother proceeded to burn my bare back ; a ?6 A JAPANESE BOY. promise of bonbons, which reconciled me to almost / anything" ordinarily, did not work in this one in- stance ; I cried myself hoarse (keeping it up even while there was no pain) and kicked frantically. V "The storm is over, " mother used to say with con- siderable relief, when the trial drew to a close ; she , hated the torture as much as anybody, but she had * the welfare of her child at heart. Ah, gentle <* mother, if I had only understood ygu_tb en , as ^ -do » now I should certainly 'hot have BnappecTso terribly. ' I remember, after twenty-four to forty-eight hours the blisters began to swell and chafed painfully / against the clothing, and had to be punctured to let out the serum. As a matter of fact, the yaito did cure slight general and local ailments : once I ^ had a blood-shot eye, and mother sent me to a y worthy old woman in town, who knew how to cure * rTBynTeans of yaito. After much pressing with fingers, she hit at the vital point in the back and / marked it with a generous dip of india ink. Upon (returning home, it was burntjdeeply with moxa; V and miraculously enough - the eyigol weTFimmeffi - . ately. I am inclined to think the cautery acts ^y~ through the nerves. Now for years Tiave I been . '■ exempt "from the operation, yet to this day on my ^ *rj back are symmetrically branded tb£jstajilik&_me- / -t- __L -morials o f my mother's love. yfl Speaking of the old "woman I am reminded of another whom I was in the habit of looking upon as - a sort of witch. Her eye, with the crow's foot at the /■ outer corner and, I fancied, with the pupil in a / , ""^ioiigitudinalslit like that of^gnEEffiffifhe creature /nearest towitches and warlocks; her fetich, the •V-" BY HIMSELF. 77 image of a human monkey, to whom she was a sort / of vestal virgin ; her place of abode remote from town and isolated from other farm-houses, present- ing a queer combination of a rustic home and a sacred shrine ; these made my childish imagination invest her with an air of mystery. She was wont to come to town in trim, made-over clothe^ re-dyed and starched, with the slant overlapping Japanese collars adjusted nicely; in the setta (slipper-san- dals, much liked by aged people for their ease and safety compared wflih the high clogs); with her gray-streaked black hair combed tightly up, glossy with a superabundance of pomatum and done up in a coiffure bespeaking her age ; walking firmly, with a small p ortable shrine on her back wrapt in the furoshiki (wide cloth for carrying things about) \ and tied around her shoulders. People sent for her to exorcise, th eir houses, particularly when there ~* happened to Tbe sjcJl persons in them, consulted her in selecting the site for a new building and in sink- ing the well, in order not to draw_upqn_thgir heads f . the vengeance of a displeased spirit. On some oc- ' * casions our household required h"er assistance ; I went the long distance through the open fields to her residence ; and when she came she let down the shrine from her back, placed it against the wall in our sitting-room and, opening reverentially the * hinge-doors, proceeded to pray. What for, I don't remember, I was too intent upon her manners to inquire into her purpose. Of quite another stamp was Aunt Otsune (so everybody called her), housekeeper to the prosper- ous candy dealer just opposite us on Main street. 78 A JAPANESE BOY. Ready with tears for any sad news ; sympathetic in the extreme; beaming, radiant, full of happy smiles in beholding her friends — methinks I see her snatch me from my nurse's arms, fondle me to her bosom and press her withered cheek against my fat one, uttering some such very encouraging ejaculation as "My precious dear!" She did not / kiss me, I am very certain, for we don't have kiss- / ing. And she must have many a time dropped her work to admire my holiday garment; I know I / toddled some of my early experimental steps in / journeys to Aunty, trailing behind me the free ends of my sash ; and as I became confident of my- , self, I became ambitious and dragged my father's v or brother's clogs, a world too big for my feet. O how good Aunty was! She would fill both my hands with the candies that were being prepared in the back of the store near the kitchen and bid me run home and show them to mamma. The best thing she was in the habit of bestowing upon me was — I don't know what to call it ; it was the burnt bot- tom portion of the rice she had cooked for all hands / of the store in a prodigious vessel, loosened in broad pieces and folded about the an. The an is (this necessity of definition upon definition cautions me against touching on many a thing peculiarly Jap- / anese) the an is a red bean deprived of its skin and i 'mashed with sugar; it forms the cftr fi of variou s / comfits . O how ,1 relished this Aunty's homely, / warm, sweet concoction ! It was not intended for sale, therefore we cared little about its appearance, were it only good to taste. She made it so large sometimes that I had to hold it with both my small. + BY HIMSELF. 79 hands. I munched away at it, whilst she scraped the great vessel ; and it was sometime before each of us could finish our huge tasks. I well recall the flickering rush-light under which Aunty worked ; the sense of satisfaction I experienced in my agree- able occupation in my corner; the harsh grating noise of the steel scraper against the bottom of the iron vessel ; the obscurity round about the sink a short way off ; and the invisible rascals of mice hold- ing high festivity over cast-off viands, _chasing each other, biting one another's tails and screechin g at the pain. My family endeavored to keep me at home, for it certainly is not in good taste to have one's child running off to a neighbor's kitchen; but Aunty would steal me from mamma, and I, for my part, did all I could, I warrant, to be stolen! When we are well-nigh through our business, Aunty, happening to glance at me to assure her- self I am there though silent, breaks into a broad, good-humored smile at the sight. Here I am with the an smeared about my mouth, and stretching , out my hands equally sticky, in a most comic des- * pairing attitude. What I implore in mute eloquence is this, that she would please to take immediate j care of my soiled hands and wipe off the material ' about my mouth. Aunty stands a minute appre- ciating the humorous effect so produced ; I look up at her with unsuspecting eyes wide open and licking my mouth occasionally by way of variation. Soon, / however, my good-hearted Aunty washes me nice » and clean and taking me up with her hands on my sides, throws me on her right shoulder and crosses / 80 A JAPANESE BOY. over to the opposite side of the street in short quick steps to our house. She is always a -welcome I guest there and is at once surrounded by our | women, to whom she imparts her kitchen lore and / 1 latest bits of news about men and things. She had a little roman ce in her kitchen, which she helped along and 1 she took absorbing interest in its development. It was the m^u^attachnient j of the adopted daughter of the great candy manu- V~*/ facturer and one of his men. Miss Chrysanthe- v *>■ mum, to give a glimpse of her past ~Eis tor y, was born in a humble home and, being a burden to its inmates, was thrust upon Mr. Gladness the Main i *< street confectioner, who walTl mm en sely wealthy , ( *- and invested for pleasure in peacocks, canary bir ds, j white, long-eared, pink-eye d, lovely, tame rabbit s, I valuable pot-plants and many other good things. 1 I received beautiful peacock feathers from him; but my sisters did not wish them for their bonnets, because Japanese ladies do not wear bonnets. (But I don't know, of course, as I am a man and a for- eigner, that ladies ever trim their bonnets with the gay peacock feathers.) And when the peacocks died, Mr. Gladness {his Japanese equivalent means it) caused them to be stuffed and surprised me and many others one day with the dead but life-like Y peacocks in the cage. I went to see Mr. Gladness often ; Mr. Gladness was a very rich, important gentleman; Mr. Gladness was good enough tome, though older people did not seem to love him as I did ; he let me see the rabbits eat bamboo-leaves. He said I might touch them if I liked. I was very much afraid at first, but Mr. Gladness assured me BY HIMSELF. 81 ■n they wouldn't bite — honestly they wouldn't. So I ventured to put out my hand. They limped away from me though, keeping their noses going all the / time. Don't you know how they twitch their noses? Japanese rabbits do that too; I thought it . was funny ! Mr. Gladness had in his yard a large | pond, where he kept a lot of big goldfish; Mr. Gladness had also in his beautiful yard a little mountain and a little stream with a little bridge. Mr. Gladness had a great many servants; every- body, bowing, said "yea, yea "to him, while he .Lw stood straight as an arrow. . ir /w ~^ Miss Chrysanthemum, as I was saying, came, or rather was brojigh^ to this rich merchant's house, i he having found her one cold morning at his door, - * tucked nicely in a basket.. like-l.it.t]e Mfggg' Her t \" poor dear mother, like his mother, some have said, ! was watching from a hiding place ; the anxiety of ] 4 a mother seems the same both in ancient and mod- ! ern times and all the world over. Now the rich man had no child, j ust as in stories; and when the crying baby stopped and smiled at him through . her tears, his proud old heart felt infinitely tender. / He adopted her at that instant and christened her / afterward Chrysanthemum, the flower of that name being his favorite above all others in his I garden. These particulars I gleaned from the neighbors' social gossip a fter I had grown up ; Miss Chrysan- themum was already a young lady when I used to go to Aunt Otsune' in childish adoration. I remem- ber the young lady took me one winter's evening beside her to the kotatsu^. the heating apparatus I 6 / J 82 A JAPANESE BOY. have mentioned in connection with my grand- father's house, and told me stories. She was reared in luxury, had everything she wanted that could be gotten with money, and was a great pet of Aunty's, who regarded her as her own child. It was not surprising, then, that Aunty should note with deep satisfaction the gentle flutter of Miss I Chrysanthemum's maiden heart at the sight of a * young man; indeed, she seemed in the eye of the world to take more interest than the interested par- ties themselves. This kitchen romance was the pervading theme of her conversation ; we were in duty bound to hear just how the matter stood be- tween the two, with her opinions as to the pros- pect. The whole town took it up and discussed it variously; some sage persons shook their heads and intimated that they knew a certain poor fisher - J woman to be Miss Chrysanthemum's real jnotn er, ▼ and that they had all along their own mfsgivings concerning the young lady's future. "The blood will tell " was the maxim on which these sapient ob- servers took their stand, and they talked the young man over as if he were an arrant fortune h unter, when I fear not one of them could come up to Mr. Prosperity in assiduity and honest labor. "The blood will tell," indeed, that a daughter of a friend- less, mistaken, but upright woman should choose . for herself a sensible man, one who will stick to / her through thick and thin, as we shall see* presently. As I am not writing a love story, I shall not give the personal appearances of my fair Chrysanthe- mum and gentle J^>sgerity, nor their sayings and / ST HIMSELF. 83 doings. Yet I do see perfectly, even at this dis- tance of time and place, the picture of young Mr. Prosperity sitting with his fellow workers at his f work, in the workshop on the rear of the store, under the same roof with the kitchen but with a hall-way between. Perhaps he is putting a colo r * on the sugared commodities ; he does it with a flat ' brush, taking up the pieces one by one, then he sends a box of them to the next man, who goes over the same, staining the uncolored portion with / another tint. He looks up at my approach, smiles a welcome and resumes the work; the others, being used to my coming, go on with their ' job, without even taking as much trouble as the mere act of raising their heads, saying indiffer- ently " halloo ! " to their busy hands. Mr. Prosper- ity, I remember, gave me some of the candy he was making when he found an opportunity, which went fa rtherjtoforrn my good-opinioiL pf him tha n any other ac t. Everything went on pleasantly with the young people and Aunty — very pleasantly, in fact, until the pleasure of the old gentleman came to be con- / suited. Then arose an insurmountable difficulty ; * he would not hear of the match; he possessed wealth and in consequence proved supercilious. His wealth, however, was but recently acquired ; he himself was once a common workman in a candy store on the fourth block of the same street. But he would not have anything said about it; he sim- ply would not brook the idea of giving his daughter in marriage to his employee ; he foolishly deemed it below his dignity. This was a severe blow ^ i 84 A JAPANESE BOY. to Aunt Otsune; she felt hgr career balked and , frustrated; the young couple began to love each* other much more than before. "What "would this state of things result in? " said the gossips of the y town. Reconciliation of the huffy old man, impos- ■* sible ! Separation of the affectionate pair, quite as hard! Here Aunt Otsune' called in her inventive powers ; she was full of kind honest invention, — how else could she have carried herself in the battle of life so far, single handed, and remain a favorite with all the world? She took Miss Chrysanthemum f^ and Mr. Prosperity under her wing, as_ it we re, rented a comfortable little house on a by-street and installed them therein, married. She liked to see them happy together, and have them take care of her in her old age ; she had heretofore been lone and helpless, despite her cheerful exertions. They opened a small candy store, falling back upon their •/* knowledge of the trade ; soon there came to them a dear litt le babe. Aunt Otsune rejoiced at the little one's advent ; her scheme was now complete. She bore the infant in her arms softly and went to the door of her former employer. Her diplomacy was to give the cross old fellow a sight of the lovely • grandchild and thereby work a jmracle in his stony heart , surmising at thesariie*time thaFTtime must have done something towards mollifying his obstinacy. This accomplished, it would be an easy step to persuade him to take them all back into his favor. Alas, poor faithful soul! it was but a woman's wisdom ; Mr. Gladness was still found inexorable^ BY HIMSELF. 85 On that memorable night slowly she walked into our house with the babe in her arms, and sat her- self down heavily by the dim, papered Japanese ' household lamp. For some time she remained silent and glanced around the room furtively; to her unspeakable satisfaction there was nobody there beside ourselves. Then the mental tension with which she upheld the whole weight of misery and woe gave wa y, and she burst into a flood_of tears. I recollect the unusual solemn hush of the room, the serious looks of the company and the distracting sobs on the other side of the lamp ; I recollect my becoming unaccountably sad, too, and looking away at a corner in my effort to I refrain from tears; I beheld the_ paper god pasted { * high up on the pillar brown with age "and smoke. ; When Aunty recovered herself, she managed to inform us how she had been received by Mr. Glad- ness and told us she had made up her mind, if the young people were willing, to move to one of the islands in the Sound where she was sure of a kind- t lier reception. So the kind old soul, foiled, in the/ \ last of her struggles, left her friends at Imabari fori the simple life of the islanders. At intervals, we J had intelligence of her whereabouts, but as years { rolled on news reached us no more. I have given this account of Aunt Otsune' some- what at length, because I felt interested in reviv- ing her half -forgotten memory ; and I have entered upon the history of Miss Chrysanthemum and Mr. Prosperity in order to show to the people of this i country, who are misinformed on the subject of ^ Japanese marriage and believe that our young peo- •V 86 A JAPANESE BOY. pie are, in all ca ses, matched by their parents and not infrequently to those -whom they do not love, — in order to show, I say, to these misinforme d *{£. peoplebv an actual example from my own obser- vation, that such is not the case, and that our people marry for love of each other, notwithstand- ing theartificiglmanners of our society. BY HIMSELF. 87 CHAPTER X. I WAS gener aJly happy ; in my childish days in Japan. I cannot put my finger on any particular \ thing as my chief happiness, but I think holidays k' made me as happy as anything. We have a num- ber of holidays, among which the first and the greatest is New Year's Day. The fksLtto g_days of January ! I shall never forget them. But like most celebrations New Year pleasure must be chiefly felt in a few preparatory days. In Japan full vigor is preserved among chil- dren for Happy New Year ; here in America Merry i Christmas, with its Santa Claus and his stocking- l ful of presents, takes awav the zest from children * before New Year comes. The merriment of the season is materially heightened by the making of the mochi The mochi, which I have referred to/ once before, is a glutinous cake made of rice ; it is j as peculiarly indispensable in the New Year feast \ as is turkey in the New England Thanksgiving din- 1 ner. It is generally no larger than a man's palm, therefore one family makes a great number of them. Many are stuffed with the an. The an is not necessarily sweet ; some people like it flavored with salt. A large number of the mochis are not stuffed; they are suffered to dry and harden, so 88 A JAPANESE BOY. that they can be stored away for future enjoy- I ment. At any time during the year you may get them out and steam or toa§t them. In our town there are men who mate it their business to visit houses and help them in mochi-making. Just I before New Year the professional mochi-makers • work hard day after day. They could not always come in the daytime and made arrangements to visit us in the early morning. Then my sisters and I could hardly go to sleep in the great antici- pation of joy. When the morning came, our i house was thrown open, illuminated (for it was ^ yet dark) brightly and cheerfully, and the whole household were up doing something with willing hand and heart. I cannot describe how happy I was in this scene. I tried, half in play, to help them and got in everybody's way. You know the holiday feelings are very difficult to reproduce with p en and ink. Along the house on the street the men arranged a row of small earthen cooking stoves, which they ( had brought with them, each carrying two. The mode of carrying in this^case, as well as" in the transportation of any heavy load, is to use the shoulder as fulcrum and, laying on it an elastic wooden pole from whose ends hangs the burden, } walk in steady balance, presenting the appearance \of a pair of scales. Over the stoves were placed vessels of boiling water, over the vessels tubs with holes in the bottom and straw covers on top, in the vessels were heaps of rice washed perfectly white. The rice used in mochi-making is different from ordinary dinnerjrice; it is more, glutinous when BY HIMSELF. 89 cooked and easily made into paste ; it is a distinc t- 1 varie ty selected in the beginning for the express j purpose. The stoves are short hollow cylinders, open at the top and in the front ; the top receives the bottom of the vessel, and the front opening or mouth ejects smoke and allows the feeding of fuel. They seemed on this occasion to blaze more brightly; we children went out and watched the dancing flames; they made our faces glow with their reflection. When the rice was steamed long enough, it was . \ transferred and made into paste in an utensil, like / which I have seen nothing in this country. It is simply a stout trunk of a felled tree a few feet in height with its upper end scooped out. With it is a cylindrical block with a handle, a sort of pestle to press and strike upon the steamed rice. NThere was something joyous about the dull »/'jjr€\Mv. thumps when heard in the neighborhood, perhaps not to a foreign ear but to one brought up amongst .customs associated with New Year holidays. And never at other times was our house so overflowing with hilarity as at this climax of domestic enjoy- ment. When the rice lost its granular appearance and became a uniform sticky mass, then it was placed upon a large board spread with rice flour. There it lay steaming, milk-white, this luxury of New Year, — luxurious even to the touch! The entire household flocked around it and made numerous round cakes. While our hands were busy, we interchanged many innocent jokes and merry laughs ; the old people gave in to our sway, displaying a quiet humor in their looks. 90 A JAPANESE nor. s- We set up t he New Year/tree ./ It is a drooping willow tree thickly studded with rice-paste and >. hung with ornate cotton_ balls. painted card s, etc. * Throughout the month of January it is to be seen Iin the parlor of every house nailed agjunsfjthe / wall. '* After nightfall on the last day of the old year a curious ceremony is performed. The worthy head i of the family goes the round of his house with a * box of hard burnt beans . Within every chamber he stands upright and throws a handful of the / same, exclaiming at the top of his voice, — "Wei- v come Good Luck ! Away with the Devil ! " Now, the box used provisionally for a receptacle is a rice measure called masu, which jsounds like the / , verb meaning increase; ana the beans are mam &_ / which is the same as the noun meaning b^eajth,/" although written and accented differently. Put- ting them together we have a supplication in a / play upon words, — " Increase Tiealth, " or "TSEay / health increase!" Odd and fantastic as the notion appears, however, it is a fallowed custom S and scrupulously observ ed. My father tormeriy performed the ceremony In our house; but when my eldest brother had grown up, he was assigned to the office, which he discharged with a comic grav- / ity_that I cannot forget. The Japanese looks upon certain periods — I for- get which — of his life as evil years. To avert hover- ing ill influences or to "drop ^ t he years as they put it, the people take of the beans as many as their years, put them in paper bags together with a few pence and drop them at some cross-roads, taking if BY HIMSELF. 91 , care not to be seen. In this manner I have drop- ^ "^ ped several of my earlier bad years; I should have been wrecked a long time since, for life, but fo r the bags ol beans ! 1 "" In the same evening tradesmen desire to coU§ £t ^ old bills and^ lear unJihe accounts of the passing year ; and in order to do it they call at the houses ( of their debtors, lighting their way with lantern s >- which bjgarthe signs of their commercial establish- ments. So generaTis this iaea7"ahd "so' customary i . has this proceeding become in time, that everybody I expects it as a matter of course at the end of each j ■V year; debtors, too, are easily dunned. A conse- quence is one of the grandest displays of lantern s. ^ What a delight it was to me to stand before my house and watch the countless lights move up and down the street ! When I was older I was l appointed lantern-bearer before the collector for | my father, who instructed his man to give_me I p_oints, incidentally, in business. The next morning dawns, and the first day of the New Year is with us. Everybody seems — happy, kind-hearted and filled with better feelings. Shopping housewives, grocers arid"Eucksters of all V sorts of holiday market goods have disappeared from the streets ; the change is like that of Sunday I morning from Saturday afternoon in an American I city. All the houses are carefully swept and put in good order, and the people have on their best apparel. A kind of arch is erected in front of v_ each dwelling. But it is not round, it is square. Two young pine trees are planted for the pillars, i and cross-pieces of green bamboo are tied to them. I 1 92 A JAPANESE BOY. On this frame- work are placed the traditional sim- w pie ornaments; straw fringes, sea- weeds, ferns, a red lobster-shell, a lemon, dried persimmons, dried sardines and charcoal. These articles stand for many auspicious ideas ; reflect a moment and they will come home clear to your mind. The pines, •^(f bamboos, sea- weeds and ferns are evergreens, fit , I emblems of constancy ; the straw fringes are for » excluding evfi^agencies— the lamb's blood on the door; tneTobster by its bent form is indicative of old age or long life; the lemon is dai-dai — "g enera- fion"after generation ; " the dried persimmons are sweets .long and well preserved; the sardines from ' their always swimming in a swarm denote the wish for a large family ; and lastly, the stick of /" cJiar-COal is an imperishable substance. When the morning sun rises gloriously or snow- flakes happen to fall (for we have snow in Japan), children leap out from under the arches, salute one ^another and begin to indulge in outdooT*noli3ay games. To speak about breakfast may be trespassing upon hospitality, but the Japanese New Year breakfast is something unique. The mochi makes up the main part. The unstuffed rice-cakes are ■/ cooked with various articles; potatoes, fish, tur- nips and everything palatable from land and sea is found with them. A person of ordinary capac- ity can scarcely take more than a few bowlf uls of •/ the dish, but there are people brave enough to • dispatch twenty or thirty at a time ! For weeks after whenever idlers of the town come together s^there is always a warm discussion concerning their BY HIMSELF. 93 *? comparative merits in this respect. I have noticed that the good people of this republic also look upon i Thanksgiving and Christmas as the days on which "*to i ndulge t heir best appetite-; and I have heard persons tglljng tlSTwonffera^^th^ ^tQrna,chs and i seeking opinions of the wise men around them, who are likewise dreaming over their pipes again of the turkeys, chicken-pies and plum-puddings that | are gone by. As the day advances, good towns-people in f decorous antique garb appear in all directions, \ making New Year calls . Upon meeting their j acquaintances they have not much to say, the I chief thing being to keep the head going up and down with great formality, — a bow it is intended to be, yet a great deal more than that. It is almost an impossible act for one not trained so to do, unless he goes at it with the spirit of martyrdom. | Of course, t he parlor reception by ladies in white is something unEeard of in the far East. Ladies are to be good and remain in the back parlor, except when their presence is desired by the gentlemen who do the honor of receiving ; you * often detect the bri ght ev «g rlii-Ar- ted unon y ou y h The dinner is not so splendid an affair as the breakfast, but has many customary dishes to be served. The fact will strangely strike the reader, who associates in his mind such a sumptuous board as that of Christmas with the term dinner. In that figurative sense in which we frequently use it, it must properly be applied to the breakfast. I must meption here that in the New Year meals Y- 94 A JAPANESE BOT. •^ we putaside_our' crockery^warg and take out from f he 3tore-room woodeii_ bowls, japanned red inside and jet black outside with our family crest in gold, S Th e children ^ are rendered more attractive with the picturesof flying cranes on the covers, and tortoises with wide-fringed tails among the waves ■/ on the exterior of the bowls, all in gold. A casual sight of them at other times, in my rummaging for *vthings, was sufficient to awake in me a pleasant train of thoughts relative to the holidays. Oh, and that tremendous big fish , I must tell you about that ! / —Every family provides itself for New Tear with a / uge buri — Japanese name of course, I am igno- •ant of its proper zoological term ; I obtained my f first idea of the whale f rom this monstrous fish. It I A,^ hangs in the kitchen from one of the rafters/ i throughout the holidays ; the cook cuts meat from it, and the family feasts upon it until it is reduced /to a d"wnrifl-M s\^lpfrm My impression is that the fish is caught in some of the provinces border- ing on the Pacific Ocean ( Imabari looks on the «#*jnland sea) and sent to our town: certain it is, the article we procure is always salted . The r ush for "W the .buri in the market before New Year is just like \ the JtUfkey bargaining before Thanksgiving in this /" [country; the difference is that the buri is more \ expensive, and it is not everybody that can afford jto buy one. Taking advantage of the last evening's cere- mony, in the course of the day femfllfijjeggars /* *l appear in the mask of the Goddess Good Luck, and 1 sing and dance for alms. That is tolerable. But a host more of strong male beggars, personating the ¥- BY HIMSELF. 95 devils *with rattling bamboo bars and with hid-[ / eously painted faces, p lant themselves before the! \ houses and demand in a strident authoritative* H voice a propitiation with hard coin. Some of them paint themselves with cheap red paint, represent- ing the "red devils;" others smear themselves with the still more economical scrapings from the I sides of the chimney, becoming thereby the " black •4 devils." The idea of the devils of different color s \_ jjf-/ came from the Buddhist's pictorial representation \ of Hell, wherein the demons are seen serving out punishment to the sinners, — throwing them into a sulphurous flame, a lake of blood, a huge boiling caldron and to dragon-snakes ; giving them a free ride on a chariot of Are : driving them up a moun- Vtain beset with needles; pulling out the tongues of the liars ; mashing the bodies as you do potatoes ; and so forth. The pictures, by the bye, with many . ^>thers of saints and martyrs, are the same in na- j / ture as the religious paintings of Eome and equally \ J grand and magnificent. Tha-J^an pBrRmynv to j „A conclude, although it might have banished imagi- nary devils, after all, has drawn tog ether thejyery nextmorning an army of the/ftes^and- bloodjleyils that want to eat and tlrink 96 A JAPANESE BOY. CHAPTEK XI. Among the recreations most fondly indulged in on the New Year holidays is kite : flying . This is so j well known here that I have often been over- v whelmed with questions regarding it by little Americans. Our kites are mostly rectangular, , with heroes^oxJJiansters painted on them in most'/ glaring colors. A win^T instrument looking like a bow is sometimes fastened to the kite, and when the kite is in the air the wind strikes the string and makes a humming noise. At a kite- fight the com- Ibatants bring their flying kites in juxtaposition and strive to cut the string by friction. Now and then an unfortunate, hero or monster, is seen tossed about at the disposal of the wind, finding its fate -wupon the water, the tree-tops, or I know not where. I At the height of kite-flying even those with more discretion enter into the full spirit of the young and build prodigious kites. I have actually seen one so large that, when flown high up on a fair 1 windy day, the combined efforts of several men / could scarcely hold it. It was a hard-fought tug- of-war ; after much ado, with the aid of wres tlers Iand ajfehletes, I remember, the monster was at length securedlcTthe main front oaken_pillar of_a__great building. The string fastened to such a kite is a \ BY HIMSELF. 97 strong twine hundreds of yards long, yet it often gives way. And to fly such a kite on the streets of 1 4_ a city is next to an impossibility ; it will bump hard J at houses and rake d own the tiles (our houses are / roofed with tiles) over_ the i _heads_ofjp agBers- bY : I for which reason, it is always taken out to the\ open country and afterwards brought into town \ when it has gone well up in the air. What a mass v^ of curious children surge beside t he men who hold ^ the kite by the string as they walk home ! I have sat many an afternoon after school whit- tling the bamboo frame for a modest kite. It was my most interesting employment ; my father calls me into another room to run on an errand for him ; I hear him plainly, but pretend otherwise and make V him call repeatedly — ungrateful son ! Upon hear- ing him approach and perceiving longer delay to be impossible, I break away from the agreeable oc- cupation and emerge as cheerfully as I can, " Yes, sir, father." He inquires what I was about, re- ' proves me for not answering him quickly and gives me to know that if I do not heed his behest he will surely throw my kite into the fire. After such in- terruptions, however, the important frame-work is done. Oh, what satisfaction I feel over it ! Then I / go to the kitchen and wheedle Osan into giving I me a bit of boiled rice, which I make into paste on | a piece of board with a bamboo spatula. With the paste I put white paper on the frame and leave it to dry. There are many little technical points in kite construction, buc those I refrain from entering into in detail. When it is dry, I write on the kite ^ confidentially with my own hand some appropriate v*. 7 98 A JAPANESE BOY. word, say, Zephyr, in lieu of picture. I now tie the string and try its flight ; it dashes at the eaves this way, pitches into the latticed windows that way, twirls in mid-air like a tumbler-pigeon, and in general behaves badly. Thereupon I take it down, add weight to the lighter side, attach a tail and do all to insure balance and equilibrium, and, then try it again. Since coming to this country, the request has been put to me more than once by little friends that I should make them a genuine Japanese kite. But the want of tenacious paper and bamboo has always prevented me from complying with their wish. As I write on, by the association of ideas I call to mind an event which greatly provoked me. I was fond of poking into and turning over old 3 things up in the garret, as I hinted before, or I had J archaeolo gical tas te, to give it a dignified name. 0Se~dSy7much "to my surprise, I came upon an old kite frame perhaps six feet by five, good for further use. I found it hidden behind a worm- eaten chest of drawers; it was constructed, I dis- covered, w hen my uncle was a boy ; everybody in the house had forgotten all about it. I was instantly possessed with the desire to boast of a big kite, now that the frame was ready ; and as if to help out my plan, some one recollected that the reel of string that went with the kite was put away in one'oYTihe drawers. This I immediately sought and found. These relics I guarded with great care until a visit from my uncle, who resided in the same town, when I produced them and got him to y BY HIMSELF. 99 tell me about his kite. I could not have done a better thing ; his old playthings before him put my uncle in mind of his boyhood ; they created in him the wish to see them restored once more to their former usefulness ; and he promised me he would attend to them himself. Attend to them himself he did in a few days, tak- U ing as lively an interest as I did. Having papered j the frame, we carried it to a man who painted ( show-bills . He painted on it a scmaJ^Bjg^Darunia / 1 in ' scarlet can onical robe, holding the high-priest's mace , a staff with a long tuft of white hair at one end", while the white untouched margin left by this large figure was stained blue. It was a glorious kite ; the picture of Daruma, who was a great light of Buddhism, the founder of a new sect, who sat and thought through his whole life, sufferingjp disturbance.., from matters temporal — h ence his papier-mdch6 image on a hemisphere of lead for the toy "tumbler;" Daruma, I started to say, looked out from our kite with a pair of immense goggle eyes, shaded by prominent shaggy eye- brows; a furrow ran down on either cheek from the side of his nose toward the corners of his mouth; large Hindoostanee,^iaE zrings hu ng from the enlarged lobes of his ears ; and I may here add that, notwithstanding his reputed sedentary habits, he is always drawn as a holy man of strong physi- cal features. So far, so good. My uncle, as might be antici- pated, wanted to see how our kite would fly. Accordingly, we got a big boy to hold it up for us against the wind, and my uncle at a distance held 100 A JAPANESE BOY. ^the string ready to dash at a run. The signal was given, and away my uncle ran, and up rose the kite. Breathlessly I was watching. But it no sooner rose than it pitched sidewise and struck on v^the spikes upontheJsuces of the Mayor's house. I lost^my hearFTl did not cry just yet ; the catas- trophe was too big for utterance and too sudden ; there was no time to weigh the calamity. The men pulled at the kite, which, I say, had stuck j fast on the p ointed black _woodenbars bristlingv unmannerly in all possible directions. I bore the spikes an inveterate enmity ever after, till one day j they were every one of them pulled down with the \house, at which I felt extreme satisfaction. The tearing noise of the kite, however, rent my breast then ; and the men, being persuaded at last of the futility of their proceeding, brought forward a lad- der, and my uncle . mounted it deliberately. I 1 could not contain myself any longer; I ran into the house, threw myself on the floor and wept bit- terly- After that I turned over the whole affair in my mind at leisure, lying on my back, studying •^the ceiling and sucking my finger in baby fashion. The phantom of the broken kite rose before me ; I swallowed down my grief with difficulty. Who brought it about? Nobody else but uncle; yes, if uncle had not wished to try the kite it would not have happened. I whimpered afresh at the pain- ful thought ; I now reproached my uncle as much as I formerly thanked him. After a considerable lapse of time my uncle came in, crestfallen, with the tattered kite. But in dudgeon I would not speak to him or look at him ; he very awkwardly BY HIMSELF. j.Oi endeavored to console me and with difficulty- coaxed me to accept his atonement in patching the rents. The moisture of the glue, nevertheless, scattered the original colors and disfigured the beautiful picture. I forget how I forgave him that. But to resume the holiday games. Boys play a sort of ball — the "pass and catch" part — with a good-sized dai-dai (lemon) ; we call it dai-dai rolling. We give each other the " grounder" repeatedly, so that even the hard-rinded Japanese fruit gets rup- tured in a little time ; then our business is to beat about for a supply of the new balls, which we inva- _, riably accomplish by knocking down the fruit '/ from the unguarded arches. The people generally y take the prank in good part. I Girls play out-of-doors with battledore and shuttlecock; they also play with cotton-balls, which they toss with their dainty hands against hard floors. They keep the ball bounding rhyth- mically between the palm of their hand and the floor, and hum songs in time with it. At home and in the evening we play cards and other games. The favorite game of cards consists -t in giving out the first lines of couplets and en- deavoring to pick out from the confusion of cards, i in competition with others of the company, the particular cards on which are written the follow- , ing lines ; the one with the largest number of cards i in the end is declared the winner. This game has the commendable feature of impressing on the mind celebrated poems; it is not merely time thrown away. Japanese poems, I remark in pass- 102 A JAPANESE BOY. ing, are short and pithy; the classic "a Hundred Poems from a Hundred Poets " are characteristic and are consequently printed for the purpose of the game. The selected poems of the To dynasty, Y which in the annals [of Chinese literature corre- spond to the English Elizabethan period, I mean in development and not in chronology, are substi- tuted by scholars for the Japanese poems. We also play a kind of parchesi and a form of the v ding. Dear mamma's stories, interesting as they are, touching as they do not a little on the pleas- ures, fashions and general social regime of Old Japan, I feel obliged to omit. For the present, I must go on with my own story. I was stooping, I say, before the tombs, all about being silent and gloomy; my young ani- mated imagination dwelling not on my grand- father's goodness but on old wives' awful tales of <■ ±, graveyards and dark nights, pale apparitions and , grinning skeletons; and my whole being sur- charged with fear, requiring but the shrill wind to make my hair stand on end, and ready to start at my own shadow, when suddenly there came a moan from behind the adjoining slabs, and a moment later a ghost shot up with a wild shriek. I drew back involuntarily and caught my breath, so did my companion. Then the ghost shook its gaunt sides and burst out laughing in ghoulish de- light. We were taken aback, but soon rallied courage sufficiently to peer at the merry spook. How provoking! The young priest' stood on one of the tombstones, with the broad sleeve of his monk- ish habiliment over his face. He came down to us quickly, wearing a mischievous smile, passed over the whole thing as a huge jest, putting in a slight excuse for causing our undue alarm, and politely offered his service in carrying the flowers and water-pail. His words and manners smoothed away our ruffled temper and rendered a scolding >v impossible; a few more hours made it look too slight to report to the head-priest. In the main 116 A JAPANESE BOY. the young priest had the best of us; he earned ■what he liked better than a good dinner, — some capital fun. And in this connection, here comes bounding toward me in my remembrance our pet dog Gem. / I will relate how he came to be so closely associ- ated in my thought with the grave ; it is a sad, good story. My young brother, who had a boy's fondness for animal pets in an eminent degree, got him from another boy whose dog had a litter of several puppies. When my brother brought him home in his arms, Gem was but a mass of tender flesh covered over with soft down; he had just been weaned ; consequently by night j he yelped, and cried piteously for his mother, v under the piazza where my brother shielded him from the paternal eye. My father was not a great lover of pets: the cat he could not bear for her soft- voiced, velvet-pawed deceitf ulness ; the dog for his belligerent, deep-mouthed barks at strangers and for fear of his becoming mad in summer time ; and the canary bird — poor thing — it was too bad that people should deprive it of its native freedom. We had our doubts, therefore, how Gem and papa were to get along. However, we were not without a ray of hope that in time they would come to be good friends, for papa had once shown that he did not altogether lack the love of dumb animals. It was when I began to love the little white and spotted mice penned in a box with a glass front and a wheel within. My father suffered them to be kept in the house out of his love for BY HIMSELF. 117 me ; gradually his curiosity was awakened to take a look occasionally at what his son exhibited such absorbing interest in ; next he became a keen ad- mirer of my little revelers, — their gambols, their assiduous turning of the wheel, their cunning way of holding rice grains, and their house-keeping in a wad of cotton in the drawer beneath, to which they could descend by a hole in the floor of the box. After a while I grew negligent about them, and then it was my father who fed them and took care of them. On the whole, he bade fair to come to a better understanding with our precious Gem. Neverthe- less, Gem — or rather my young brother — had trouble with him during his canine minority. When the "puppy had grown big, true to our prophecy, my father began to show his just appre- ciation of him. Gem would sit beside him on his hind legs at meal times and watch intently the movements of the chopsticks, with his head in- clined on one side one moment and on the other the next, letting out an occasional faint guttural cooing by way of imploring a morsel. Should there haply fall from the table an unexpected gift, say a sardine's head, Gem with the utmost alacrity would pick it up and occupy himself for a few minutes, then, licking his chops and wagging his tail, he would turn up to my father a gaze at once thankful for what was given and hopeful for/ more. Little Gem took a fancy to grandpa, and when the children were away at school, he would pay him a visit and pitpat into his room uncere- moniously, like one of the grandchildren, when the 118 A JAPANESE BOY. old gentleman was dozing over the past at the kotatsu (fire-place). This Gem of ours had an idea that it was rude to surprise one in his meditation, and thought it proper to stop short a few yards from grandpa and utter one of his gutturals, as much as to say, "How do you do, grandpa?" Whereat our good, old grandpa was obliged to break off to receive his fourfooted visitor cor- dially. A time came when grandpa was no more, and a perfect stillness settled on our home. Dear little Gem could ill comprehend what all the house meant and went about as happily and innocently as before: he had now his playmates all day at home. His conduct caused us to think how glad we should be to know no grief, and to such a place we felt sure must our grandpa have gone. Early every morning for the first week or two somebody from the house repaired to the church-yard to see that things were right and to put up prayers; once or twice Gem was taken along for company, and since then he counted it his duty to attend us to the temple. My father and I would get up some morning on this errand, and no sooner had we appeared at the gate than Gem uncurled from his comfortable sleeping posture, rose and shook his hair and looked his " I am ready." He gener- ally paced before us, but frequently tarried behind to salute his dog-neighbor with a good morning. Sometimes he would course sportively away from our sight ; we whistled loud without any response ; but knowing he could find his way back, we gave up the search and hastened to the temple. Upon X BY HIMSELF. 119 our arrival, before grandpa's stone sat a little dog looking out on the alert. Gem received us in the capacity of host and conducted us to the grave, saying as plainly as ever dog said, "Don't you see? I know the way." One morning we rose to find our Gem gone. Inquiries revealed him lying at a short distance from the gate, with his fur dyed in his own life- blood. He was dead ! Whether a prowling, fero- cious animal had fallen on him in the night, or a cruel human brute had inflicted the wounds with- out just cause, we could not ascertain. My young brother took Gem's cruel death to heart; my father, too, felt deeply the sad fate of the now-to- him priceless pet. And here naturally ends the story of our dog. In our temple, as well as in those of all other de- nominations, the birthday of the great common teacher Shaka (Gautama) is observed. It falls on J \ the eighth, I think, of April ; the observance is sim- j pie and quiet except for the distributi on of ubuyu. v In the East, when a child is born the midwife im- mediately plunges it in a tub of warm water. This water is called ubuyu or first bath. On the eighth of April, in every temple a bronze basin is placed before the altar ; in the center of the basin stands a bronze image of the Infant Shaka ; his attitude is much like that of the Boy Christ pictured in the illustrated Bibles and the Sunday-school cards as teaching a group of the scribes. The myth relates a marvelous account of his rising upright in the bath-tub and telling his astonished parents and old midwife whence he came, pointing to heaven, and 120 A JAPANESM BOY. what his mission on earth was. His exact words are recorded in the Buddhist's scriptures. The bronze vessel is filled with a decoction of a certain dried herb whose taste resembles liquorice. ^ The drink is popularly known as the "sweet tea." 4-1 The worshiper pours the liquid over the idol with I a small dipper and then sips a little of the same, Inumbling some devotional words. The excitement of the day consists in the chil- dren's running to the temples, during the early part of the morning, with bottles for the sweet tea or the ubuyu, as it is called in this instance. In the temple 1rit,ohen t.Tia cook has boiled gallons and gallons of it, and from the dawn that functionary is prepared for the hubbub and the hard task of dispensing it expeditiously to the throng. As the holiday comes in the same season of the year as Easter, the floral _Jto>Eatian of the temples are beautiful; the bronze roof above the basin and image is always artistically covered over with a quantity of a native flower named genge, which the botanist may classify under the genus Trifolium, if I may trust my early observation. The flowers I literally color the fields pink in the spring. MY SIMSELF. 121 CHAPTER XTV. In describing a distant view of Imabari I made mention of a sea-god' s , shr ine. Jutting out into the sea: the festival of that god as well as of one situ- ated on the harbor and of another on the bank of a river takes place in the summer. The people go worshiping in the evening. A myriad of lights twinkle in the air and are reflected on the water /" below; refreshment stands line the approaches to the shrine, and their vociferous proprietors assert their articles to be the very best ; the crackers go off like pop-corn and scintillating fireworks dart upward now here, now there and everywhere, ending in resplendent showers of sparks; drums are beating incessantly; the people jostle each other in getting on and off the steps of the shrine ; along the beach are seated a multitude cooling in the breeze, the children amusing themselves by digging pits in the sand and making ducks and drakes upon the water. These are the salient features of the midsummer nights' festivities. The last but not the least attraction is the reviving breeze along the shore ; the worshipers generally go through the offering of pennies, clapping of hands, bowing and murmuring of prescribed, short pray- ers as hastily as practicable, that they may have more time on the beach. ^ 122 A JAPANESE BOTf. On thejELfteenth of Aug ust a great festival takes place every year in my native town. It is in honor of a. patron deity. Everybody is up with the dawn, children especially are up ever so early in the morning. Paper lanterns hoisted high in the air on long bamboo sticks are moving toward the shrine. It is yet dark, but the people forget sleepiness in the bracing air of the daybreak and in the expected joy. Every store is cleared of its merchandise and has a temporary home-shrine erected, the god being a scroll with the deity's name written on it. Two earthen bottles of sake are invariably offered. When the day is fully come, the procession starts from the permanent abode of the gods. A huge drum comes foremost, then a number of men in red masks _with_ peaked noses, representing fabulous servants of the p;oriB. Then come two portable shrines built like a sedan chair, and the rear is brought up by yagura-daiko. This last is a large frame-work of varnished wood carried by men. On the top of it a large bass-drum is placed, and with four boys around it. The boys are dressed in fancy costumes and beat time for the songs of the men below. The men are all dressed in white and seem at first to keep the presence of their gods in mind; but soon they get drunk, being treated with wine in every house, and spat- ter their garments with mud. As the shrines pass, the men get into the houses, seize the earthen bottles of sake and pour the con- tents over them. These men also get tipsy and treat the beautiful shrines rudely, turning them X BY HIMSELF. ±23 wildly and throwing them hard on the ground ; so that, at the end of the day, there is nothing left of J them but their trunks. This rude usage became I an established custom, and the portable shrines | are built very strong. A few days.previous to the festival, boys prepare for it by constructing jumpnji. Two slender; elastic timbers are tied together in the form of a cross ; one boy mounts it, and his comrades lift him up by applying their shoulders to the four ends. They march up and down the streets, sing- ing festal songs, and challenge boys of other streets to come forth and have a "rush." Not far from my native town there stands a ^ high peak called Sto^ft-hammer. It is customary for older boys to scale the lofty mountain and pay / tribute to the deity on the top of it. They get somebody who has been there before for their leader. The preparation for t he holy frfl,g"nlo;if?. journey is rigorous. They bathe in cold water for mohffis'previously, live on plain diet, and pass the time in prayers and penances. "Were their and bodies unclean, it is reported that, ascent to the shrine, the -gods' messenger s— crea tures halfmamjjmlf_digle— -would grasp them by the hair and fly away among the clouds and often kill them by letting them fall upon the crags and down into the valleys. When a set of the hardy youths start out for the venturesome pilgrimage, they are dressed in white cotton clothes, shod with straw sandals, and have their long hair thoroughly washed and hanging loose. Each carries a pole with a tablet nailed on ieir hearts V{- t, on their I 3-firs — cren- 124 A JAPANESE BOY. / one end, on which is written the name of the mountain god. Th ey shout a short prayer in u nison, blo^iffg,,,a.!]}lor£^ at interval s. My elder brother wno went with one of these bands told me that the journey is very toilsome and dangerous. There are three chains to help in climbing three > perpendicular heights. At times he was above the^ clouds, heard the peals of thunder beneath his feet and felt extremely cold. The leader sometimes olds a wayward youth on the verge of a precipice by way of discipline and demands whether he will reform or whether his body shall be cast into the- / The pilgrims bring home for souvenirs the leaves and branch es of ^aa gred tre e s and distribute them amongHhSir ffienaTand relatives. The friends and relatives, for their part, wait for them at the outskirts of the town. At an appointed hour the spreads are awaiting the weary worshipers. Lit- tle brothers and sisters strain their ears to catch the faintest echoes of the horns and shouts. When the youthful travelers are back and fully estab- lished again in their homes, marvelous are the stories that they deal out to their friends. I have been consuming a good deal of time and space in describing amusements and holidays ; it is high time to revert to studies. I had been going to school all this time. The spirit of rivalry at school was fostered to such an extent that we felt obliged ' to go to the teachers in the ev^giags__for_prjxa.te ins truction . The teacher sits with a small, low table before and an andon beside him. The andon is the native lamp, cylindrical in shape, perhaps i BY HIMSELF. 125 five feet in height and a foot in diameter; the frame is made of light wood, and rice-paper is pasted round it. In the inside is suspended a brass saucer, sometimes swinging from a cross-piece at the top and sometimes resting on a cross-bar in the middle ; the vessel holds the rush- wick and veget- able oil extracted from the seed of a Crucifer. The andon gives but feeble light and is now entirely displaced hv f,be keros^n^ la^p In lighting a lamp, prior to the importation of matches, we struck sparks with flint and steel on a material inflammable as gun cotton, called nikusa, and from it secured light with sulphur-tipped shavings called tsukegi (lighting-chips). Close to the andoh the pupils, one at a time, in the order of their arrival, bring their books and sit vis-a-vis with the teacher. The latter first hears the pupil read the last lesson and then, after it has been thoroughly reviewed, reads for him the next lesson. He does it looking at the pupil's book from the top ; the learner follows him aloud, pointing out every word he reads with a stick. This is repeated until the scholar has nearly learned the text. The scholar then returns home to go over the lesson by himself. In this manner I have torn my Japanese and Chinese authors, just as an American boy blots his Caesar and Virgil ; and cer- / tain passages come up even now as spontaneously j as the translation of ' ' Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres." In school an examination was held at the end of \ each month ; how hard we used to work for it ! It decided one's standing in class, and all through the ' 126 A JAPANESE BOY. following month he had to remain in a given seat. Everybody wished to be at the head and that bred strong emulation. The night before the examina- tion I would study and read aloud all the evening ; as it became late my eyelids tended to droop and my voice to falter ; my father would bid me not to be over-anxious and retire. The next morning he would wake me early in compliance with my request, and light me a lamp to study by. It was a bad habit, I grant ; but if I work half as conscien- tiously now as I did then I shall be the wiser for it. My cl ass w as composed of about six members; we~~met~* In ^each other's houses outside of school hours to go over our reviews together. One of the boys was a carpenter's son and possessed with a mechanical craze. Whenever we gathered in his house he would offer, unsolicited, to explain and exhibit a gimcrack he had made with his father's tools, and we did scarcely any studying. Another of our schoolmates was a farmer's son, a big shame- faced lad sent to our beloved master's to be edu- cated in the city ; he boarded with him. Country- fellow as we called him, he acquired his preceptor's hand in writing so well that nobody in school chose to pick a quarrel with him on the question of brush handling. But no mortal man is without a peccadillo — our boy was always observed to be moving his jaws and chewing more candies than were good for him. The third was a staid drug- gist's son, sedate as his father and as particular in trifling matters; he was "awfully smart," as the phrase is, in his studies, having pursued them con- scientiously ; and besides, he belonged as a matter \ BY HIMSELF. 127 of course to the category of "good boys." I used to sleep with him in his house sometimes and study arithmetic with him. Here parenthetically I must describe the Japan- ese bed. It is a very simple affair : a thick quilt is taken out of a closet and spread directly on the floor; you lie down on it and pull another quilt over yourself, and you have the bed. There is no s- bedstead ; therefore, fleas have a picnic at your / expense if the room is not well swept. In the morning you fold the quilts and put them back in the closet, and space is given for the day. Our pillow is no comfort to a weary head, it being sim- ply a hard block of wood ; often it is a box with a drawer at the end. The use of this kind of pil- ' / low or support was formerly imperative for the men and is still to the women for the protection of i the head-dress from ruin and the bedclot hes from | the bandoline. The sterner sex of ou¥~p7>pulation now-a-days crop their hair after the fashion of their European brothers, and have in great part given up the wooden block for a soft pillow. My schooling was continued for some time with satisfactory results, and I advanced grade after grade well-nigh to the end of the common school \ instruction, when my father saw fit to remove me \ and put me in a store so that I could be a credit to v "* myself as a business-man's son . I was an appren- tice in two trades at different times and yet unset- tled in mind and anxious to go back to school. I might go on telling all about the period of my apprenticeship, and things I learned and people I observed during that time ; how I finally carried 128 A JAPANESE BOY. V; the day and returned to my studies ; how I studied i Chinese and how I struck out in English; how il went to Kioto and struggled through five years' academic training ; and how a few years ago I borrowed money and sailed for America. But that would be writing a real autobiography, which would be disagreeable to me as well as distasteful to the reader. In the story told so far I ought to have, perhaps, prudently suppressed everything personal and brought forward only those experi- ences that the generality of Japanese boys are destined to undergo. Neither have I exhausted by any means the incidents of my own childhood ; at this moment I am conscious of things of more importance than those set down on the foregoing pages welling up in the fountain of memory. But I have written enough to try the patience of my indulgent reader, and I myself have grown weary of my own performance ; it is therefore excusable, I hope, to draw this narrative abruptly to an END. '..<..'■:>