Introduction—Dinner—Rice—Turning to Cows—A Bamboo Dragon-fly—A Watermelon Lantern—On a Rainy Evening—The Story of a Badger.

Our family consisted of father, mother, grandmother, and two children besides myself, at the time when I was six years old. I don’t remember exactly what business my father was in, but my impression is that he had no particular one. He had been trained for the old samurai and devoted most of his youthful days to fencing, riding, and archery. But by the time he had come of age, that training was of no use to him professionally, because, as quickly as you can turn the palm of your hand, Japan went through a wonderful change from the old feudal rÉgime to the era of new civilization. So my father, and many, many others like him, were just in mid-air, so to speak, being thrown out of their proper sphere, but unable to settle as yet to the solid ground and adapt themselves to new ways. My mother came also of the samurai stock, and, like most of her class, kept in her cabinet a small sword beautifully ornamented in gold work, with which she was ready to defend her honor whenever obliged to. But far from being mannish, she was as meek as a lamb, and was devoted to my father and her children. My grandmother was of a retiring nature and I cannot draw her very much into my narrative. But she was very good to everybody, and her daily work, so far as I can remember, was to take a walk around the farm every morning. She was so regular in this habit that I cannot think of her without associating her with the scent of the dewy morning and with the green of the field which stretched before her. She died not many years after, but I often wonder if she is really dead. To me she is still living, and what the great poet said of Lucy Gray sounds peculiarly true in her case, too.

Only you would have to make Lucy seventy years old to fit my grandmother.

The introduction being over, let us attend a dinner, or rather give attention to a description of one. We do not eat at one large dining-table with chairs around it. We each have a separate small table about a foot and a half square, all lacquered red, green, or black, and sit before it on our heels. A rice bucket, a teapot, some saucers, a bottle of soy, and so forth, are all placed near some one who is to specially serve us. We used to sit in two rows, father and grandmother facing each other, mother next to father, with the young sister opposite my brother and myself. The younger children usually sit next to some older person who can help them in eating. No grace was said, but I always bowed to my elders before I began with “itadakimasu” (I take this with thanks), which I sometimes said when I was very hungry, as a good excuse and signal to start eating before the others.

Rice is our staple food and an almost reverential attitude toward it as the sustainer of our life is entertained by the people. And I was told time and again not to waste it. Once a maid, so my mother used to tell me, was very careless in cleaning rice before it was cooked. She dropped lots of grains on the stone floor under the sink day after day, and never stopped to pick them up. One day, when she wanted to clean the floor, she was frightened half to death by finding there ever so many white serpents straining their necks at her. She really fainted when the goddess of the kitchen appeared to her in her trance and bade her to take all those white serpents in a basket and wash them clean. As she came to herself, she did as she was told, trembling with horror at touching such vile things, some of which, indeed, would try to coil themselves around her hands. But as the last pailful of water was poured on them, lo! what were serpents a moment ago were now all turned into nice grains of rice ready to be boiled. Now if there is one thing in the world I hate, it is a serpent; the mere mention of it makes my flesh creep. So you see I took care to pitch every grain of boiled rice into my mouth with my chop-sticks before I left my table.

Another story was told me concerning the meal. The Japanese teach home discipline by stories, you know. This was a short one, being merely the statement that if anybody lies down on the floor soon after he has eaten his meal, he will turn into a cow. Now a number of times I had found cows chewing their cuds while stretched upon the ground. So I thought, in my childish mind, that there must be some mysterious connection between each of the three in the order as they stand: eating—lying down—cow. So, naturally, I avoided the second process, and, after eating, immediately ran out-of-doors to see what our man, Kichi, was doing.

Kichi worked on our little farm, and I usually found him cleaning his implements after the day’s work. We were great friends, and he used to present me with toys of his own making, which were very simple but indeed a marvel to me. Once he picked up a piece of bamboo and made a chip of it about a twelfth of an inch thick, a third of an inch wide, and three inches and a half long. Then he sliced obliquely one-half of one side and the other half of the same side in the opposite direction, so that the edges might be made thin. He also bored a small hole in the middle and put in a stick about twice as thick as a hairpin and about four inches long, the sliced side being down. He then cut off the projecting end of the stick, when it was tight in the chip. The dragon-fly was now ready to take flight. He took the stick between his palms and gave a twist, when lo! it flew away up in the air.

I was delighted with the toy, and tried several times to make it fly. But when I used all my force and gave it a good long twist, why, it took such a successful flight that it hit the edge of the comb of our straw roof and stuck there, never to come down. I was very sorry at that, but Kichi laughed at the feat the dragon-fly had performed, and said that the maker was so skilful that the toy turned out to be a real living thing! It was perched there for the night. Well, I admired his skill very much, but did not want to lose my toy in that way. So I made him promise me to make another the next day, reminding him not to put too much skill in it.

It was summer, the season of watermelons. We had a small melon patch and an ample supply of the fruit. Here was a chance for Kichi to try his skill again. One evening he took a pretty round melon and scooped the inside out so as to put in a lighted candle. So far this was very ordinary. He scraped the inner part until the rind was fairly transparent, and then cut a mouth, a nose, and eyes with eyebrows sticking out like pins. He then painted them so that when the candle was lighted a monster of a melon was produced. How triumphant a boy would feel in possessing such a thing! I hung it on the veranda that evening when the room was weirdly lighted by one or two greenish paper lanterns, and watched it with my folks. I expressed my admiration for Kichi’s skill, and with boyish fondness for exaggeration mentioned the fact that a toy dragon-fly of his making had really turned out to be a living thing. All laughed, but of course I made an effort to be serious. But no sooner were we silent than, without the slightest hint, the melon angrily dropped down with a crash. I screamed, but, being assured of its safety, I approached it and found the skull of the monster was badly fractured, in fact, one piece of it flying some twenty feet out in the garden. The next morning I took the first opportunity to tell Kichi that his toy was so skilfully made that it sought death of its own accord.

Well, I started to tell what I did evenings, but when it was wet I had a very tedious time. Nothing is more dismal to a boy than a rainy day. To lie down was to become a cow. So one rainy evening I opened the screen, and, standing, looked out at the rain. But this was no fun. The only alternative was to go to one of the rooms. Now there is no chair in a Japanese house, and to sit over one’s heels is too ceremonial, not to say a bit trying, even for a Japanese child. So my legs unconsciously collapsed, and there I was lying on my back, singing aloud some songs I had learned. Presently I began to look at the unpainted ceiling, and traced the grain. And is it not wonderful that out of knots and veins of wood you can make figures of some living things? Yes, I traced a man’s face, one eye much larger than the other. Then, I had a cat. Now I began to trace a big one with a V-shaped face. A cow! The idea ran through me with the swiftness of lightning, and the next moment I sprang to my feet and shook myself to see if I had undergone any transformation. Luckily, I was all right. But to make the thing sure, I felt of my forehead carefully to see if anything hard was coming out of it.

The room now lost its attraction. And I ran away to the room where my grandmother was. Opening the screen, I said:

“Grandma!”“Well, BÔ?”

“May I come in? I want you to tell me the story of a badger, grandma.”

I was never tired of hearing the same stories over and over again from my grandmother. There was at some distance a tall tree, shooting up like an arrow to the sky, which was visible from a window of her room. It was there that the badger of her story liked to climb. One early evening he was there with the cover of an iron pot, which he made with his magic power appear like a misty moon. Now a farmer, who was still working in the field, chanced to see it, and was surprised to find that it was already so late. He could tell the hour from the position of the moon, you know. So he made haste to finish his work, and was going home, when another moon, the real one this time, peeped out of the wood near by. The badger, however, had too much faith in his art to withdraw his mock moon, and held it there to rival the newly risen one. The farmer was astonished to find two moons at the same time, but he was not slow to see which was real. He smiled at the trick of the badger, and now wanted to outwit him. He approached the tree stealthily and shook it with all his might. The badger was not prepared for this. Losing his balance, he dropped down to the ground, moon and all, and had to run for his life, for the farmer was right after him with his hoe.

I laughed and grandma laughed, too, over her own story, when the paper screen was suddenly brightened.

“The badger’s moon!” I cried, and climbed up to my grandmother.

“Yes, I am a badger,” said a voice, as the door was opened. And there stood my mother with a paper lantern she had brought for the room.