When my work was done we three walked back to Benry's house, my two Ainu friends being very anxious that I should get something to eat. From their conversation and gestures I caught that it seemed incomprehensible to them that I should sit in front of an Ainu hut and—to use their expression—"make all sorts of signs on a wooden panel." After a lengthy discussion the two came to the conclusion that houses in our country were so bad that I had been sent to the Ainu country to "copy" the pattern of Ainu huts!
Benry seemed excited about something, and hurried us back with curious haste and eagerness. When we left the house in the morning I saw Benry's better-half placing a few eggs in water to boil over the fire. When we entered the hut, nearly two hours afterwards, the eggs were still boiling, and no fair maid within yelling reach. In order that the fire might not go out during her absence the thoughtful girl had placed the largest portion of the trunk of a tree in the fireplace!
Taken altogether, Benry and all his Saru Ainu are very good-natured. They gradually got accustomed to being sketched, seeing that after all it really did not bring on them "immediate death."
The more one sees of the Ainu the dirtier they appear, but as dirt to a great extent contributes to picturesqueness, I was indeed sorry when Benry, exercising his authority, sent several of my sitters to dress up in their best clothes—often Japanese—while I should have preferred to sketch them in their every-day rags. I must say, for their sake, that they were never sent to wash. Being a rapid sketcher, I had recourse to a trick. I pretended to sketch one given person, who, of course, was sent at once to "dress up," and while he or she, after having returned, posed patiently for half an hour or more, I in the meantime took sketches of four or five different natives, who were not aware that they were being portrayed. As the Ainu—and they are probably not the only people—could not make either head or tail of my sketches, my trick was never found out.
One day, old Benry led me by the hand in the most affectionate manner to a hut some way off, and confidentially told me that we were going to see his favourite girl and her boy.
"This," said the chief triumphantly as we went in, "this is Benry's Pirika menoko" (pretty girl), "and that"—pointing to a youth—"her only son."
"And what about the old hairy lady in your own hut?" I inquired.
"That is my Poromachi" (great wife), said he, qualifying matters with a compliment to the elder woman, "and this is my Pon-machi" (small wife).
"Why should you have two wives, you old Mormon?"
"Nishpa," retorted he, "my great wife is old, and she is only fit to do all the rough work in the house and out. My hair is white, but I am strong, and I wanted yet a young wife."