One day the boys saw a very jolly sort of a game which Tom determined to introduce in his school when he returned to the United States.
A long cable was stretched over one of the bridges, and two parties were formed, with about a hundred men in each.
One of these parties went to one end of the bridge and the other to the opposite end, and then the men seized the rope, and each party endeavored to pull the other over the bridge.
They pulled and tugged and yelled, until one side, finding that it was losing ground, suddenly, at a signal, let go the rope and over backwards went every man on the other side, pell-mell in one great kicking heap. Sometimes, Moriyama said, the rope broke and then everybody went over backward.
When the game was finished, they all went off laughing to some of the nearest tea-houses, and had a jolly time together, friends and enemies, all in the same crowd.
Among the most interesting places visited was a Japanese school. This was the rarest school that Tom ever saw. The little shaven-headed boys and girls were all seated on the floor, and the master sat on the floor too. In front of him was an affair like a stunted music-stand, on which he put his book, and the old tyrant leaned forward and cracked the bad boys with his fan. Think of an American teacher whipping his scholars with a fan.
Some of the youngsters were bare-footed, and some wore stockings made something like mittens, with a separate place for the big toe. The books were full of such a curious mixture of what seemed to Tom like black blots and scratches that he thought the Japanese youngsters must be extraordinarily smart to be able to make any sense out of them.
When Tom heard that these characters were read from top to bottom of the page instead of across he expressed the opinion that the Japanese probably added up their letters as they stood in the columns so as to find out what the whole thing came to.
The more he learned about the language of Japan, its different dialects, and its two alphabets, the greater became his respect for those who obtained a Japanese education.
“It must take you all your lives to learn how to read and write,” said he to Moriyama.