We wriggle across the floor inelegantly and squat opposite to her. The first thing we see are two steaming bowls of soup; we make short work of these, drinking from the bowl, and find at the bottom some tough-looking bits of something. Then we discover all at once there are no knives, forks, or spoons, only chopsticks, like forks with one prong. We try to fish out the bits of something, but even when we have caught them the result is not satisfactory; it is like eating leather. Next comes bowls of rice, and if it was difficult before, it is doubly so now. I should certainly never be able to pick up grains of rice with a chopstick while that solemn little maid sits opposite; it would take a Cinquevalli to do it! I make a desperate attempt and explode suddenly, the maid giggles, you roar, and even Yosoji, who is somewhere in the background, begins tittering. After this the ice is broken; we entreat Yosoji to get the maid away without hurting her feelings, and when she has departed we finish the rice with our fingers. There are various other things—beans which can be skewered on the chopsticks, and funny little bits of stuff like mixed pickles, but even when we have eaten everything we are as hungry as when we began. Just as we are realising it our little friend appears again with a decent-sized fish on a dish, decorated with onions, and we quickly fall to, using a funny kind of bean-paste made up like a cake, instead of bread. By the time we have finished we are rather fishy but very much more satisfied.
The meal taken away, our handmaiden slides back a panel in the more substantial side of the room, which is of wood, and produces various stuffed rugs which she spreads on the ground—these are called futon, and are very like our useful friend the rezai; we have some of our own to add to them, and altogether the beds look so comfortable that we are quite ready to get into them at an early hour. Having lit a Chinese lantern at one end of the room before the little picture recess, a sacred place in every Japanese household, the maid retires for the night, and so does Yosoji. Only then do we discover that for pillows they have given us tiny wooden stools, not unlike the national clogs, only slightly larger! These we are supposed to place in the crick of the neck; having tried it you declare that if you slept at all that way you would certainly dream you were lying on the block to be beheaded, so instead you choose the lid of one of the baskets, which, being yielding, makes not half a bad pillow.
Good-night!
After a profound sleep I am awakened by a flood of light, and sit up with a start, to find myself in bed before an admiring crowd. The sliding panels opening on to the verandah have been pushed back, and there stand my landlord and landlady, and the little maid-servant, and several other persons, bowing and prostrating themselves and asking innumerable questions, to which, as there is no Yosoji, I can give no answers. Everyone in Japan asks questions, I find; it is supposed to show a polite interest in you. I feel rather awkward sitting up there among my futon and making a series of little jerks meant to be bows, and I am glad when you wake up too and help me a little. You are not so shy, it seems, for you hop out of your rugs and dance to the verandah, revelling in the light and sunshine.
An hour later we have had a sluice down with cold water from the brass basins, eaten a most unsatisfying and unsubstantial breakfast, much like the dinner the night before, minus the fish, and are out to visit the village schools, at the suggestion of Yosoji, before going on.
They are worth visiting! I never saw anything quite so quaintly pretty as these rows of little dolls in their brilliantly gay garments, tied up with their big sashes. They are sitting on the floor and laboriously making strokes with a paint-brush. That is to say, they are learning to write. The Chinese writing is not an alphabet like ours, but each complicated symbol stands for an idea, and there are thousands and thousands of them. It takes a child seven years even to learn fairly what will be necessary in after life.
These little mites are not making complete signs, but just doing one stroke again and again, all over a large sheet of paper, and when they have learnt that they will go on to another, until one complete symbol is mastered. The writing is done by brush-work instead of with a pen, and is more like artistic painting than stiff writing. Suddenly the teacher gives a signal, and the tiny tots rush out into the air, and dance and play and run and twiddle each other round and round like little kittens; they are so gay and so bright it is quite evident that Japanese children are not ill-treated.
It is with great reluctance we pick up our luggage, pay our very moderate bill, and leave this dear little village. Whatever else fades out of our minds as time goes on I am sure the picture of those gay children will never be forgotten.