He introduced me to these missionaries as they passed out at the close. I told each one whose hand I shook that the meeting gave me pleasure, and handed out a tract.
One or two of the bunch without the saving sense of humor the Lord meant all should have, didn't receive them as gratefully as the Japanese I passed them to—it takes all kinds of folks to make a world, I find, and most all of them are good, I think—but some are better than others.
The best thing in Japan I missed this trip—a kindergarten of Japanese children.
This missionary's wife had, among other things, this work in hand. I saw the room and the little empty chairs where fifty Japanese children, of from three to five years, were taught.
Except potato bugs, I always want to poison them
Babies are always a lot of fun. The young of the animal kingdom are always interesting—a baby colt, a baby calf, or pig, or dog, or cat—I can't think of the young of anything that don't appeal to me (except potato bugs—I always want to poison them), and most of all human babies. I'd turn aside from any task to see a lot of babies in a bunch.
But fifty Japanese babies in their fantastic clothes doing kindergarten stunts—my eye! a show to please the gods!
The obsequies of the Empress Dowager had closed the kindergarten school for days, and I missed the best show in Japan.
The missionary and his wife insisted that I take lunch with them. My team of coolies were champing at their bits—my lunch was ready at my hotel—I told them so. They told me that the hotel would excuse me and they would not.