A Boy of Old Japan

by R. Van Bergen

“Yes,” she replied, “all your orders have been obeyed.”

“Very well,” he said, and she withdrew.

Kano was thinking of his son. He remembered the death of his father, when he was only eighteen years old. How he had looked up to him! How gently, and yet how firmly had his father trained him in the manly exercises of the samurai, hardening his body to despise luxury and ready to bear cold or heat at any time. How he had taught him the family history, with its fine record of loyalty and self sacrifice, and how he had commanded him to follow in the same path. Kano felt that he had done so. He remembered the illness which had struck the strong man so suddenly and with fatal ending, and which caused the son such a deep pain. His father’s last words: “The wise man of China says that the greatest disrespect to a father is not to have any son,” had caused him to marry as soon as the time of mourning was over. And now he was a father himself, and the time had come that he must begin to train the child.

Had he done his duty, according to the laws and custom of the samurai? Why, certainly. On the seventy-fifth day after its birth, the child had left off its baby-linen. On the hundred and twentieth day it had been weaned. Every ceremony had been observed as it should be by a gentleman of Kano’s family. Kano’s own brother had fed the child, and My Lord’s cousin had acted as sponsor. He had taken the child on his left knee and as weaning father had taken of the sacred rice which had been offered to the gods. He had dipped his chop-sticks three times in it, and then placed them in the mouth of the child as if giving it some of the rice juice. He had followed the honored custom to feed the child three times from the five cakes made of rice meal. When the three cups of sake[26] were brought on the tray, the sponsor drank them and offered one to the child, now restored to his guardian. The boy pretended to drink two cups, and the sponsor had produced his present. Every ceremony had been observed, and the feast which followed had shown that Kano intended to follow in the footsteps of his fathers, in honoring the customs of Old Japan.

Again on the fifteenth day of the eleventh month, when the boy’s hair was allowed to grow, not a single ceremony was neglected; and to-morrow Kano would prove once more that he loved the customs of his father and was willing to abide by them.

Again a sho ji slid open, but this time it attracted Kano’s attention. A servant girl kneeling on the door sill was waiting until her master should speak.

“What is it?” he asked.

With a deep drawn breath, as if overwhelmed at the honor of being spoken to, she replied:

“Mr. Hattori[27] wishes to speak to your honor.”

Kano rose hastily and, opening a cupboard, seized his hakama and slipped it on over his kimono. Thus prepared to receive his old-time friend, he ordered the girl to admit him. A moment later, and the visitor entered with a shuffling gait, and, falling upon his knees, three times touched his head to the ground. Kano replied in the same manner, each in turn repeating the same ceremonious phrases, which custom demanded of men of their rank.