I must tell you one more adventure I had, and that was an excursion into the foreign settlement. As I came to the city I met with a foreigner once in a while. I wondered how I should feel if I but plunged into their crowd and spoke with them, if possible. So one day, with a curious mind, I started for the place where the foreigners lived together, about a mile from my home. As I neared the settlement I made several discoveries. First, the houses looked very prim and square, straight up and down, painted white, or in some light color. When viewed from a distance they looked as if they were so many gravestones in a temple yard. Unfortunately, it was the only comparison that occurred to a country boy. As I looked again, I found out another fact. That was, that while Japanese houses were nestling under the trees, foreign houses were above them. In fact, there was nothing more than low bushes around the houses. So my conclusion was that foreigners lived in gravestone-like houses, and did not like tall trees, being tall themselves, perhaps. As I entered a street I found everything just contrary to my expectation. Streets were deserted instead of being thronged; only one or two people and a dog were seen crossing. I went on, when, as luck would have it, I neared a Catholic temple from which two men, or women,—I could not distinguish which,—dressed in black, with hoods of the same color, came! How dismal, I thought, and immediately took to my heels till I came to another part of the street where the houses faced the sea. I wanted to see a boy or a girl, anyway, if I could not find a crowd. As I looked I saw something white at one of the gates, and what was my delight when I found it to be a little girl! I approached her, but not very near, as we could not talk to each other. I just kept at an admiring distance. I stood there, one eye on her and the other on the sea, lest I should drive her in by looking at her with both my eyes, and began to examine her. What a pretty creature she was! With her face white as a lily and her cheeks pink as a cherry flower, she stood there watching me. Her light hair was parted, a blue ribbon being tied on one side like a butterfly. She had on a white muslin dress with a belt to match the ribbon, but what was my astonishment to find that I could not see any dress beyond her knees! I could not believe it at first, but the dress stopped short there, and the slender legs, covered with something black,—I did not care what,—were shooting out. Might not some malicious person have cut it so? “Oh, please, for mercy’s sake, cover them,” was my thought. “I don’t care if you have a long dress, the skirt trailing on the ground.” But was I mistaken in my standard of criticism? I looked at myself, and, sure enough, my kimono reached down to my feet!
CHAPTER V
MY NEW SCHOOL
Tomo-chan—The Men with Wens—A Curious Punishment—How I Experienced It—Kotoro-kotoro.
Of course I attended another school as soon as we were settled. And every morning I went with my Tomo-chan.
But I must tell you who Tomo-chan was. She—yes, she—was the adopted daughter of my aunt, of about the same age as I, and in the same class at school. I wish I had space enough to tell you how she came to be adopted, but I shall have to be contented just with telling you that the main cause of her becoming a member of my aunt’s family was all through me. Aunty had no child, but she had found how lovely a child is, even if he be mischievous, through my short visit two years before, which I have had no occasion to tell you about. Now one of the first principles in physics says that nature abhors a vacuum. This means that it is unnatural for a place to have nothing in it. I had gone back: who was to fill my place? So Tomo-chan, a better and certainly prettier child than I, slipped into my shoes.
Aunty wished us to be good friends. So I called on her every morning on my way to school, and in the afternoon we went over our lesson together. Arithmetic was not very hard for me, and so I helped her over pitfalls of calculation, while she did the same for me with reading. Girls remember very well, but do not care to reason things out, it seems. And indeed, Tomo-chan remembered even the number of mistakes I made in reading. Now what one can do in half a day, two can accomplish in half an hour, was the philosophy that came to me from our case; for our drudgery was over in no time, and we were going through Tomo-chan’s treasure of nice pictures and books of fairy-tales. There was a picture in one of the books of an old man with a wen on his cheek, dancing before a crowd of demons and goblins. “Look here, what is this?” I asked. She laughed at the picture and would not tell me about it till she had thoroughly enjoyed laughing. That is the way of a girl. But with “O dear!” she started thus:
“One day, this old man with a wen happened to fall into a crowd of those ugly monsters, and was made to dance. He danced very well, and so was asked to come again the next day. The goblins wanted something for a pledge for his keeping his word and so removed the wen from the man’s cheek. The old man was very glad to part with it, and went home, when he met another man with a wen.” She turned the leaf to show another picture. This time the new man was dancing before the weird crowd. “You see, this man was told how he could remove his wen, and is now showing his skill before them to induce them to ask for the pledge. But he did not have any practice at all in dancing and so was just jumping round. And the goblins got angry over his deceit, and sent him back with the wen that the old man had left.” Turning the leaf, “Here he is with wens on both his cheeks!”
She laughed again, and I could not help laughing with her, too. At this moment some one was coming up the stairs.