“Why, is this the way you study your lesson?”
It was aunty who entered the room as she said: “I am surprised at you.” And she laid down a tray with a teapot and cups and a dish of cakes on it. The sight made us happy all at once, and Tomo-chan explained to her how soon we had finished our study.
“Why, Ei-chan helped me in arithmetic, so we finished a long, long time ago.”
“Well, Ei-chan is a good boy, isn’t he?” said aunty. Boys feel awkward to be well spoken of to their face, and my speech failed me somehow. By the way, I was no longer “Bot’chan.”
The school I found much larger and finer than the village one. The pupils numbered ten times more. Each class had its own room, and boys and girls marched in and out in procession every hour. It was so much more orderly and systematic than the village school that there was less of “out-of-tune” matter. But then there was one thing that puzzled me. It was that often a boy was seen standing in the hallway with a bowl of water in his hands. Sometimes he stood there motionless until the class was all dismissed. But I was not slow to divine the cause. What puzzled me was the question: “How could that be the best form of punishment?” While a boy stood there he need not attend the class. That was certainly easy for an idle boy. And then there was no pain to endure. As to the holding of a bowl, why, did I not hold my bowl of rice every meal and not know even if it was heavy or light? But another solution suggested itself to me; it might have the same effect on the offender as wearing a cap with “I am a Fool,” written on it. He stood there, and everybody thought he was a bad boy. “It might be, it might be,” I said, congratulating myself on the happy solution, when a crow that had just alighted on a branch of the elm by the gate repeated, “It might be!” I threw a stone at him without thinking that it was a violation of the school rule, and, if discovered, I might have undergone the punishment.
At any rate, I was destined, it appeared, to undergo the punishment once at least. And it happened in this way.
At this school, boys were not allowed to carry iron tops or even hand-balls. There were too many of them, and if they should all indulge in these sports, there would be constant danger of breaking their legs or knocking their noses off. So comparatively harmless footballs were provided. Now, one noon recess, ten of us wanted to have a game. We were divided into parties of five and played. Of course we had no rules to go by, but tried to carry the ball within the enemy’s lines by every means. One time we fumbled furiously near the building, and, in the heat of our tackling, one fellow seized the ball and kicked it without minding in which direction he was aiming. If he had had less skill the ball would have gone only over the roof and dropped on the head of a jinrikisha man running on the other street. But as it was, it went madly against a window-pane and smashed it all to pieces. What a noise it made! For a minute it made all the boys and girls playing on the ground keep quite still. And in this awful suspense a teacher appeared and caught the five, I among the number, who were still in the position of fumbling, together with the poor fellow who did the kicking, and who stood dazed, unable to recover as yet from the shock of his late experience. I didn’t know how the other four escaped being caught, but I was glad that they did.
There was no question in the teacher’s mind but that all six should be exhibited in the hallway, and so we were made to stand there, each holding a bowl of water. Now I had an ample opportunity to learn every significance of this form of punishment. Naturally, we felt merry at first. In the first place, there was something unreasonable and ludicrous in the way at least five of us came to stand there. And then when you have companions in your bad luck, you feel surely light of heart. And so we did. But when fifteen, thirty minutes passed, our legs got to be stiff and the weightless bowls began to weigh very much in our hands. Indeed, the slightest inclination would spill the water! But why did we not drink some of it, you may say? Well, we should have done it, but we knew that it must all be there when the teacher came. Forty-five minutes, and the bell rang for the dismissal. All the boys and girls poured out, leaving us alone. Ah, that is the saddest moment for any schoolboy, for after that the school is dismal as a prison. Fifteen minutes more, and all the teachers, except the one in charge of us, were gone. None of us dared to look up, our heads being bent with extreme sorrow. Presently a weak-minded fellow dropped his china and cried out. It was not I, but we were all ready to follow his example, when the teacher came out, and, removing the bowls, read us a lecture before sending us home.
We lost our courage, even to run out of the school compound, but dragged slowly home. But when I turned the first corner whom should I meet but my Tomo-chan?
“Why, Tomo-chan!” I looked at her in surprise.