A Typical Japanese Street.
CHAPTER VII
AN EVENING FÊTE
My Father—His Love for Potted Trees—A Local Fête—Show Booths—Goldfish Booths—Singing Insects—How a Potted Tree Was Bought.
Evenings were not without enjoyment for me. And for this I owe much to my father.
My father was a silent, close-mouthed man. His words to children were few and mostly in a form of command. They were never disobeyed, partly because it was father who spoke, but more because we knew that he spoke only when he had to. Indeed, he carried a formidable air about him, apparently engrossed in thought somewhat removed from his immediate concern. He was by no means philosophical, however, and his reticent habit was born of the peculiar circumstances under which he was laboring. Fortune was evidently against him. And partly out of sympathy with him and partly out of fear of breaking his spell, when we had something to ask of him—boys have many wants—we had some indirect means to devise. Thus, when my cap had worn out and I wanted a new one, I dropped a hint in his presence by way of a soliloquy: “I wish I had a new cap. My old one is worn out.” Saying this just once at a time and thrice in the course of one evening, if I persevered for three nights, I used to have my old cap replaced with a new one on the next day!
He knew that he was fighting against odds, but his spirit was never crushed. He only persevered. One day he came back from his evening stroll with a piece of bamboo flute. Evidently he was attracted by a tune a man at the corner of a street was playing on it as he sold his wares, and felt his soul suddenly gain its freedom and soar to the sky. I remember how well he loved his instrument, and from day to day he used to pour out low, mournful tunes. But his art was never equal to the demand of his soul, and one evening the bamboo flute was laid aside for a pot containing a dwarf pine-tree.
You may well wonder how a flowerless potted tree could be preferred to even the commonest tune for spiritual solace. But at any rate it was a piece of nature, and was healing to behold. And then, in its fantastic shape, there was a beauty of repose which had a very soothing effect, but which required some study for appreciation. But in his case, there was something deeper in the matter. A tree over fifty years old, which, if left in the field, would have grown to an immense size, was reduced by human art to only a foot in height, and was kept alive on a potful of earth. My father must have read a history of his own in it and tried to learn a secret of contentment from it.