A Japanese School of the Present Day.
Let me mention another difficulty. This was the pronunciation. A number of new sounds were introduced, the most conspicuous of which are those in which th, l, f, and v are found. The th-sound was bad enough, but l was next to impossible. Finding this to be the case, an American teacher would draw a cross-section of a face on the blackboard, only with a scant outline of the mouth and nose (once he drew the head, too, but it caused an unusual amount of merriment among the boys, as it was as bald as his, and he never finished the picture again), and explain the position of the tongue in uttering the sound, which we industriously copied. And he also would have us say, “Rollo rode Lorillard,” instead of “Present,” or “Here,” when the roll was called. But the semi-historical passage fell from the boys’ lips rumbling like a thunder:
“Rorro rode Rorirrard!”
One year passed happily in the new school, when it moved to its new buildings on the other side of the city, about five miles away. It was at first a short walk from my house, but when it increased from two minutes to two hours, with no convenience of street-cars to help my feeble feet, I naturally hesitated to go. I had to walk if I continued to attend, as boarding out in the dormitory was too expensive for our means. The school, however, was too good to be given up at that time, and so I made up my mind not to discontinue it.
To cover ten miles a day, spending four to five hours, was not a light task for a boy of thirteen. It was all I could do on fine days. In stormy weather the feat would become a struggle, and I was more than glad to accept the kind offer of one of my schoolmates to break the trip at his home for the night.
I had to start early to be on time at the eight o’clock exercise. Five o’clock was the time for me to get up, but my mother rose at least at half-past four to make me a hot breakfast of boiled rice and bean soup.
My mother was the sort of woman who expresses herself in work rather than in words. And in this she was regularity itself. One thing which impressed me in this more than anything else was her management of my dresses. Japanese decency requires eight suits a year for any one just for ordinary use, and of course I needed, or rather my mother believed that I needed that: eight suits—four in summer, two in winter, and one each in spring and in autumn. The dresses were not always made from new pieces, and so gave much more trouble. She made over the old clothes, washed and turned or dyed, if necessary, before doing so. My notion of her regularity, however, must be augmented five times, as she was doing the same thing—though I did not notice it at the time—with the other members of the family.
And so this early rising on her part for my sake went like clockwork morning after morning. If this means steadiness of her devotion to her son and to all related dearly to her, she had it.
Again she was not wordy in any case. I never had a long lecture from her, though, I am sorry to say, I had some short ones. On the contrary, she had the secret of speaking in silence. There was some magic power in her touch. I love to look back to my childhood, when she used to dress me in the morning, at the end of which she would whisper in my ear just a word: “Be good all the day, dear child.” It was simply pleasure.