I will describe one of my visits, which will well represent them all. The day was calm and bright, and while we were feasting—she had some of the good things, too—her pussy sat on one end of the veranda and was finishing her toilet in the sun. Even the sparrows in this peaceful weather forgot that they were birds of air, and fell from the trees and were wrestling noisily on the ground. Only the pussy’s move broke up their sport. By this time we were very near the end of our business. Turning from the sparrows, my woman glanced at me and sat for a moment transfixed with the awful sight I presented. There I was with my cheeks and nose all besmeared with brown soy, stretching my sticky hands in a helpless attitude, and licking my mouth by way of variation. She now broke into laughter and was scrambling on the floor, weak with merriment. But my mute appeal was too eloquent; indeed, I was all ready to shed tears with an utter sense of helplessness when she hastened to bring a wet towel and wipe my face and hands clean and nice, with, “Oh, my poor Bot’chan!”
A Japanese House.
CHAPTER II
AT HOME
Introduction—Dinner—Rice—Turning to Cows—A Bamboo Dragon-fly—A Watermelon Lantern—On a Rainy Evening—The Story of a Badger.
Our family consisted of father, mother, grandmother, and two children besides myself, at the time when I was six years old. I don’t remember exactly what business my father was in, but my impression is that he had no particular one. He had been trained for the old samurai and devoted most of his youthful days to fencing, riding, and archery. But by the time he had come of age, that training was of no use to him professionally, because, as quickly as you can turn the palm of your hand, Japan went through a wonderful change from the old feudal régime to the era of new civilization. So my father, and many, many others like him, were just in mid-air, so to speak, being thrown out of their proper sphere, but unable to settle as yet to the solid ground and adapt themselves to new ways. My mother came also of the samurai stock, and, like most of her class, kept in her cabinet a small sword beautifully ornamented in gold work, with which she was ready to defend her honor whenever obliged to. But far from being mannish, she was as meek as a lamb, and was devoted to my father and her children. My grandmother was of a retiring nature and I cannot draw her very much into my narrative. But she was very good to everybody, and her daily work, so far as I can remember, was to take a walk around the farm every morning. She was so regular in this habit that I cannot think of her without associating her with the scent of the dewy morning and with the green of the field which stretched before her. She died not many years after, but I often wonder if she is really dead. To me she is still living, and what the great poet said of Lucy Gray sounds peculiarly true in her case, too.
“—Yet some maintain that to this day
She is a living child;