After walking about for a little while we went through a long calisthenic exercise of bows, and with warmest thanks to our kind host and hostess, stowed ourselves away in jinrikishas, and rode off to our homes.
This of course is not a description of an ordinary dinner in Japan. Indeed it was a very extraordinary one given in honor of a party of Americans about to return to the United States. The common people dine with very little formality. Bread, beef, milk and butter are unknown to them. They live principally on rice, fish, and vegetables, served in very simple fashion; and they eat so rapidly that dyspepsia is even more common in Japan than in America.
III.
A ROMAN CHRISTMAS.
CHRISTMAS is as great a day for young Romans as it is for young Americans, and on it they, like other boys and girls, eat too much candy and get more new toys than they know what to do with. But they have one way of keeping it which other children do not have; and as I was in Rome one Christmas, I will tell you what I saw them do.
In the morning, about half-past ten, I went to a church on the Capitol Hill, called Church of the Altar of Heaven. This hill is high and there are one hundred and twenty-four steps leading to the door of the church. It was a dull gray day, and the rain was pouring down so hard that there were little pools and streams all over the old stone steps. But many people were going up. There were men from the country in blue coats and short trousers, and women with bodices and square white head-dresses, who carried the largest umbrellas you have ever seen, blue or green, or purple with bright borders around them. And there were children, more than you could count, some with the country people, others with their nurses, and many who were very ragged, all by themselves. At the top of the steps men were selling pious pictures and did not seem to mind the rain in the least. Over the doors were red hangings in honor of Christmas.
Inside were more people. At the far end service was going on and the monks, to whom the church belongs, were chanting, and there was a great crowd around the altar. But near the door by which I came in, and in a side aisle was a still larger crowd, and it was here that all the little ones had gathered together. They were waiting in front of a chapel, the doors of which were closed tight. For they knew that behind them was the Manger which every year the monks put up in their church. Right by the chapel was a big statue of a Pope, larger than life, and some eager boys had climbed up on it and were standing at its knee. And some who had arrived very late were perched on another statue like it on the other side, and even in the baptismal font and on tombstones at the foot of the church. Women and men were holding up their babies, all done up in queer tight bandages, that they too might see. And all were excited and looking impatiently down the long aisle. Presently, as I waited with the children, there came from the side door a procession. First came men in gray robes, holding lighted tapers, then monks in brown with ropes around their waists, and last three priests who carried a statue of the Infant which is almost as old as the church itself. When they reached the chapel the doors were thrown open, and they took this statue in and placed it at the foot of those of the Virgin and St. Joseph.
I wish you could have been there to look in as I did. It was all so bright and sunny and green. It seemed like a bit of summer come back. In front was the Holy Family with great baskets of real oranges and many bright green things at their feet. And above them, in the clouds, were troops of angels playing on harps and mandolins, and in the distance you could see the shepherds and their sheep, and then palm trees, and a town with many houses. It was so pretty that a little whisper of wonder went through all the crowd, while many of the boys and girls near me shouted aloud for joy.
So soon as the procession was over, every eye was turned from the chapel to a small platform on the other side of the church. It had been raised right by an old column which, long before this church was built, must have stood in some temple of Pagan Rome. Out on the platform stepped a little bit of a girl, as fresh and as young as the column was old and gray. She was all in white, and she made a pretty courtesy to the people, and then when she saw so many faces turned towards her, she tried to run away. But her mother, who was standing below, would not let her, but whispered a few words in her ear, and the little thing came back and began to give us all a fine sermon about the Christ-child. Such funny little gestures as she made! Just like a puppet, and, every now and then, she looked away from us and down into her mother's face, as if the sermon were all for her. But her voice was very sweet, and by and by she went down on her knees and raised her hands to Heaven and said a prayer as solemnly as if she really had been a young preacher. But after that, with another courtesy, she jumped down from her pulpit platform as fast as ever she could.