We were the first party of foreigners of this size that had ever honored the village with a visit. And in addition to that we had come at an unearthly hour.
Who but a group of insane foreigners would drop into a town at three o'clock in the morning with a blizzard blowing? Either we were insane, or we had some sinister motives. Perhaps we were making maps of the seacoast.
And before daylight half of the town was peeking in through the windows at us. Then the policemen came. They were Japanese policemen, and did not take any chances on us. Even after our interpreter had told them that we were a group of scientists who had come to visit the Ainus they still followed us around most of the morning, keeping polite track of our movements.
About five o'clock that morning, as I was trying to catch a cat-nap, the newsboys of the village came to get the morning papers which had come in on the train on which we had arrived. They unbundled the papers in the cold station; their breath forming clouds of vapor; laughing and joking as they unrolled, folded and counted the papers; and arranged their routes for morning delivery.
It took me back to boyhood days down in West Virginia. I did the same thing as these Japanese boys were doing. I, too, arose before daylight, climbed out of bed, and went whistling through the dark streets to the station where the early morning trains dumped off the papers from the city. I, too, along with several other American boys of a winter morning, breathed clouds of vapor into the air, stamped my feet to keep them warm, and whipped my hands against my sides. I, too, unwrapped the big bundles of papers, and did it in the same way in which these Japanese boys did, by smashing the tightly bound wrappers on the floor until they burst. I, too, counted, folded, put in inserts, arranged my paper-route and darted out into the frosty air with the snow crunching under my feet. How universal some things are. The only difference was that these boys were dressed in a sort of buccaneer uniform. They had on high leather boots, and belts around their coats that made them look as if they had stepped out of a Richard Harding Davis novel. But otherwise they went through the same processes as an American boy in a small town.
When the vanguard of villagers had come to inspect us, they at first tried to talk Russian to us. They had never seen any other kind of foreigners. They had never seen Americans in this far-off island.
When daylight came, we started out on a long tramp to the Ainu villages. They were a mile or two away on the ocean. These people always build near the sea if they can. Fishing is one of their main sources of food.
We spent the day in their huts. They live like animals. A big, square hut covered with rice straw and thatch, with a fence of the same kind of straw running around the house, forms the residence. The only fire is in the middle of the only room, and this consists of a pile of wood burning on a flat stone or piece of metal in the center. There is no chimney in the roof, and not even an opening such as the American Indians had in the tops of their tepees. I do not know how they live. The smoke finds its way gradually through cracks in the walls and roofs. One can hardly find a single Ainu whose eyes are not ruined. The smoke has done this damage.
The only opening in their houses besides the door is one north window, and it is never closed. In fact, there is no window. It is only an opening.
"Why is that? I'd think they would freeze on a day like this," I said to the guide.