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VII
JAPANESE GIRLS IN AMERICAN COSTUMES – THEY MAR THE LANDSCAPE
I noticed the following account of the death of the Empress Dowager in the Japan, a magazine printed in English in Tokio:
"Whilst as yet the earth mound set up over the august remains of the late lamented Emperor Meiji at Momoyama, Fushimi, is fresh and damp, the Japanese have been stricken with a renewed sorrow and bereavement, none the less profound, at the demise of their cherished, beloved Empress Dowager, the First Lady of the Land, who graciously shared the glorious throne of Japan with her lord and sovereign, the late illustrious Emperor Meiji, for forty-five long years of brilliant progress, splendid achievement, and the 'Reign of Enlightened Government.' As the beautiful, fragrant blooms of the cherry fall, ere the dawn comes when the stern, pitiless tempest ravages the tree in the evening, so the exalted person has sunk to rise no more at the inevitable, nay, unexpected, touch of the death's cold fingers.
"Although her recovery from the illness had been ardently prayed and hoped for by all her devout subjects, and although the medical attentions, the best the modern sciences can procure, having been concentrated upon the noble patient, the rays of hope for her recovery seemed to beam, the fatal crisis came suddenly and unexpectedly.
"Her Majesty had been suffering from chronic bronchial catarrh and nephritis, which became complicated by angina pectris on March 29, followed by a urine poisoning toward the end of that month. She seemed to be recovering from the urine-poisoning and the heart trouble due to angina pectris, until April 9, when at about 1:30 A. M. the second attack of angina pectris came, followed by the failure of the heart. The latter proved fatal; and the exalted patient in this critical condition returned to the capital from the imperial villa at Numazu, where she had been laying ill. The sad event was officially announced two hours after Her Majesty's arrival at the imperial detached palace at Aoyama, Tokio, the demise having been recorded as taking place April 11 at two A. M."
I was moved over that account more than I was over the fact that the Empress Dowager had passed away. I was not acquainted with the Empress Dowager, and therefore only felt that general interest one naturally feels in an event of the kind; but over that account I had emotions.
I had still more acute emotions when I saw a Japanese girl dressed in American girls' clothes. The Japanese girl in her own clothes is an old friend of mine.
I have known her for forty years – in her clothes – on lacquer boxes, screens, and fans; and for fifteen of those forty years, on periodical visits to Japan, she has danced and sung for me, and bowed and smiled to me, most bewitchingly – "belitchingly" in her native garb. But to see her tog herself out in high-heeled shoes, a basque, and a polonaise, and a hat with heaven knows what and then some on it! The editor of the Japan in his account moved me some, but that girl gets me going good.
I hope she will get well, and go back to her kimono, with her cute little feet encased in white mittens, pigeon-toeing along on her wooden sandals, held on with thongs between her toes, and her bustle on outside of her dress. She is part of the landscape that way. She fits in, and makes me glad.
There is only now and then one of her stricken, but if it spreads, becomes universal in Japan, that editor will be called upon to tell us: "The Japanese girl has had a fatal attack of heart failure – and from this she did not recover."
VIII
CEREMONIOUS GRANDMOTHER – "MISSOURI" A HEAVENLY TWIN
Returning from a trip to Tokio on a Monday forenoon I found at my hotel in Yokohama the following letter from my shipboard friend "Missouri":
Dear Mr. Allen:
You'll be surprised to learn that I am in jail. I started out this morning at 8 o'clock to go to church. At 8:30 I stopped at a saloon and met a delightful bunch and didn't get away from that saloon till 5 o'clock this evening. At 5:30 I was pinched and put in jail on a charge of assault with attempt to kill.
If the victim dies, please find out for me whether they behead, hang, or electrocute in Japan for capital punishment.
I've learned the Japanese language today, but don't want to talk to the jailer, as it might prejudice my case. For heaven's sake come and see me and I'll explain it all.
Hastily yours,"Missouri".
On his own statement it looked bad for "Missouri." I had left him at Yokohama, where he had some business to look up, while I went to Tokio.
I had expected to find "Missouri" on my return to Yokohama that Monday forenoon, and instead of him I found his letter.
Pained! Grieved! Shocked! were too mild words. I was disappointed in "Missouri." A countryman in trouble under circumstances like these, however, called for prompt action, and I started off post-haste in a rikisha to see what could be done about it.
I conjured up a picture of "Missouri," the erstwhile prepossessing chap (even minus those side teeth "Missouri" was a fine-looking man), now battered, bruised and blear-eyed, disheveled and disreputable; probably he had been on a long toot – a relapse from rectitude, I surmised.
He had been entirely abstemious on the voyage, but there may have been chapters in his past life o'er which he'd drawn a veil in our shipboard confidences – anyway, it looked bad for "Missouri." His reference to starting out to church was probably only a vagary of a befogged brain.
These thoughts were mine as I was being rikishaed along to "Missouri's" rescue, when, whom should I see coming toward me in an automobile but "Missouri," the same "Missouri," in company with another just as smooth-looking individual, who was driving the machine.
"Missouri's" mouth was stretched from ear to ear in a joyous greeting as he caught sight of me. Those "gaps" showed tremendously – one couldn't blame his wife for wanting them "filled in."
"Lord! Mr. Allen, I'm glad to see you," he said, as the machine stopped. "Meet my friend here, 'Pennsylvania.' 'Pennsylvania' and I have had an experience. Too long a story to tell you here. Come on back to the hotel and I'll tell you all about it."
"That's all right, 'Missouri'," I said, "but," waving his letter at him, "what the devil do you mean by handing me such a story as this?"
"That letter is all right, Mr. Allen; come on back to the hotel and I'll give you the details."
The man "Missouri" had introduced to me as "Pennsylvania," who was apparently owner of the machine, advised me to let my rikisha boy go and come back to the hotel in the car with them; and in a couple of minutes we drew up to the hotel entrance and I invited them to my room, where I asked "Missouri" to square himself.
"Missouri" did the talking while "Pennsylvania" nodded assent at points where the story would seem to need a girder under it.
"This is how it happened, Mr. Allen," "Missouri" started in. "There's a missionary over in Tokio in whom the folks back in my town are interested, and they wanted me to look him up if I had time when I got to Japan. I dropped him a line upon my arrival, and told him where I was from, and that I was stopping in Yokohama at this hotel, and that I proposed to call on him the following Sunday. You know we landed on Monday. Wednesday of last week my missionary dropped over from Tokio and called on me and told me he'd be glad to see me in Tokio on the coming Sunday, to see the missionary work in that particular corner of the Lord's vineyard. We parted, and I assured him I would look him up in Tokio on Sunday – and that was yesterday.
"I met 'Pennsylvania' here the latter part of the week and we got acquainted. 'Pennsylvania' doesn't look like a disreputable character, and he isn't – ordinarily. Fact is, he's a most reputable manufacturer from Pennsylvania, doing Japan with his touring car.
"Saturday evening I told him of my program for Sunday, and he suggested we do the missionary field in Tokio the next day in his car.
"He told me Tokio was sprawled out over a good part of Japan, that rapid transit was in a chaotic state over there, and his car would be convenient. Furthermore, he said he had been chipping pennies, dimes and dollars into Foreign Missions ever since he could remember, and that he'd like to look into the missionary's game on his own account.
"I told him the plan looked seraphic to me; we'd be just like a pair of 'Heavenly Twins' the next day. I knew that you were stopping at the Imperial over there, and I suggested we look in at the hotel and take you along if you were loose for the day and wanted to go.
"I told 'Pennsylvania' you were sort of a solemn cuss and that I thought the day's program would appeal to you, and 'Pennsylvania' said, 'Certainly, heavenly triplets.'
"We got started at eight yesterday morning. Figured on reaching Tokio by nine, easy enough, but the machine went dead at eight-thirty, nine miles out of Yokohama, square in front of a saki house – steering gear busted.
"'Pennsylvania' investigated, and said, 'Bad break, got to get help from Yokohama.'
"Now that Japanese saloon was the missing link – it was a good place – for us. Not that either of us are patrons of saloons.
"Why, I learn that 'Pennsylvania' is one of the great exponents of temperance in his State, the deadly foe of the American saloon – since yesterday morning 'Pennsylvania' and I have formed a David and Jonathan Club – we are like brothers – our souls are knit together since what we have gone through in the past twenty four hours – and as for me, you never saw me touch a drop.
"I tell you I'm a disciple of Sam Blythe's in beating the old game with water. Sam says you couldn't get a drink into him without an anæsthetic and a funnel, and I'm just as pronounced against the drink habit as that. Furthermore," "Missouri" continued plaintively, "if you want to get further lines on me, Mr. Allen, just write the Epworth League or the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor or the Y. M. C. A., Bradstreet or Dun's, or the Horse and Mule Traders' Union, of my home town.
"I tell you, Mr. Allen, I'm counted quite a desirable citizen back home in Missouri, where they know me, but we were 'two orphans' with a stranded automobile in Japan, and we needed friends.
"All the Japanese we knew between us was 'dozo,' 'aringetta,' 'soduska,' and 'ohio' and none of these words fitted the case.
"'Pennsylvania' went at his auto with all the tools he carried. We were blocking trade for the saki house, but they didn't kick. While 'Pennsylvania' was monkeying with the machine, I took a Japanese-English dictionary we had with us, and found out that they had a telephone in the house, and they invited me in to use it. Sounds easy, and as if we ought to have gotten a relief corps out from Yokohama and be on our way in an hour.
"We S.O.S.'d Yokohama for four hours with that saki house telephone, that dictionary, and with the help of the proprietor's son, and it was noon before we got a message through.
"In the meantime the saki house people were making us at home. We pulled off our shoes and lived in the house while working their 'phone, and they treated us as honored guests. We thought a saki house ought to be a legitimate place to get a meal of victuals, so, pending the arrival of the mechanics from the Yokohama garage, who, after getting our message might be along in an hour, or a day, being mighty hungry about noon, we worked with our dictionary and the proprietor's son (a young fellow twenty-six years old) to order a meal of victuals. At the end of half an hour we got the request home, and understood, and the answer back that that was a private home and that they didn't sell food, only sold saki.
"But the son's wife, a most comely little woman, caught the drift of our request, and by one o'clock had prepared us a dainty Japanese lunch, and invited us to it. We both agreed that we'd never had a better time in our lives, getting away with a meal and affording amusement to our hosts as we labored, first with chop-sticks and finally fell back to fingers. We knew we'd be in bad if we offered to pay for that meal, and still we had ordered it. We'd be cheap skates not to offer to pay for what we had ordered, and we'd be barbarians if we offered to pay. We compromised by asking how much we owed, and got the answer we expected, 'No charge.'
"By two o'clock an automobile from Yokohama garage hove in sight with a load of mechanics, and by five o'clock our machine was in commission.
"After we had finished that meal, about two o'clock, the proprietor of the establishment showed up. He had been absent from home up to that time. He was a high-class individual. He added his welcome to that of the rest of the family's to the foreigners within his gates – he also made us feel as if the home was ours. While the work of repair to the damaged car was progressing we worked that dictionary to the limit. We learned the Japanese language and got the household proficient in English.
"During the afternoon the proprietor's mother came in for a call, and it was worth a trip across the Pacific to watch the greeting between the grandmother and her grandson, the twenty-six-year-old chap. The old lady was beautifully dressed. She got down on her hands and knees, her palms flat on the matted floor. Grandson did the same. For about a minute they posed like two fighting cocks ready for a bout.
"Then grandma's forehead went down on the matting, so did grandson's.
"They stayed in that position so long I was afraid the old lady had fainted and was for picking her up, but just then she raised her head, peeked out of the tail of her eye at grandson, whose head raised a little, then down to the matting went her head again, followed by grandson. Up with their heads and down to the matting again, playing peek-a-boo to catch each other at it; several times they went through those motions, until justice, or something else, was satisfied; then the old lady got up and shuffled away, and grandson got up and told us that she was his grandmother, and eighty-two years old.
"That surely was some bow.
"The house was as clean as a hound's tooth, and they showed us through kitchen, bedrooms, and living rooms, and the little garden in the rear.
"There were no screens up before the doors of that Japanese saloon. The saloon, the front room of the house, was fifteen feet wide, so was the door – that was an open-faced saloon, opening onto the street the width of the room.
"And customers came and went, working in around the automobile. A husband and wife came in and sat down on a matted platform. Hubby ordered one big tumbler of saki – the kind they had the biggest run on was as thick as buttermilk, looked just like buttermilk, and was ladled out of a big crock by a little Japanese barmaid.
"She'd fill the glasses so full that they would heap up at the brim – hubby carried the glass carefully to his mouth so's not to spill any, drank off a swallow, and handed it to his wife, who hit it for another swallow, and back and forth they passed that glass, taking a swallow a trip until they had finished it, and they walked away, to make an afternoon call, perhaps.
"Everyone paid for his own drink – there was no treating and no drunkenness.
"Everything that went on in that saloon was as open to the public gaze as the sun, and 'Pennsylvania' and I decided that the saloon business in the United States was one thing, and the way we were seeing it conducted in Japan an entirely different thing.
"At five o'clock our machine was ready for us and we left our saki house friends.
"We invited them to come to America. There are two front yards in America in which those folks are welcome to camp, if they ever come. One in Missouri and one in Pennsylvania. We both told them so, and that the freedom of two homes and the best those homes afforded would be theirs."
"Missouri" paused in his story, and "Pennsylvania" nodded twice and said, "You bet."
"Well," "Missouri" continued, "it was too late to take in Tokio, so we headed back for Yokohama.
"At five-thirty we were bowling along at a pretty good clip – we didn't kill that Jap, we only wrecked his cart and jounced him up a bit – we were going less than forty miles an hour, but a scrappy little cuss in brass buttons pinched us for exceeding the speed limit, and locked us up on a charge of assault with attempt to kill, pending the outcome of our victim's injuries.
"He came to, all right, this A. M. Ten yen and a new cart fixed the Jap – he needed a new cart, all right – and you met us on our way from jail. We may do the missionary stunt some other day," "Missouri" said, but I didn't notice "Pennsylvania" nod.
IX
USHI, THE RIKISHA MAN
I started out of a Saturday evening in Kioto, which is one of the best cities in Japan —the best, I think – the old capital of the Empire, to take a walk on Theater Street, which is the Great White Way of Kioto, and one of the best spots in Japan to study Japanese life and character.
I hadn't more than stepped outside the walled-in yard of my hotel, having declined the offers of the favored rikisha men within the enclosure to take me for a ride, than a rikisha man outside the gate accosted me and pressed the card shown below into my hand.
AN HOUR 20 SEN
HALF A DAY 70 SEN
A DAY 1 YEN
POLICE-STATION NO 379
NAME USHI
I am a rIkIsHa man wHo
iS Living near a HoTeL
At the same time he assured me that to ride was far better for a foreign gentleman than to walk. As I perused the card by a street light I probably detected more than you will, kind reader, for whom these lines are written on the other side of the world, as you hastily skim it and only catch its grotesque, misspelled and labored English. Its humble effort at enterprise impressed me.
Ushi mistook my mental attitude for one of indecision, and supplemented the appeal on the card with the added information that he was considerable of a linguist – that he spoke English pretty well. Also that he knew all the points of interest in Kioto, and that not to engage him for the evening was to miss a great opportunity – but Ushi's card had pulled a customer.
I stepped into his little carriage and said: "Ged app, Ushi, show me Kioto. For the evening you may be my horse and guide."
No need to crack a whip to start your Oriental human horse. Up one street and down another Ushi whirled me and drew up in a narrow alley leading into Theater Street, and invited me to alight. "We will have to walk through Theater Street. All must walk, no can ride in Theater Street," Ushi announced.
He took from under the seat of his rikisha a green bag, such as lawyers in the United States used to carry.
No, he didn't have his jewels in that bag.
Through Theater Street, we walked, Ushi at my side, with his bag, the street brilliantly lighted and seething with Japanese life.
Both sides were lined with theaters big and little, shooting galleries, sideshows, fakirs' stands – a bit of Coney Island life with Japanese coloring and settings. High and low of Kioto's populace, a city of half a million, surged through Theater Street. A mother with a baby on her back; couples and trios of little girls with their arms around each other's waists; and girls in bevies. Swains and sweethearts. Big boys and little ones. Kids just able to walk, all sorts, all conditions. Theater Street in Kioto of an evening is worth seeing.
Ushi took me to the leading theater, up to the ticket window, and told me it was on the evening's program to go to that show.
Ushi was boss.
I bought a ticket for ten cents and Ushi led me to the entrance and bade me halt and hoist. At the side of the entrance was a great stack of Japanese wooden street shoes, the owners of which were in the theater.
I would not be allowed in that theater without removing my shoes if it were not for Ushi with his bag. Hence Ushi's command to halt and hoist.
Down on his knees at my feet went Ushi, opened his bag, and selected from it a pair of cloth footgear to slip on over my shoes. An assortment of these things he carried, small, medium and large. Fortunate for me, he had an assortment – he found some big enough to go over my shoes, tied them around my ankles, and I was shod with the preparation necessary to take in a Japanese theater.
Twenty minutes of the show sufficed, and I came out and found Ushi waiting for me. He took off those cloth over-shoes, put them in his bag, and led me to his rikisha.
For two hours Ushi showed me Kioto by electric light, taking me rapidly through thoroughfare after thoroughfare, pointing out and explaining points of interest as we passed, always on a rapid trot. Now a leading business house, here a temple, there a leading Japanese hotel – down through the underworld, threading narrow streets and dark alleys, over a famous bridge, across, and through, and back again, always on his rapid trot, an eight or nine miles' run, at last to drop the shafts of his rikisha at the entrance to my hotel.
Ushi wiped the sweat from his beetling brow and demanded twenty cents for that evening's service. Yes, sir, Ushi thought he was entitled to twenty cents!
"Ushi," I said, "tomorrow, Sunday, I'll hire you for the day," and Ushi said, "Good-night," well pleased.
I went into my hotel, showed Ushi's card to mine host, the Japanese proprietor, and said: "Ushi is quite a character."
"Beware of him," mine host replied, "he is not reliable. He used to work for us, but we had to dismiss him, and now he has gone and got those cards printed, and has stationed himself just outside our gate. He has cut under the regular prices (a yen and a half a day is our regular rikisha men's charge), and he seeks to capture trade with that card."
"So?" I replied.
I read the card again, and thought, "Ushi, you clever rascal. Somehow my heart warms up to you. Competition's fierce, Ushi, and it's war, alias 'hell,' to make a livin'" – and I went to sleep that night with designs on Ushi's time for the morrow.
Bright and early next morning, after breakfast, I stepped outside the gate, and Ushi, the "rascal," who was doing business "near a HoTeL," greeted me with a smile, briskly arranged the seat to his rikisha and stepped aside for me to take my place.
I didn't get in. I said, "Ushi, you got a family?"
"No," Ushi said.
"What? No wife, no children?"
"No," Ushi said, "my wife, she die. Very sorry."
"Tough luck, Ushi," I said.
"Lost your wife, lost your job. Life's made up of lights and shadows. You don't fit into the color scheme for my day's program, Ushi. I must have a rikisha man with a wife and children," and I walked away, leaving Ushi standing there, sadly watching an all day's job go glimmering.
I stepped back into the yard, looked over the semi-circle of rikisha boys, accredited, guaranteed, within the pale rikisha boys, boys of reputation, standing and character. No "rascals" who had to resort to the "nefarious" expedient of issuing cards like Ushi's, and standing "outside the gate" to secure trade at a cut price.
I stepped up to one who looked the best to me and said: "What is your name?"
"Yamamoto. You want rikisha?"
"Yamamoto, you got wife and children?"
"Yes," wonderingly.
"How many children, Yamamoto?"
"Three, two girls and a boy."
"Yamamoto, I'll hire you for the day," and Yamamoto fixed the seat and asked: "Where go?"
"Take me out first to where Ushi stands."
Ushi wasn't standing. He was sitting, dejectedly, on the dashboard of his rikisha, waiting for someone to come along on whom he could spring his card – that "nefarious" card that cut the rates, and as he saw me draw up seated in Yamamoto's rikisha – Yamamoto, favored of fortune, taking off his fare, Ushi cast a reproachful glance on me.
"Ushi, what for you mope? Didn't I make a deal with you last night to be my rikisha boy today? Hitch on behind and push, Ushi – what difference if you pull or push? That yen is yours when night shall come."
Ushi caught on – behind. He left his rikisha standing by the wall. There's some class to serve a man who'll hire a rikisha boy to push as well as one to pull in Kioto, and with reckless abandon I had decided to blow myself for a whole dollar and twenty-five cents for ten hours' horse and carriage hire that day, just because Ushi didn't have a family.
If Ushi hadn't lost his wife, and if he had had a pickaninny or two, I'd got off for fifty cents and could have given my story the twist I'd planned for it.
But East or West or North or South the picking is always good for a story in Japan, and while to tell it as it is may not be so spectacular, at least it's safe.
My old grandfather, who was somewhat of a sage, once said to me (and his words of wisdom have survived the years), "George, a man must have an excellent memory to be a successful liar." I have a wretched memory, so the beaten, conservative, humdrum path of narrative for me.
With Ushi duly coupled on behind – "Where go?" Yamamoto asked. The pride of a double team was noticeable.
Now "Missouri's" hard luck in his missionary hunt with an automobile had inspired me to do a little investigating of this world's work on my own account, but in a more humble way. So I gave Yamamoto the address of a leading missionary, which I had easily secured from mine host, the hotel man.
"I know," Yamamoto said, "other side Emperor's palace, thirty minutes."
With Ushi on behind the ground fairly flew under us and Yamamoto and Ushi vied with each other to tell about the points of interest that we passed.
In less than thirty minutes I was landed at the missionary's gate.
"Man, man," I said, waving my hand to my coolies as I alighted. Say "man, man" to your rikisha coolie when you leave him and you'll find him right there waiting for you when you come back. It's an imaginary hitching strap I've never known to break.
