A Japanese Boy Part 4

What a ma.s.s of curious children surge beside the men who hold the kite by the string as they walk home!

I have sat many an afternoon after school whittling the bamboo frame for a modest kite. It was my most interesting employment; my father calls me into another room to run on an errand for him; I hear him plainly, but pretend otherwise and make him call repeatedly--ungrateful son! Upon hearing him approach and perceiving longer delay to be impossible, I break away from the agreeable occupation and emerge as cheerfully as I can, "Yes, sir, father." He inquires what I was about, reproves me for not answering him quickly and gives me to know that if I do not heed his behest he will surely throw my kite into the fire. After such interruptions, however, the important frame-work is done. Oh, what satisfaction I feel over it! Then I go to the kitchen and wheedle Osan into giving me a bit of boiled rice, which I make into paste on a piece of board with a bamboo spatula. With the paste I put white paper on the frame and leave it to dry. There are many little technical points in kite construction, but those I refrain from entering into in detail.

When it is dry, I write on the kite confidentially with my own hand some appropriate word, say, Zephyr, in lieu of picture. I now tie the string and try its flight; it dashes at the eaves this way, pitches into the latticed windows that way, twirls in mid-air like a tumbler-pigeon, and in general behaves badly. Thereupon I take it down, add weight to the lighter side, attach a tail and do all to insure balance and equilibrium, and, then try it again.

Since coming to this country, the request has been put to me more than once by little friends that I should make them a genuine j.a.panese kite.

But the want of tenacious paper and bamboo has always prevented me from complying with their wish.

As I write on, by the a.s.sociation of ideas I call to mind an event which greatly provoked me. I was fond of poking into and turning over old things up in the garret, as I hinted before, or I had archaeological taste, to give it a dignified name. One day, much to my surprise, I came upon an old kite frame perhaps six feet by five, good for further use. I found it hidden behind a worm-eaten chest of drawers; it was constructed, I discovered, when my uncle was a boy; everybody in the house had forgotten all about it. I was instantly possessed with the desire to boast of a big kite, now that the frame was ready; and as if to help out my plan, some one recollected that the reel of string that went with the kite was put away in one of the drawers. This I immediately sought and found. These relics I guarded with great care until a visit from my uncle, who resided in the same town, when I produced them and got him to tell me about his kite. I could not have done a better thing; his old playthings before him put my uncle in mind of his boyhood; they created in him the wish to see them restored once more to their former usefulness; and he promised me he would attend to them himself.

Attend to them himself he did in a few days, taking as lively an interest as I did. Having papered the frame, we carried it to a man who painted show-bills. He painted on it a squatting Daruma in scarlet canonical robe, holding the high-priest's mace, a staff with a long tuft of white hair at one end, while the white untouched margin left by this large figure was stained blue. It was a glorious kite; the picture of Daruma, who was a great light of Buddhism, the founder of a new sect, who sat and thought through his whole life, suffering no disturbance from matters temporal--hence his _papier-mache_ image on a hemisphere of lead for the toy "tumbler;" Daruma, I started to say, looked out from our kite with a pair of immense goggle eyes, shaded by prominent s.h.a.ggy eyebrows; a furrow ran down on either cheek from the side of his nose toward the corners of his mouth; large Hindoostanee ear-rings hung from the enlarged lobes of his ears; and I may here add that, notwithstanding his reputed sedentary habits, he is always drawn as a holy man of strong physical features.

So far, so good. My uncle, as might be antic.i.p.ated, wanted to see how our kite would fly. Accordingly, we got a big boy to hold it up for us against the wind, and my uncle at a distance hold the string ready to dash at a run. The signal was given, and away my uncle ran, and up rose the kite. Breathlessly I was watching. But it no sooner rose than it pitched sidewise and struck on the spikes upon the fences of the Mayor's house. I lost my heart! I did not cry just yet; the catastrophe was too big for utterance and too sudden: there was no time to weigh the calamity. The men pulled at the kite, which, I say, had stuck fast on the pointed black wooden bars bristling unmannerly in all possible directions. I bore the spikes an inveterate enmity ever after, till one day they were every one of them pulled down with the house, at which I felt extreme satisfaction. The tearing noise of the kite, however, rent my breast then; and the men, being persuaded at last of the futility of their proceeding, brought forward a ladder, and my uncle mounted it deliberately. I could not contain myself any longer; I ran into the house, threw myself on the floor and wept bitterly. After that I turned over the whole affair in my mind at leisure, lying on my back, studying the ceiling and sucking my finger in baby fashion. The phantom of the broken kite rose before me; I swallowed down my grief with difficulty.

Who brought it about? n.o.body else but uncle; yes, if uncle had not wished to try the kite it would not have happened. I whimpered afresh at the painful thought; I now reproached my uncle as much as I formerly thanked him. After a considerable lapse of time my uncle came in, crestfallen, with the tattered kite. But in dudgeon I would not speak to him or look at him: he very awkwardly endeavored to console me and with difficulty coaxed me to accept his atonement in patching the rents. The moisture of the glue, nevertheless, scattered the original colors and disfigured the beautiful picture. I forget how I forgave him that.

But to resume the holiday games. Boys play a sort of ball--the "pa.s.s and catch" part--with a good-sized dai-dai (lemon); we call it dai-dai rolling. We give each other the "grounder" repeatedly, so that even the hard-rinded j.a.panese fruit gets ruptured in a little time; then our business is to beat about for a supply of the new b.a.l.l.s, which we invariably accomplish by knocking down the fruit from the unguarded arches. The people generally take the prank in good part.

Girls play out-of-doors with battledore and shuttlec.o.c.k; they also play with cotton-b.a.l.l.s, which they toss with their dainty hands against hard floors. They keep the ball bounding rhythmically between the palm of their hand and the floor, and hum songs in time with it.

At home and in the evening we play cards and other games. The favorite game of cards consists in giving out the first lines of couplets and endeavoring to pick out from the confusion of cards, in compet.i.tion with others of the company, the particular cards on which are written the following lines; the one with the largest number of cards in the end is declared the winner. This game has the commendable feature of impressing on the mind celebrated poems; it is not merely time thrown away.

j.a.panese poems, I remark in pa.s.sing, are short and pithy; the cla.s.sic "a Hundred Poems from a Hundred Poets" are characteristic and are consequently printed for the purpose of the game. The selected poems of the To dynasty, which in the annals of Chinese literature correspond to the English Elizabethan period. I mean in development and not in chronology, are subst.i.tuted by scholars for the j.a.panese poems. We also play a kind of parchesi and a form of the game of authors, but whist, poker, casino, euchre, cribbage, etc., we know nothing of. Chess and checkers the j.a.panese are expert in, but they are not New Year games.

Fireside conversation, kind words and hearts const.i.tute the quiet enjoyment and sunshine of the holidays. All things conspire to produce in us serene and tranquil pleasure, but nothing worth recording occurs in the remaining days. Some business-like briskness is manifested in the early hours of the second morning, for tradesmen observe the ancient custom of inaugurating the commerce of the opening year and give out presents to their customers.

Later in the spring--I forget the exact date--all the straw ornaments, withering wreaths and the like used in the decoration are brought together and burnt up with religious care on a broad sandy river flat just beyond the town. The day appointed for the rite is another gala-day of the calendar, at least in Imabari. For some time previous to the occasion, the straw relics of all the houses of a street are carefully collected in one spot, and then such as are artists exercise ingenuity to produce some recognizable shape out of the heap that may catch the eye of spectators, on its way to the place of combustion. Street vies with street in originality in fashioning the straw stack and takes care not to divulge what it is constructing until the day of display, then it ostentatiously raises the finished work, whatever it may be, on a high movable platform or pedestal on wheels, which takes its position in the line of march with those of the other streets. The whole town is curious to know what is in the parade and rushes out to behold.

I recall only one among many things which my own street produced on such occasions; it was a military cap and a trumpet joined together.

Innumerable sheets of gilt paper were wasted in giving the monstrous form of a trumpet the appearance of bright, shining bra.s.s; the cap, too, was wonderfully like the real imported thing. These barbarian outlandish articles, having been adopted by the j.a.panese government at the time, were exciting the attention and comments of the people; hence, the striking reproduction of them on a greatly magnified scale made everybody utter a little cry of surprise and admiration. I forget to which of us the inspiration came.

The pedestal or platform has two large ma.s.sive iron rings in front, to which are tied stout ropes: the younger part of the inhabitants of the street hang together in two rows and haul the decorated burden. Song and chorus, and the heavy wheels creak onward a short distance, then stop: song again and chorus; then another pause. Among the crowd we occasionally meet a man carrying a bamboo stick, one end of which is split and holds half-a-dozen hardened mochis. He intends to scorch the cakes in the flames of the relics and, upon returning home, to divide them among his family and eat them for the miraculous power they are then believed to possess.

This is, in short, the manner in which we observe and end our great national holiday of New Year. Of late, it is to be regretted, many of the old customs are omitted by the people who have got modern notions into their heads. Innovations of the latter days not very desirable or in good taste are fast gaining ground. A few years more, and, I fear, the neglect of time-honored observances will be complete in j.a.pan.

CHAPTER XII.

We have a great many other holidays; it is impossible to speak of them all. Simply to name some, there are G.o.d Fox's day on the second of the second month; the Feast of Dolls, for little girls, on the third of the third month; the Feast of Flags for little boys on the fifth of the fifth month; the ablution ma.s.s in the sixth month; the Tanabata (eve of the seventh) on the seventh of the seventh month; the day of chrysanthemum flowers and the festival of Inoko late in the fall, not to mention festivals of several local deities. The vital importance of these holidays to us children centered in the dainties and delicacies with which our mothers and sisters served us then and not often at ordinary times. We enjoy boiled red beans and rice on the second of February; rice-flour cakes wrapped in the leaves of a species of oak called kashiwa on the fifth of May; rice-flour cakes daubed with the an on the day of the Buddhistic ceremony of ablution; roast and boiled chestnuts and rice and chestnuts on the ninth of September; and the sake on almost all occasions, but with a spray of peach blossom inserted in the bottle on the third of March, and a bunch of chrysanthemum flowers on the chrysanthemum day.

In Tanabata and Inoko the boys of the town used to club together on payment of a small fee, the biggest among them presiding over their affairs by common consent. Our first work is to canva.s.s such houses in consecutive order as have large front rooms, soliciting their owners to loan us the room for a few days for a temporary club-house, free of charge. And when we are given by a generous man the use of his house, thither we convey our common property. The property comprises the scroll G.o.ds, a holy mirror, the golden gohei (a sacred bra.s.s ornament), a pair of pewter sake bottles, splendid curtains, a large number of the sambo (offering stand of white wood, sometimes varnished), countless j.a.panese lanterns, timber and board ready to be put together for an altar looking like a staircase, Chinese crimson felt carpets, several drums and certain kinds of bells. These things have been handed down to us by successive generations of boys, repaired each year and additions made by donations or by "chipping in," and all nicely packed in chests, on the sides and covers of which we read the names of some that have died, and of others that are yet living though well-nigh to the grave. The boys take good care of the old heirlooms, that they may transmit them without injury to their successors. The older boys take the things out and set up a place of worship; on the days of festivity the members come to the headquarters with their lunch-boxes well stocked. We a.s.semble not to worship really, you might as well understand now, but to have a good time. Fruits and cakes have been taken in by the managers from the wholesale merchants, and are piled up in pyramids on the samboes upon the steps of the altar; they are to be divided equally among the stockholders afterwards. The lanterns are lighted brilliantly at night; a special lantern is hoisted on a very high pole planted before the house to signify our quarters.

At Tanabata we march through the streets with green bamboo trees, rending the air with certain shouts and beating the instruments, and upon meeting the boys of other streets have a scuffle. The scene is a confusion of bamboos and bits of rainbow-colored papers which are tied plentifully to the branches. After a hot contest we come home to the club, eat a hearty lunch and celebrate the incidents of our victory. The day after the festival we take our bamboos to the sea and cast them off to be drifted away by the waves and finally up to the Heavenly Stream or the Milky Way, where the G.o.ds may read our wishes written on the rainbow-colored papers. On this day everybody goes swimming, because the sea-monkey is handcuffed that can lengthen one arm enormously at the expense of the other, and draws in and drowns people, especially boys who go swimming in opposition to their mothers' remonstrance.

At Inoko we bring forth our gorin. A gorin is a spherical stone, usually granite, with an iron belt loose in a groove around the great circ.u.mference; the belt has many small rings through it. A club of boys possesses five to ten gorins of various sizes. To the rings are attached ropes, and calling at the families to which came male offspring during the year, the boys utter words of blessing and pound the ground by pulling up and down the solid stone. After a series of thumps a depression is left behind. We hold gorin collisions with neighboring powers. A challenge is sent to other clubs to meet us with their best gorin on neutral ground at such a time, that we may know which is stronger. The war gorin is equipped for the contest with a network of ropes, exposing a portion of the surface that shall deal the blow; the leading boys guide it in the battle by several strong ropes. Generally in the collision more noise is heard than the clash; however, not rarely the contest is kept up until one or the other splits through the core, and the opposition is so strong as to cause older people to interfere in the affair, because it infallibly entails unpleasant feeling between the parties and a scrimmage at all times. I call to mind that our club used to plume itself upon the strength and durability of its gorins; no, not one received so much as a crack, albeit many and severe were the tests to which they had been subjected.

Besides the gorin sports, at Inoko we get up wrestling matches. On the yard of the club-house we build a circular bank of clay and fill the inside with sand; in this all the members contend in practice. Small as I was, I did not like to be thought out of fashion, and to pay for my uncalled-for prowess suffered from sores and bruises. In a body we visit the headquarters of the other clubs and negotiate the matches, which take place immediately on the spot in full view of both parties.

The ceremony of ablution is chiefly observed by Shinto priests. (Shinto is the native faith, holding up the sun for the center figure of worship and eight millions of spirits besides.) The way they observe it in my province consists in setting up in the temple-yard three large hoops of the sasaki tree (sacred to Shintoism) and inviting the people to pa.s.s through them. The hoops are supposed to take up the people's sins and transgressions, leaving them clean and fit for the further grace of the G.o.ds. Thus loaded with the earthly corruptions and loathsome pollutions of man, the round bands of the fresh, green trees, thickly stuck with zigzag white paper hangings, at the end of the day are taken to running water and washed thoroughly or more commonly committed to the sea.

At about the same time Buddhist priests hold ma.s.s for dead sinners. The different sects have different notions. My family were formerly parishioners to a temple of the Hokke sect; therefore. I best remember the ma.s.s as observed by that particular denomination. The church society and its officers meet in the vestry to take action in the preparation of floating lanterns. These are hasty, rude contrivances which the active of the parishioners volunteer in getting up; it does not require much skill in carpentry to make them, but it takes time to make so many. Look at one: an odd piece of board for the bottom, two split bamboos bent and stuck on it like the handle of a basket one across the other, and a hood of paper glued round the whole; a nail in the center holds a penny candle. All very inartistic indeed, as befits their use, as we shall see presently.

On the ma.s.s day all about the temple are strung up an untold number of the lanterns. Now, devout old folks and young come in streams all day to put up prayers for their beloved dead, and those so inclined buy the lanterns for the purpose of lighting the way for the departed. The goods when paid for are handed over by the presiding elders, who have charge of the sale, to the priest and a.s.sistant priests; they write sutra verses on them and order them to be left before the altar. If business is good, by the latter part of the evening the entire stock is disposed of; the till rattles with money, and the priests are in good cheer. Then follows a great chanting and beating of drums, and after prayers have been said once for all, the lanterns are put on board several boats and the drums and cymbals also carried to enliven the next scene; the priests and committee walk down to the sh.o.r.e slowly. Things being placed aright, out they pull on the heaving sea--the incoming tide having been looked to beforehand, so that at high tide the lighted lanterns may be set afloat and go drifting at their will with the falling flood.

Ah, they are gone, the skiffs! We discern them no more. I want you to understand that it is a dark night, otherwise my picture isn't so good, although in point of fact the moon does often chance to look up on the occasion. And the moonlight on the swelling tide is not very bad, I acknowledge, yet, you see, I wish to preserve the grand effect of "fire and darkness." So, pray, gentle reader, indulge my fancy this time; I won't always ask this. Well, it's a dark night then: as the boats slip out of our sight we can hear the lapping noise that comes of their swaying from side to side caused by the queer j.a.panese mode of sculling.

Ere long we cease to hear it; the vessels are well out in the obscurity.

Do we not see anything of them? Not quite. The lights they convey show us their whereabouts. We are all this while on sh.o.r.e, mind you. The onset of water seems to take uncommon delight in driving us up, chuckling to itself along the beach, until at last we are crowded into a narrow strip of sand with the rest of the spectators. There! it's up to the high-water-mark; we won't be annoyed any longer. Let's sit down.

While we watch, ten thousand points of light dot the expanse; no finer illumination, I for one, ever expect to see on earth; and soon there blazes out a great ruddy flame from the chief priest's boat amid the confused echoes of prayers on all the vessels. That is the end of it, friends; sit still and look on, if you choose,--many indeed do so--and observe the lights recede and drift away, or die out. Of these some never return and are believed to have gone where they were bidden, others and a majority, to be frank with you, are washed ash.o.r.e next morning shattered into fragments.

CHAPTER XIII.

It is wonderful how the memory brings up, as I write, ten thousand irrelevant trivialities,--delightful to me, nevertheless,--many of which have no claim to be placed here, except that they are more or less related to the temple. Verily, the faculty of memory is a G.o.dsent gift, a boon of solitary hours.

Our temple was the nearest to the sea of the row on Temple street, which I referred to in the earlier portion of this sketch. The head-priest was an amiable, gentle person, very learned they say, though giving no indication of being such. He did his duty, to be sure, in sermons, but never cared much to distinguish himself in eloquence; he would rather read or entertain visitors in the quiet of his tastefully upholstered zashiki (guest room), sipping the excellent Uji tea and viewing the artistic beds of chrysanthemum laid out with great formality. He cultivated exquisite flowers; the slender stems bent under the large flaunting heads, and the priest-gardener took pity and provided them with firm props; he was as attached to them as a father to his children.

If a storm by night pa.s.sed over them and he discovered them in the morning sagged, matted, and drenched with rain, his compa.s.sion knew no bounds.

It must be confessed that at times his fine taste shaded into squeamishness; he could not help being captious about his servitor's slipshod management of business, and yet extremely averse was he to giving his own opinion utterance, always turning aside in silent disgust. He suffered little children, however, nay, loved them; he took quite a fancy to me, calling me pet names, gladdening me on my visits with goodies and a bunch of chrysanthemum flowers from his garden, and always sending me home safely by a boy-priest. This last, found vegetating in almost every temple, is a young lad of poor parentage sent thither to be taken care of out of charity. The specimen I found here was a poor boy, hence happy; he was sure of dinner now and more full of fun than well became his cloth.

Once he frightened me half to death. It happened in this way: I accompanied some one of my relatives to our family burying ground in the temple yard, on the eve of the annual memorial day for the dead, when every family sends a delegate to the tombs and invites the spirits home.

The delegate delivers the oral message with profound respect and formality, bowing low to the ground before the ancestral tombstones as in an august presence. Then he turns about and asks the invisible to get on his back, secures him with both hands behind and gravely walks homeward. At home, in the yard on a bed of sand taken from the sea-sh.o.r.e a fire is built of flax stems, according to religious custom. This is called the "reception fire." The spirits are next requested to alight carefully at the high home altar so as not to bruise their shanks. In j.a.pan each house has a sacred closet wherein are enshrined images, ancestral tablets, charms and amulets, where cake and oranges, flowers and incense are offered, and before which the family commemorate the days of their ancestors' death. This elevated place is called the "Buddha's shelf." Let me remark here that the Eastern people are regardful of their dead; they do not slight them because they are dead.

Revile as you may and wrongly call it "ancestor worship," the spirit that prompts the act is entirely praiseworthy. Besides the closet, the tops of cabinet, cupboard and similar pieces of household furniture are turned into the depositories of Shinto relics and paper G.o.ds. These "G.o.ds' shelves" are, too, carefully served with such offerings as salt fish, sake, and light in the evening.

But I am wandering from the main narrative; my talk too often gallops into minor tracks unbridled. As I commenced the narration, I was stooping before the resting places of my grandfather (of whose quiet departure from our hearth, by the bye, I haven't told you), of my grandmother and of my sister who pa.s.sed on before I had ever thought of appearing. Regarding the last two relatives of mine, having never seen them in life, I was in the habit of asking a heap of questions in the tiresome inquisitiveness of children. My mother deigned to tell me, especially in a reminiscent mood, a great deal concerning them, without minding my sisters, who took occasion to upbraid me merrily on this, my singular ignorance, in face of my other positive a.s.sertion that I had witnessed my mother's wedding. Dear mamma's stories, interesting as they are, touching as they do not a little on the pleasures, fashions and general social regime of Old j.a.pan, I feel obliged to omit. For the present, I must go on with my own story.

I was stooping, I say, before the tombs, all about being silent and gloomy; my young animated imagination dwelling not on my grandfather's goodness but on old wives' awful tales of graveyards and dark nights, pale apparitions and grinning skeletons; and my whole being surcharged with fear, requiring but the shrill wind to make my hair stand on end, and ready to start at my own shadow, when suddenly there came a moan from behind the adjoining slabs, and a moment later a ghost shot up with a wild shriek. I drew back involuntarily and caught my breath, so did my companion. Then the ghost shook its gaunt sides and burst out laughing in ghoulish delight. We were taken aback, but soon rallied courage sufficiently to peer at the merry spook. How provoking! The young priest stood on one of the tombstones, with the broad sleeve of his monkish habiliment over his face. He came down to us quickly, wearing a mischievous smile, pa.s.sed over the whole thing as a huge jest, putting in a slight excuse for causing our undue alarm, and politely offered his service in carrying the flowers and water-pail. His words and manners smoothed away our ruffled temper and rendered a scolding impossible; a few more hours made it look too slight to report to the head-priest. In the main the young priest had the best of us; he earned what he liked better than a good dinner,--some capital fun.

And in this connection, here comes bounding toward me in my remembrance our pet dog Gem. I will relate how he came to be so closely a.s.sociated in my thought with the grave; it is a sad, good story. My young brother, who had a boy's fondness for animal pets in an eminent degree, got him from another boy whose dog had a litter of several puppies. When my brother brought him home in his arms, Gem was but a ma.s.s of tender flesh covered over with soft down; he had just been weaned; consequently by night he yelped, and cried piteously for his mother, under the piazza where my brother shielded him from the paternal eye. My father was not a great lover of pets: the cat he could not bear for her soft-voiced, velvet-pawed deceitfulness; the dog for his belligerent, deep-mouthed barks at strangers and for fear of his becoming mad in summer time; and the canary bird--poor thing--it was too bad that people should deprive it of its native freedom.

We had our doubts, therefore, how Gem and papa were to get along.

However, we were not without a ray of hope that in time they would come to be good friends, for papa had once shown that he did not altogether lack the love of dumb animals. It was when I began to love the little white and spotted mice penned in a box with a gla.s.s front and a wheel within. My father suffered them to be kept in the house out of his love for me; gradually his curiosity was awakened to take a look occasionally at what his son exhibited such absorbing interest in; next he became a keen admirer of my little revelers,--their gambols, their a.s.siduous turning of the wheel, their cunning way of holding rice grains, and their house-keeping in a wad of cotton in the drawer beneath, to which they could descend by a hole in the floor of the box.

After a while I grew negligent about them, and then it was my father who fed them and took care of them.

On the whole, he bade fair to come to a better understanding with our precious Gem. Nevertheless, Gem--or rather my young brother--had trouble with him during his canine minority. When the puppy had grown big, true to our prophecy, my father began to show his just appreciation of him.

Gem would sit beside him on his hind legs at meal times and watch intently the movements of the chopsticks, with his head inclined on one side one moment and on the other the next, letting out an occasional faint guttural cooing by way of imploring a morsel. Should there haply fall from the table an unexpected gift, say a sardine's head, Gem with the utmost alacrity would pick it up and occupy himself for a few minutes, then, licking his chops and wagging his tail, he would turn up to my father a gaze at once thankful for what was given and hopeful for more. Little Gem took a fancy to grandpa, and when the children were away at school, he would pay him a visit and pitpat into his room unceremoniously, like one of the grandchildren, when the old gentleman was dozing over the past at the kotatsu (fire-place). This Gem of ours had an idea that it was rude to surprise one in his meditation, and thought it proper to stop short a few yards from grandpa and utter one of his gutturals, as much as to say, "How do you do, grandpa?" Whereat our good, old grandpa was obliged to break off to receive his fourfooted visitor cordially.

A time came when grandpa was no more, and a perfect stillness settled on our home. Dear little Gem could ill comprehend what all the house meant and went about as happily and innocently as before: he had now his playmates all day at home. His conduct caused us to think how glad we should be to know no grief, and to such a place we felt sure must our grandpa have gone. Early every morning for the first week or two somebody from the house repaired to the church-yard to see that things were right and to put up prayers; once or twice Gem was taken along for company, and since then he counted it his duty to attend us to the temple. My father and I would get up some morning on this errand, and no sooner had we appeared at the gate than Gem uncurled from his comfortable sleeping posture, rose and shook his hair and looked his "I am ready." He generally paced before us, but frequently tarried behind to salute his dog-neighbor with a good morning. Sometimes he would course sportively away from our sight; we whistled loud without any response; but knowing he could find his way back, we gave up the search and hastened to the temple. Upon our arrival, before grandpa's stone sat a little dog looking out on the alert. Gem received us in the capacity of host and conducted us to the grave, saying as plainly as ever dog said, "Don't you see? I know the way."

One morning we rose to find our Gem gone. Inquiries revealed him lying at a short distance from the gate, with his fur dyed in his own life-blood. He was dead! Whether a prowling, ferocious animal had fallen on him in the night, or a cruel human brute had inflicted the wounds without just cause, we could not ascertain. My young brother took Gem's cruel death to heart; my father, too, felt deeply the sad fate of the now-to-him priceless pet. And here naturally ends the story of our dog.

In our temple, as well as in those of all other denominations, the birthday of the great common teacher Shaka (Gautama) is observed. It falls on the eighth, I think, of April; the observance is simple and quiet except for the distribution of ubuyu. In the East, when a child is born the midwife immediately plunges it in a tub of warm water. This water is called ubuyu or first bath. On the eighth of April, in every temple a bronze basin is placed before the altar; in the center of the basin stands a bronze image of the Infant Shaka; his att.i.tude is much like that of the Boy Christ pictured in the ill.u.s.trated Bibles and the Sunday-school cards as teaching a group of the scribes. The myth relates a marvelous account of his rising upright in the bath-tub and telling his astonished parents and old midwife whence he came, pointing to heaven, and what his mission on earth was. His exact words are recorded in the Buddhist's scriptures.

The bronze vessel is filled with a decoction of a certain dried herb whose taste resembles liquorice. The drink is popularly known as the "sweet tea." The worshiper pours the liquid over the idol with a small dipper and then sips a little of the same, mumbling some devotional words.

The excitement of the day consists in the children's running to the temples, during the early part of the morning, with bottles for the sweet tea or the ubuyu, as it is called in this instance. In the temple kitchen the cook has boiled gallons and gallons of it, and from the dawn that functionary is prepared for the hubbub and the hard task of dispensing it expeditiously to the throng. As the holiday comes in the same season of the year as Easter, the floral decoration of the temples are beautiful; the bronze roof above the basin and image is always artistically covered over with a quant.i.ty of a native flower named genge, which the botanist may cla.s.sify under the genus _Trifolium_, if I may trust my early observation. The flowers literally color the fields pink in the spring.