A Yankee in the Far East Part 5

"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 a.s.sent 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 j.a.pan. 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 a.s.sured 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 j.a.pan with his touring car.

"Sat.u.r.day 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 j.a.pan, 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 j.a.panese 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 anaesthetic and a funnel, and I'm just as p.r.o.nounced 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 j.a.pan, and we needed friends.

"All the j.a.panese 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 j.a.panese-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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: We S. O. S.'d Yokohama for four hours with that saki house telephone]

"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 j.a.panese 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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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-cla.s.s 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 j.a.panese 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 c.o.c.ks 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: That surely was some bow]

"There were no screens up before the doors of that j.a.panese 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 b.u.t.termilk, looked just like b.u.t.termilk, and was ladled out of a big crock by a little j.a.panese barmaid.

"She'd fill the gla.s.ses so full that they would heap up at the brim--hubby carried the gla.s.s 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 pa.s.sed that gla.s.s, 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 j.a.pan 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 j.a.p, we only wrecked his cart and jounced him up a bit--we were going less than forty miles an hour, but a sc.r.a.ppy little cuss in bra.s.s b.u.t.tons pinched us for exceeding the speed limit, and locked us up on a charge of a.s.sault 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 j.a.p--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 Sat.u.r.day evening in Kioto, which is one of the best cities in j.a.pan--_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 j.a.pan to study j.a.panese life and character.