A Yankee in the Far East Part 7

[Ill.u.s.tration: With reckless abandon I had decided to blow myself for a whole dollar and twenty-five cents for ten hours' horse and carriage hire]

But East or West or North or South the picking is always good for a story in j.a.pan, 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 pa.s.sed.

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.

X

MISSIONARIES, TRACTS, AND A JOB WORTH WHILE

The missionary met me at the door and I told him who I was--a wayfaring man in j.a.pan, and would he show me somewhat of his work?

He would, and gladly. If I had been a long lost brother or a wealthy uncle with a will to make, he couldn't have been more cordial--a keen young man of thirty-six or thirty-eight I found this missionary.

"Do you mind walking?" he asked.

"I have a team of rikisha coolies at your gate," I said.

"Well," he replied, "our work is scattered over Kioto. We can reach it by trolleys and walking, with an occasional rikisha ride between trolley lines, better than to try to do it all by rikisha from here.

Better pay off your coolies and dismiss them."

"I've chartered them for the day," I said.

We started out to see the missionary work in Kioto, that young missionary and I.

At the gate I told my boys to loaf, or play, or fish, or pick up fares which they might pocket for themselves--they were on my payroll for the day--but to report for duty there at the gate at 1 P. M.

The missionary and I walked a mile and pa.s.sed two of his mission churches on the way, where services were being held, and which through the week were used for schools and meetings; the missionary dispensing tracts as we walked along. That young missionary seemed to exude tracts--I didn't know one missionary could hold so many.

We boarded a trolley, and all the pa.s.sengers got a tract. We dismounted at a corner to look over another mission church where the natives were holding a meeting; a little walk and we boarded another trolley and the missionary started in to give the pa.s.sengers tracts.

"Here, dominie," I said, "give me some of those tracts and I'll help you to push G.o.d's word along"--I rather surmised by then that he was out of tracts and had a momentary--just a teenty, decent little momentary pang of shame that I hadn't offered sooner.

But the missionary wasn't out of tracts. His clothes were full of pockets and they all held tracts. He dug up a pack and handed them to me.

[Ill.u.s.tration: That missionary seemed to exude tracts--I didn't know one missionary could hold so many]

I started at one end of the car and he at the other, and every j.a.p in that car had a tract when we met midway.

We must have boarded six more trolley cars and still the tracts held out, and I had a few left in my pocket after the last car was served.

No tract was thrown away. They were read on the spot and then safely tucked away in the folds of kimonos, or respectfully received and tucked away to be carried home and read.

Every tract would serve five readers, on an average, the missionary told me.

We looked in on little mission churches scattered over Kioto, all under the jurisdiction of that one missionary. He told me how, through himself, his board had bought land and built the little missions, or were renting places for their work.

We worked our way across that tremendous town and at the end of a rikisha ride he showed me his chief pride--a plot of several lots he'd bought, and on them erected a splendid church at the very gates of one of j.a.pan's chief universities of learning.

Ten thousand dollars had been donated toward the work by an American soap manufacturer who had visited Kioto and seen his work, and placed the cash in the young man's hands to build that church.

"Dominie," I asked, as we worked our way back to his home, via rikisha, trolleys and on foot, "what is your yearly budget for all this work you are carrying on here in Kioto?"

"Twenty-five hundred gold dollars," he told me. His and his wife's salary (he married a missionary) was $750.00 each.

Only one thousand dollars for the annual expense, outside their salaries, to pay for tracts and current expenses for the work--native preachers and teachers to keep the enterprise going--twenty-five hundred dollars came from the homeland to push the gospel in Kioto under his charge.

I mentally took this missionary's measure as he told me his story. He was more than preacher, as we know the ordinary type at home. Of necessity his was a wider range of activities; a business man, a man of affairs, keen, alert, his eye on the gun.

His heart was in his work, to hold up his end in bringing over to Christianity a const.i.tuency of half a million souls--a young man putting in ability which, if as intelligently and earnestly directed in a business career in America, should win him ten, twenty--who knows how many thousand dollars per year reward?

I doubt if a guarantee of that difference in pay would tempt the young man from his chosen work--at least that was the impression I got as he unburdened his heart to me.

The young man had a vision of things worth more to him than money.

We wound up the forenoon tour at one o'clock at a union meeting of missionaries--got in as the meeting was drawing to an end.

He introduced me to these missionaries as they pa.s.sed out at the close. I told each one whose hand I shook that the meeting gave me pleasure, and handed out a tract.

One or two of the bunch without the saving sense of humor the Lord meant all should have, didn't receive them as gratefully as the j.a.panese I pa.s.sed them to--it takes all kinds of folks to make a world, I find, and most all of them are good, I think--but some are better than others.

The best thing in j.a.pan I missed this trip--a kindergarten of j.a.panese children.

This missionary's wife had, among other things, this work in hand. I saw the room and the little empty chairs where fifty j.a.panese children, of from three to five years, were taught.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Except potato bugs, I always want to poison them]

Babies are always a lot of fun. The young of the animal kingdom are always interesting--a baby colt, a baby calf, or pig, or dog, or cat--I can't think of the young of anything that don't appeal to me (except potato bugs--I always want to poison them), and most of all human babies. I'd turn aside from any task to see a lot of babies in a bunch.

But fifty j.a.panese babies in their fantastic clothes doing kindergarten stunts--my eye! a show to please the G.o.ds!