Part 4

"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.

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.

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 Japan, 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 passed 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 passengers 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 passengers tracts.

"Here, dominie," I said, "give me some of those tracts and I'll help you to push God'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.

I started at one end of the car and he at the other, and every Jap 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 Japan'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 constituency 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 passed 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 Japanese I passed 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 Japan I missed this trip--a kindergarten of Japanese children.

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

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 Japanese babies in their fantastic clothes doing kindergarten stunts--my eye! a show to please the gods!

The obsequies of the Empress Dowager had closed the kindergarten school for days, and I missed the best show in Japan.

The missionary and his wife insisted that I take lunch with them. My team of coolies were champing at their bits--my lunch was ready at my hotel--I told them so. They told me that the hotel would excuse me and they would not.

XI

YAMAMOTO AND HIGH COST OF LIVING

After lunch at the missionary's I found my team at the gate spoiling for a run.

"Yamamoto, take me to your home," I said; "I want to meet your family. I want to see how a rikisha man lives. And, Yamamoto, I'll give you a yen if you'll invite me to supper at your home tonight."

The yen looked tempting, but Yamamoto wouldn't play the game.

He said to have a foreigner as a guest at his humble home would bring around his house such a crowd of curious neighbors that all pleasure in the repast would be spoiled--or words to that effect; but he would take me to his home. Off we started, a three-mile run; Ushi pushed and Yamamoto pulled, and I was soon a self-invited guest in Yamamoto's home; and, if to break bread or chopstick rice in Yamamoto's home would have brought a greater horde of curious neighbors than gathered to witness a foreigner's call at that home, then Yamamoto's head was level--Yamamoto's head was level anyway.

A little house 8 x 16, two rooms 8 x 8, the front opening on a street about eight feet wide; a yard in the rear 6 x 8, was Yamamoto's home.

It was as neat as wax and furnished with an _hibachi_ on which to cook, a _tanstu_ in which to store their clothes. No chairs--they sit on the floor; no beds, save _futons_, to lay on the floor; and an _okimono dai_, a sort of what-not stand, on which a few ornaments and articles of household use were placed.

The wife was gone for the day, but his children were at home, and a more interesting trio of children one wouldn't ask to meet.

My team took me back to the hotel. I dismissed them for the day at five o'clock. I paid off Ushi, and made a deal with Yamamoto to go home and write me the story of his life. I told him I'd pay him a yen to tell me all about himself, his family, how they lived, and what it cost. To bring me the letter written the next morning and get one yen fifty for the day and an extra yen for the letter. Two yen fifty I would hand him in the morning when he handed me the letter; and Yamamoto said he would, and Yamamoto did--I imagine one of his daughters did the writing.

Here is an exact translation of Yamamoto's letter as he handed it to me the next morning--and Yamamoto has his stand within the wall, but Ushi does business without the gate:

The present living condition of Tokichi Yamamoto. He was born in the 12st May 2nd year Meiji 1869. I was born and bred in the city of Kioto, and have been engaging in the job of Rikisha for these twenty years, and my family is consisting of my wife and three children. Elder and younger girls who have had finished the whole course of the Primary school (4 years), and they are now working in the factory of the Tobacco Monopoly Buelow, and the young son is attending the Primary school.

I am somewhat puzzling with the expense of living. My estimated income is 30 yen each month in the months of April, May, October and November and the rest of is about 18 yen per month, therefore, I make it average, it becomes about 22 yen per month, and two girls get 16 yen, so all the income of my house is reckoned 38 yen per month.

The elder sister has just abandoned her work in the factory, and she attends a house for learning of sewing. The list of paying out a month: