Child-Life in Japan and Japanese Child Stories Part 3

The girl replied, "My mother bade me pick parsley, and I am following her instructions--that is the reason why I have not turned round to pay my respects to the Prince." The latter being informed of her answer, was filled with admiration at the strictness of her filial piety. Alighting at her mother's cottage on the way back, he told her of the occurrence, and placing the girl in the next carriage to his own, took her home with him to the Imperial Palace, and ended by making her his wife, upon which the people, knowing her story, gave her the name of the "Parsley Queen."

THE TWO DAUGHTERS.

At Akita, in the province of Inaba, lived an independent gentleman,[18]

who had two daughters, by whom he was ministered to with all filial piety. He was fond of shooting with a gun, and thus very often committed the sin (according to the teaching of holy Buddha) of taking life.[19]

He would never hearken to the admonitions of his daughters. These, mindful of the future, and aghast at the prospect in store for him in the world to come, frequently endeavored to convert him. Many were the tears they shed. At last one day, after they had pleaded with him more earnestly still than before, the father, touched by their supplications, promised to shoot no more. But, after a while, some of his neighbors came round to request him to shoot for them two storks.[20] He was easily led to consent by the strength of his natural liking for the sport. Still he would not allow a word to be breathed to his daughters.

He slipped out at night, gun in hand, after they were, as he imagined, fast asleep.

[18] _An independent gentleman_, a _ronin_ or "wave man," one who had left the service of his feudal lord and was independent,--sometimes a gentleman and a scholar, oftener a ruffian or vagabond.

[19] Buddhism, on account of the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, forbids the taking of life.

[20] There are very few storks in j.a.pan, but white heron are quite common.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Two White Birds.]

They, however, had heard everything, and the elder sister said to the younger: "Do what we may, our father will not condescend to follow our words of counsel, and nothing now remains but to bring him to a knowledge of the truth by the sacrifice of one of our own lives.

To-night is fortunately moonless; and if I put on white garments and go to the neighborhood of the bay, he will take me for a stork and shoot me dead. Do you continue to live and tend our father with all the services of filial piety." Thus she spake, her eyes dimmed with the rolling tears. But the younger sister, with many sobs, exclaimed: "For you, my sister, for you is it to receive the inheritance of this house. So do you condescend to be the one to live, and to practise filial devotion to our father, while I will offer up my life."

Thus did each strive for death. The elder one, without more words, seizing a white garment rushed out of the house. The younger one, unwilling to cede to her the place of honor, putting on a white gown also, followed in her track to the sh.o.r.e of the bay. There, making her way to her among the rushes, she continued the dispute as to which of the two should be the one to die.

Meanwhile the father, peering around him in the darkness, saw something white. Taking it for the storks, he aimed at the spot with his gun, and did not miss his shot, for it pierced through the ribs of the elder of the two girls. The younger, helpless in her grief, bent over her sister's body. The father, not dreaming of what he was about, and astonished to find that his having shot one of the storks did not make the other fly away, discharged another shot at the remaining white figure. Lamentable to relate, he hit his second daughter as he had the first. She fell, pierced through the chest, and was laid on the same gra.s.sy pillow as her sister.

The father, pleased with his success, came up to the rushes to look for his game. But what! no storks, alas! alas! No, only his two daughters!

Filled with consternation, he asked what it all meant. The girls, breathing with difficulty, told him that their resolve had been to show him the crime of taking life, and thus respectfully to cause him to desist therefrom. They expired before they had time to say more.

The father was filled with sorrow and remorse. He took the two corpses home on his back. As there was now no help for what was done, he placed them reverently on a wood stack, and there they burnt, making smoke to the blowing wind. From that hour he was a converted man. He built himself a small cell of branches of trees, near the village bridge.

Placing therein the memorial tablets of his two daughters, he performed before them the due religious rites, and became the most pious follower of Buddha. Ah! that was filial piety in very truth! a marvel, that these girls should throw away their own lives, so that, by exterminating the evil seed in their father's conduct in this world, they might guard him from its awful fruit in the world to come!

SECOND SIGHT.

A traveller arrived at a village, and looking about for an inn, he found one that, although rather shabby, would, he thought, suit him. So he asked whether he could pa.s.s the night there, and the mistress said certainly. No one lived at the inn except the mistress, so that the traveller was quite undisturbed.

The next morning, after he had finished break-fast, the traveller went out of the house to make arrangements for continuing his journey. To his surprise, his hostess asked him to stop a moment. She said that he owed her a thousand pounds, solemnly declaring that he had borrowed that sum from her inn long years ago. The traveller was astonished greatly at this, as it seemed to him a preposterous demand. So fetching his trunk, he soon hid himself by drawing a curtain all round him.

After thus secluding himself for some time, he called the woman and asked, "Was your father an adept in the art of second sight?" The woman replied, "Yes; my father secluded himself just as you have done." Said the traveller, "Explain fully to me why you say I owe you so large a sum." The mistress then related that when her father was going to die, he bequeathed her all his possessions except his money. He said, that on a certain day, ten years later, a traveller would lodge at her house, and that, as the said traveller owed him a thousand pounds, she could reclaim at that time this sum from his debtor. She must subsist in the meanwhile by the gradual sale of her father's goods.

Hitherto, being unable to earn as much money as she spent, she had been disposing of the inherited valuables, but had now exhausted nearly all of them. In the meantime, the predicted date had arrived, and a traveller had lodged at her house, just as her father had foretold.

Hence she concluded he was the man from whom she should recover the thousand pounds.

On hearing this the traveller said that all that the woman had related was perfectly true. Taking her to one side of the room, he told her to tap gently with her knuckles all over a wooden pillar. At one part the pillar gave forth a hollow sound. The traveller said that the money spoken about by the poor woman lay hidden in this part of the pillar.

Then advising her to spend it only gradually, he went on his way.

The father of this woman had been extremely skilful in the art of second sight or clairvoyance. By its means he had discovered that his daughter would pa.s.s through ten years of extreme poverty and that on a certain future day a diviner would come and lodge in the house. The father was also aware that if he bequeathed his daughter his money at once, she would spend it extravagantly. Upon consideration, therefore, he hid the money in the pillar, and instructed his daughter as related. In accordance with the father's prophecy, the man came and lodged in the house on the predicted day, and by the art of divination discovered the thousand pounds.

GAMES.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The games we are daily playing at in our nurseries, or some of them, have been also played at for centuries by j.a.panese boys and girls. Such are blindman's buff (eye-hiding), puss-in-the-corner, catching, racing, scrambling, a variety of "here we go round the mulberry bush." The game of knuckle-bones is played with five little stuffed bags instead of sheep bones, which the children cannot get, as sheep are not used by the j.a.panese. Also performances such as honey-pots, heads in chancery, turning round back to back, or hand to hand, are popular among that long-sleeved, shaven-pated small fry. Still better than snow-balling, the lads like to make a snow-man, with a round charcoal ball for each eye, and a streak of charcoal for his mouth. This they call Buddha's squat follower "Daruma," whose legs rotted off through his stillness over his lengthy prayers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Eye-Hiding, or Blindman's Buff.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Stilts and Clog-Throwing.]

As might be expected, some of the j.a.panese games differ slightly from ours, or else are altogether peculiar to that country. The facility with which a j.a.panese child slips its shoes on and off, and the absence on the part of the parents of conventional or health scruples regarding bare feet, lead to a sort of game of ball in which the shoes take the part of the ball, and to hiding pranks with the sandal, something like our hunt the slipper and hide-and-seek. On the other hand, kago play is entirely j.a.panese. In this game, two children carry a bamboo pole on their shoulders, on to which clings a third child, in imitation of a usual mode of travelling in j.a.pan. In this the pa.s.senger is seated in a light bamboo palanquin borne on men's shoulders. A miniature festival is thought great fun, when a few bits of rough wood mounted on wheels are decorated with cut paper and evergreens, and drawn slowly along amidst the shouts of the exultant contrivers, in mimicry of the real festival cars. Games of soldiers are of two types. When copied from the historical fights, one boy, with his kerchief bound round his temples, makes a supposed marvelous and heroic defence. He slashes with his bamboo sword, as a harlequin waves his baton, to deal magical destruction all around on the attacking party. When the late insurrection commenced in Satsuma, the Tokio boys, hearing of the campaign on modern tactics, would form attack and defence parties. A little company armed with bamboo breech-loaders would march to the a.s.sault of the roguish battalion lurking round the corner.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Playing at Batter-Cakes.]

Wrestling, again, is popular with children, not so much on account of the actual throwing, as from the love of imitating the curious growling an animal-like springing, with which the professional wrestlers encounter one another. Swimming, fis.h.i.+ng, and general puddling about are congenial occupation for hot summer days; whilst some with a toy bamboo pump, like a j.a.panese feeble fire-engine, manage to send a squirt of water at a friend, as the firemen souse their comrades standing on the burning housetops. Itinerant street sellers have, on stalls of a height suited to their little customers, an array of what looks like pickles.

This is made of bright seaweed pods that the children buy to make a "clup!" sort of noise with between their lips, so that they go about apparently hiccoughing all day long. The smooth glossy leaves of the camellia, as common as hedge roses are in England, make very fair little trumpets when blown after having been expertly rolled up, or in spring their fallen blossoms are strung into gay chains.

On a border-land between games and sweets are the stalls of the itinerant batter-sellers. At these the tiny purchaser enjoys the evidently much appreciated privilege of himself arranging his little measure of batter in fantastic forms, and drying them upon a hot metal plate. A turtle is a favorite design, as the first blotch of batter makes its body, and six judiciously arranged smaller dabs soon suggest its head, tail, and feet.

THE GAMES AND SPORTS OF j.a.pANESE CHILDREN[21]

How often in j.a.pan one sees that the children of a larger growth enjoy with equal zest games which are the same, or nearly the same, as those of lesser size and fewer years! Certain it is that the adults do all in their power to provide for the children their full quota of play and harmless sports. We frequently see full-grown and able-bodied natives indulging in amus.e.m.e.nts which the men of the West lay aside with their pinafores, or when their curls are cut. If we, in the conceited pride of our superior civilization, look down upon this as childish, we must remember that the Oriental, from the pinnacle of his lofty, and to him immeasurably elevated, civilization, looks down upon our manly sports with contempt, thinking it a condescension even to notice them.

[21] From the paper read before The Asiatic Society of j.a.pan.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Hoisting the Rice-beer Keg On Festival-day.]

A very noticeable change has pa.s.sed over the j.a.panese people since the modern advent of foreigners in respect to their love of amus.e.m.e.nt. Their sports are by no means as numerous or elaborate as formerly, and they do not enter into them with the enthusiasm that formerly characterized them. The children's festivals and sports are rapidly losing their importance, and some now are rarely seen. Formerly the holidays were almost as numerous as saints' days in the calendar. Apprentice-boys had a liberal quota of holidays stipulated in their indentures; and as the children counted the days before each great holiday on their fingers, we may believe that a great deal of digital arithmetic was being continually done. We do not know of any country in the world in which there are so many toy-shops or so many fairs for the sale of things which delight children. Not only are the streets of every city abundantly supplied with shops, filled as full as a Christmas stocking with gaudy toys, but in small towns and villages one or more children's bazaars may be found. The most gorgeous display of all things pleasing to the eye of a j.a.panese child is found in the courts or streets leading to celebrated temples. On a festival day, the toy-sellers and itinerant showmen throng with their most attractive wares or sights in front of the shrine or temple. On the walls and in conspicuous places near the churches and cathedrals in Europe and America, the visitor is usually regaled with the sight of undertakers' signs and gravediggers'

advertis.e.m.e.nts. How differently the j.a.panese act in these respects let any one see, by visiting one or all of the three greatest temples in Tokio, or one of the numerous smaller shrines on some renowned festival day.

We have not s.p.a.ce in this paper to name or describe the numerous street shows and showmen who are supposed to be interested mainly in entertaining children; though in reality adults form a part, often the major part, of their audiences. Any one desirous of seeing these in full glory must ramble down some of the side streets in Tokio, on some fair day, and especially on a general holiday.

Among the most common are the street theatricals, in which two, three, or four trained boys and girls do some very creditable acting, chiefly in comedy. Raree shows, in which the looker-on sees the inside splendors of the n.o.bles' homes, or the heroic acts of j.a.panese warriors, or some famous natural scenery, are very common. The showman, as he pulls the wires that change the scenes, entertains the spectators with songs. The outside of his box is usually adorned with pictures of famous actors, nine-tailed foxes, demons of all colors, people committing hari-kiri or stomach cutting, b.l.o.o.d.y ma.s.sacres, or some such staple horror in which the normal j.a.panese so delights. Story-tellers, posturers, dancers, actors of charades, conjurers, flute-players, song-singers are found on these streets, but those who specially delight the children are the men who, by dint of fingers and breath, work a paste made of wheat-gluten into all sorts of curious and gayly-smeared toys, such as flowers, trees, n.o.blemen, fair ladies, various utensils, the foreigner, the jin-riki-sha, etc. Nearly every itinerant seller of candy, starch-cakes, sugared peas, and sweetened beans, has several methods of lottery by which he adds to the attractions on his stall. A disk having a revolving arrow, whirled round by the hand of a child, or a number of strings which are connected with the faces of imps, G.o.ddesses, devils, or heroes, lends the excitement of chance, and, when a lucky pull or whirl occurs, occasions the subsequent addition to the small fraction of a sen's worth to be bought. Men or women walk about, carrying a small charcoal brazier under a copper griddle, with batter, spoons, cups, and shoyu[22] sauce to hire out for the price of a jumon[23] each to the little urchins who spend an afternoon of bliss, making their own griddle-cakes and eating them. The seller of sugar-jelly exhibits a devil, taps a drum, and dances for the benefit of his baby-customers.

The seller of nice pastry does the same, with the addition of gymnastics and skilful tricks with b.a.l.l.s of dough. In every j.a.panese city there are scores, if not hundreds of men and women who obtain a livelihood by amusing the children.

[22] _Shoyu_: the origin of the English soy.

[23] _A jumon_: the tenth part of a sen or cent.