reached with his stick to feel the stone threshold of a gateway. Then a
muffled bell sounded, and he felt against his cheek the slight stirring
of the air caused by the bell-rope in the hands of his guide.
“Is it a temple or a _yashiki_?”[33] asked Minokichi of himself, for
he had long before ceased trying to get information from his taciturn
young escort. “That bell and rope seem like the entrance to a temple.
Perhaps it is a priest who is ill, and this is his acolyte.”
Then came the swift rattle of a sliding lattice, and as he bowed and
entered the narrow doorway that he knew must be in front of him, he
heard the soft, sibilant purr of sliding _shoji_, and the patter of
_tabi_-shod feet upon matted floors.
“Good-evening,” he said, sucking in his breath and bending double as he
stood at the entrance of the house.
The small, firm hand that had led him relaxed its grasp.
“Amm’ San,” came the sound of a woman’s voice, “you are welcome! Enter,
if you please!”
Minokichi slipped from his clogs to the polished wooden step, then
up to the floor above, and fell on his knees with his forehead to the
mats, sucking in his breath, and murmuring in politest terms his desire
to be of service to the master.
“Come quickly, please!” It was the woman’s voice again, so anxious, so
hurried, with utterance so clipped and abrupt, that Minokichi could
hardly understand her words. A soft hand slipped into his, and he was
led by passageways with polished wooden floors and through spacious
matted apartments, sweet-smelling with the odors of fresh straw and
aromatic cedar.
“A great lord’s _yashiki_,” thought Minokichi, as he sniffed the air
and felt the polished wood beneath his feet.
“This is the master’s room. Enter,” said the woman’s voice again, and a
sound of sobbing followed.
Once more Minokichi fell on his face and with his forehead to the mats.
The sobbing ceased, and in the silence he heard long, gasping breaths,
as if some one lay dying close beside him.
“This is the master,” said the voice again. “Do what you can to make
him easier.”
With deft and tender touch Minokichi placed his practiced fingers on
the quivering body at his side. In spite of his awe and sympathy,
a pleasant thought came to his mind. The master wore a wadded silk
kimono, and visions of his former princely patron came before him to
make him work with redoubled skill and patience. He felt the rigid
muscles relax little by little under his hand, the convulsive quivering
cease, the labored breathing grow soft and regular.
For hours he worked over the sufferer, and at last, as he stopped to
wipe the streaming perspiration from his face, the woman’s voice,
quieter and less anxious, said to him, “That is enough, Amm’ San. You
are very skillful. The master is really resting now. Come with me and
rest yourself awhile. You must be tired.”
Minokichi bowed, and murmured very softly his formula of
self-depreciation. Then a soft hand took hold of his and led him from
the room.
“Forgive our rudeness,” said the voice again, “in that we offered you
no refreshment when you came. The master was suffering so that we were
forgetful of all else. Kindly accept this tea, and smoke your pipe, and
soon there will be some humble repast ready for you before you leave
us.”
Minokichi was glad enough to sit in the quiet of the room to which he
had been led, to smoke his tiny pipe and drink the tea set before him,
and reflect on the events of the evening and the possibilities of his
fee, while he rested from his protracted efforts. The time seemed very
short to him before soft footsteps on the mats and the gentle shoving
of trays toward him told that the promised refreshment had arrived.
“It is a poor meal,” said the woman’s voice once more. “Please pardon
it, for we have been so troubled by the master’s illness.”
Minokichi had never tasted such food as the “poor meal” thus politely
offered. Fit for the gods, it seemed to him. He ate sparingly, however,
for he did not wish to seem a rude and churlish person, who knew no
better than to eat up clean all that was set before him. When he had
finished, he returned thanks to his unseen hostess, bowing low with
face to the floor in the direction whence came the sound of quick
breathing, so rapid that it seemed to him like the panting of a dog.
“Poor lady,” he thought, “she is still worried about the master.”
As he left the house, a heavy folded white paper was placed in his
hand, and a wooden box, containing, as he knew, the remains of his
feast, was given him. In an ecstasy of thanks and protestations he
committed himself to the firm clutch of his first small guide, whose
shrill voice uttered the single word, “Come.”
So fast the little feet at his side pattered along, that Minokichi was
nearly out of breath when at last his companion relinquished his hold,
and with a jerky “Say nar’”[34] left him standing alone, staff in hand.
Just then a great bell began to toll, and he knew that he was near his
own home, on the north edge of Ushigomé. Slowly, with leisurely waits
between the strokes, the ringer beat out the hour. It took a long time
to reach the tenth stroke, and Minokichi was sure then that it was
through.
“Koto will be fast asleep, and I shall have to wake her,” he said, and
started to feel his way home. “Eleven” boomed the bell, and Minokichi
hurried faster. “Poor Koto! If she is not asleep, she will be anxious
about me.” “Twelve,” and the whirring, buzzing reverberations seemed
close to his ear, so near was he to the temple. With clattering clogs
and tapping staff the blind man broke into a run, and in a few moments
was standing by his own house.
“Koto,” he called very softly, so that the neighbors should not be
disturbed. His quick ear caught the rustle within, and he knew that
she was awake. He heard her scratch a match and speak a soothing word
in response to the baby’s sleepy murmur, then the wooden shutter was
pushed gently aside, just wide enough to admit the _amma’s_ slender
body.
“It is very late,” he said softly, as he entered, “but I have had such
an evening!” and he told her what had befallen him. “The fee should be
a good one,” he said when he had finished his story, “for they were
very grand people. A great house, and, oh, such a supper!”
As he spoke, he drew the folded paper from his bosom. “Let us see what
it is,” he said. “It’s very heavy! Perhaps they paid it all in tempō
sen!”[35]
He laid the bundle on the floor and opened it. O Koto’s eyes shone
as she saw the yellow glint of the great gold pieces--five of
them--antique oval ōban,[36] such as no one saw in these days, except
in pictures, or in yellow tin counterfeits hung to the masts of the
“ships of fortune.”
“Minokichi, it’s all in gold!” she said solemnly. “Surely it must have
been a great prince who called you in. No one but a prince would give
such a fee to an _amma_!”
“Surely, it was a prince,” said Minokichi joyfully. “I thought so from
the house and the _go chiso_.[37] And now, let us look at the _go
chiso_,” and he took up the wooden box that he had brought with him.
“Open it, Koto. You never tasted such food in all your life.”
O Koto San opened it, and as she saw the contents, her face fell and a
look of terror came into it.
“Taste it, Koto, and see if it’s not good,” insisted Minokichi, but
Koto made no answer. “What is the matter, Koto? Why don’t you say
something?” Her husband turned his blind face toward her expectantly.
“Minokichi,” she said, and her voice was strange and scared, “there is
no food here, nothing but grass and leaves. You have been fooled, and
may the gods protect us, for I believe that it was to the foxes you
went to-night, and that you have been bewitched.”
“There is the money,” said Minokichi. “This box was packed with grass
and leaves by mistake. The gold is here to prove that I was not
bewitched,” and he clinked the gold coins together reassuringly.
But O Koto San, who was from the country, and who knew much more about
the ways of foxes than did her city-bred husband, shook her head, and
murmured something about “to-morrow.”
They did not sleep a great deal that night, Minokichi for thinking of
his good luck, Koto in dread of some strange trick that the foxes might
have in store for them all. When morning came, they were glad to rise
early and go about their common, every-day tasks. Neither spoke of last
night’s experience until the shutters had been opened, the beds folded
and laid away in the closet, the floors swept, the _shoji_ dusted,
and Minokichi seated at his breakfast, with Koto by the rice-bucket,
waiting to refill his bowl. Then he spoke:--
“Koto, just get that paper that I brought home, and see if your eyes
deceived you last night about the gold. If you are right, there will be
nothing here this morning but grass, or at most, tempō sen.”
Koto fetched her little iron-bound cash-box, opened it with the key
which she wore always hung about her neck, and drew out the white
paper. Her face brightened when she heard its golden chink, while her
husband laughed triumphantly. As she opened it the coins shone bright
and yellow, no copper tempō sen, but gold ōban, without a doubt. She
dropped them one by one upon the mat, counting as she did so. “One,
two, three, four”--She shook the paper, felt in her belt, her sleeves,
her bosom, searched the box, got up and shook herself. Where was the
fifth? One green leaf lay on the floor and four gold pieces.
“How many did we count last night?” she asked of Minokichi.
“Five,” he answered.
“There!” she cried, “it was the foxes that bewitched you, and one of
those pieces is a green leaf this morning!”
“Nonsense!” said Minokichi. “You must have made a mistake in your
counting last night. You were sleepy, and probably you saw more than
there were.”
He laughed affectionately. Koto was so clever and business-like that it
was rather pleasant to catch her in a mistake once in a while. But Koto
would not accept his theory. She was sure of her own, and worried lest
all their gold should depart as had the fifth piece.
When Minokichi was ready for his afternoon start, Koto, her baby firmly
tied to her back, slipped into her clogs and stood beside him. “If you
go to your fox-place again, I am going with you,” she said decidedly.
“I at least can see, and the foxes will not find me quite so easy to
fool. O Kin San from next door will mind the shop, and I can walk as
far and as fast as you.”
Minokichi demurred. It was not customary for an _amma_ to go about his
work escorted by his wife and baby. His princely patron, if they should
be lucky enough to find their way to him, might not be willing to
employ a man so accompanied. But Koto was firm. She would not interfere
with her husband’s business. She would follow him at a discreet
distance, and pretend she had nothing to do with him. But go she would,
and so they started, Minokichi tapping and whistling in front, Koto
and the baby clattering along a few paces behind. As they passed the
house of the newspaper-man, a servant who had been watching for the
_amma_ called him in, and so it happened that the sun was low when the
trio reached the spot where the day before Minokichi had been accosted
by the shrill-voiced, barefooted messenger.
O Koto San, who, while her husband was rubbing the newspaper-man, had
visited a neighboring temple and made an offering and a prayer to
Kwannon, the Goddess of Mercy, felt fairly bold and cheerful by now.
The chink of the gold was in her ears, its glitter dazzled her eyes. It
was at her suggestion that Minokichi turned northward, and struck out
by the dyked roadway in the same direction that he had taken the night
before under guidance. They walked a long, long way. The sun went down
and the moon came up over the rice-fields, the wind blew chill, the
dead leaves rattled on the trees by the wayside.
Poor Koto shivered, and called out to her husband walking in front,
“Let’s go home! There is no _yashiki_ here,--only rice-fields and a
clump of trees ahead. Come home! Don’t you know by now that you were
bewitched last night?”
“Just a little farther, Koto,” pleaded Minokichi. “I am sure we are
almost there.”
They walked on, Minokichi feeling the way very carefully with his
staff. When they reached the clump of trees, he turned aside, fumbling
with his stick until it sounded on stone. “Here it is,” he said, and
passed under a low, red _torii_[38] that stood hidden among the giant
cedars.
O Koto followed, trembling. It was a little Inari[39] shrine, and
before it sat two grinning stone foxes. Minokichi went swiftly forward
on the stone-paved walk, sure of his way now, and passed between the
guardian images. He lifted his hand and swung the cobwebbed, knotted
rope that dangled before a gong above the entrance. A dull, metallic
boom smote the silence, but there was no sound in answer to the
summons. O Koto shuddered, and the baby struggled restlessly in its
wrappings.
At last Minokichi turned sadly. “I am afraid the master is dead, for
the house is closed. We will go home now.”
Just then Koto, whose fears had not dulled her wits, noticed a dark
object lying close to the foundation of the temple. Her first thought
was to seize Minokichi’s hand and run, her next, to find out now what
this mystery might be. Controlling her desire to shriek, she went on,
to take a nearer look at the crouching body, and by the moon’s bright
light, shining through a gap in the trees, she saw that it was a great
dead fox, with gray lips drawn back from his toothless jaws in a
ghastly grin.
“Poor Minokichi,” she said, “here is your prince. The grandfather of
all the foxes he must have been. Even your skill could not save him.”
Minokichi walked on in silence, nor did his wife lag far behind, for
across the deserted rice-fields came to her ears a dismal yapping and
wailing, the mourning of the foxes for “the master.”
To this day O Koto San does not know whether her husband believes
in his own bewitchment. The four ōban remained as they were, and
Minokichi, who is a rich man now, thanks to the gold and to O Koto’s
clever management, dates all his good luck from that night when he was
led out across the rice-fields to minister to the dying man. And when
O Koto shakes her head and talks of “Kitsuné Yashiki,” he laughs, and
warns her that fox-gold may turn to leaves over night.
FOOTNOTES:
[27] One of the great merchant firms of Japan.
[28] The principal business street of Tokyo.
[29] One of the districts of Tokyo.
[30] Rice-dumpling, a special festival dish.
[31] One of the districts of Tokyo.
[32] _Amma San_, “Mr. Amma.” The clipped utterance in this and in
other speeches is quite un-Japanese, and must have sounded foreign to
Minokichi.
[33] A great house, belonging to a noble or samurai of high rank.
[34] _Sayo nara_, “Good-by,” another example of the curious clipping of
speech that characterizes foxes masquerading as human beings.
[35] A large oval copper coin, worth about eight mills.
[36] A large oval gold coin, worth about eighty dollars.
[37] Honorable feast, a term applied to any special delicacy served to
guests.
[38] An erection in the form of a gateway that marks the approach to a
temple or sacred place.
[39] The god of rice, whose messengers are foxes.
VI
CHOKICHI’S PILGRIMAGE
The whole year had gone wrong for Chokichi. When, at the close of the
old year, his bills had come in and he had paid them off,--as every
Japanese must if he would go on into the future at all,--he had not
only been left without money, but had been forced to offer his stock in
trade at absurdly low prices; and--for purchasers are few and sellers
many at that season, and in a small village only as many _tabi_[40]
can be absorbed at once as the population has feet to cover--he had,
after all, been driven to carry a large part of his wardrobe to the
_furugi-ya_[41] and sell it for what it would bring, in order to
satisfy his creditors.
And then, after beginning the new year with narrowed resources, he
had been further afflicted by the illness of his wife. Money spent
on doctors and medicines was of no avail, and she had gone steadily
from bad to worse, until at last she had died and left him with no one
to attend to the house or the shop, just as things were looking up a
little and custom coming in.
Then he had taken an apprentice,--Tōshi, the son of a neighbor who
had more boys than he needed to carry on the hereditary business of
tub-making, and who was glad to put into Chokichi’s care the most
mischievous and good-for-nothing of his lithe, laughing, bullet-headed
progeny. Tōshi, with his smooth brown face, his black slits of eyes,
his short blue kimono folded neatly about his muscular young legs,
would sit meekly on his heels by his master’s side, sewing at the
_tabi_ that had been cut and put into his hands, a very model of all
the virtues. But if Chokichi left the house for an hour or two in
Tōshi’s care, trusting for the moment to the guileless expression and
exemplary behavior of his apprentice, he was more than likely on his
return to meet the miscreant in the street at the head of a procession
of boys marching with flags and singing war-songs with brazen voices,
while in the shop all would be disorder, the unfinished socks scattered
about the floor, the cat curled up in the tumbled bolt of white cotton
from which the _tabi_ were to be cut, or a live coal from the _hibachi_
burning a hole in the newly covered mats.
What was a poor _tabi_-maker to do? Chokichi spent much time in
meditation upon this problem, and at last, when August came and pilgrim
parties were starting from all the villages to make the tour of the
sacred places, a thought came to him that soon urged him into action.
If everything went wrong, it must surely be that he had somehow failed
in his duty toward the gods. He could not make a grand tour with the
clubs that went out, after a year of saving and preparation, to be
gone a month or more, and reap much spiritual benefit by propitiating
as many of the gods as possible,--he fairly shuddered to think of
what might happen to the shop and Tōshi in such an absence,--but why
not take a day, close the shop, send Tōshi home to his mischievous
brothers, and make a pilgrimage to the shrine on the top of Miyamoto
Yama? He had heard his father tell of how once his grandfather had made
pilgrimage thither, and of what wonderful good luck had come in answer
to his prayers.
It took Chokichi some time to reason this all out while he sat over his
work, cutting, basting, directing Tōshi, sewing on the cheap German
hand-machine that he had bought one lucky year when he had found a
pleasant little surplus in his till after all his debts were paid. But
when he had thought it out, there was no delay about decision.
“Tōshi,” he said suddenly, “would you like a holiday?”
Tōshi’s black eyes gleamed, his ivory teeth shone, but he kept on
demurely with his work.
“Yes, master,” he answered, “if your honor would condescend to give one
to my unworthiness.”
“I shall close the shop to-morrow, for I must go away on business of
importance. You may return to your father’s to-night, and come back to
me early in the morning of the day after to-morrow, in time to open the
shop.” Chokichi was very condescending and important in his manner. He
wished Tōshi to understand that the holiday was no reward of virtue.
Very early the next morning, Chokichi, a box of luncheon tied up in a
_furoshiki_,[42] dangling from one hand, a stout staff in the other,
his kimono turned up above his knees and tucked into his belt, his
bare feet shod with sandals tied tightly about his ankles by strings
of twisted straw, walked quickly out of the village, taking the
straight highroad that pointed toward the mountains. The mists lay
in low, level bands against the sides of the great range, the sun was
hardly above the horizon, but the peasants were already at work in the
rice-fields, their broad hats showing like rows of giant mushrooms on
the square green patches of growing rice.
Chokichi swung along jauntily, making good time in the morning
coolness; for the red-faced sun behind him promised a hot day on the
plain, and he was anxious to reach the shelter of the wooded gorges
before the heat was full upon him. And thanks to his vigorous pace,
it was not more than nine o’clock when he found himself traveling
along the rugged mountain path, a precipice above him, a green ravine
beneath, through which roared and tumbled a small river, swollen and
white from the August rains. How delightfully cool and damp it was! He
stopped beside a stream that leaped from the precipice in a sheet of
foam into a basin cut for it beside the road, then gurgled and hissed
under a culvert on its way to the river, below. He bathed his hands and
arms and feet and legs in the clear, cool water.
“It was a great thing to do,” he said to himself. “Such a day for the
walk! I almost wish I had brought Tōshi, though, for it is pretty
lonely!”
He stopped and listened. All the cheerful valley sounds were gone,--the
children shouting at their play, the women singing at their looms, the
squawking and chatter of fowls, the peasants calling from field to
field, the bump-bump of the great mill-wheel, the clatter of clogs
and patter of bare feet. There was no sound except the gushing and
rushing of water, the swish of green leaves over which the breeze
was passing, the murmur of the pines as the wind came their way. As
Chokichi listened he shivered a little, for he was used to the social
village life, and he seemed so far from human companionship. But he
cheered himself with the thought of his grandfather’s luck. There
would be little merit to be gained if his day of pilgrimage were all
pleasure. And the fact that he was alone would make his luck all the
greater,--there would be no one to share it.
And so he trudged along,--one moment wishing for company, the next
glad he had none,--until he had reached a goodly height. He stopped
to breathe and wipe his face and arms with his blue-figured towel,
and stood a moment to look at the square green rice-fields far below
him, and the village from which he had come, with its huddled thatched
roofs like haystacks on both sides of the narrow road. He was engaged
in trying to pick out his own among the gray cottages, and heard no
sound of approaching feet, so that a fresh young voice with a ripple of
laughter in it startled him, though it uttered only a polite “Good day!”
He turned quickly and looked into a bright, roguish pair of eyes a
little below the level of his own,--eyes that flashed from under a
blue-and-white towel coquettishly tied about puffs of shining black
hair.
“Good day!” he answered, looking with undisguised pleasure upon the
picturesque maiden before him.
She seemed about sixteen years old, and was dressed in the simple
country costume,--a dark blue kimono and a red-figured _obi_. Her skirt
was turned up, and showed a bright red petticoat reaching a little
below the knee. Her legs were bare, shapely, and white; she wore rough
straw sandals on her feet, tied about her slender ankles. Her face was
merry,--red-cheeked, with laughing lips which showed no trace of care
or trouble or evil temper.
Chokichi ventured to remark that it was a warm day,--very warm for a
young lady to choose for mountain-climbing.
“Truly, it is very warm,” answered the girl, “and I have lost my way.
Can you tell me which path leads to the Miyamoto shrine?”
“Assuredly, honorable young lady. I am going there myself, and shall
be only too glad if you will condescend to let me accompany you.”
The girl bowed low in thanks, and then the two walked on together,
Chokichi ahead, the maiden modestly following. They scrambled a little
way in silence up the steep path; then Chokichi, who thanked his lucky
stars that he had not brought the mischievous Tōshi, stopped and seated
himself upon a rock.
“Let us rest here a little,” he said. “The shrine is not far distant,
but the road is steep, and we must get our breath before we begin the
last pull.”
The girl sat down across the path from him, and her eyes danced as she
looked at him, then she dropped them to the ground and sighed. Chokichi
could not but think what an adornment so fair a maiden would be to his
lonely house. He began tentatively,--
“And the young lady’s home--is it far from here?”
The girl looked up as she answered, “My humble home? Indeed, it is far
away--beyond Futago Yama,” and she pointed to a great double peak that
rose out of the north. “I have been walking since before light, and
have seen no one since I started until I met you.”
“But why,--if you will permit me to ask so impolite a question,--why do
you walk so far all alone to this lonely mountain shrine?”