MY FIRST JOURNEY
That was one of the long Nagaoka winters. For five months we saw
only snow. In the early spring our relatives in Tokyo had written
that arrangements had been made for my school. From that time I had
been waiting impatiently for the mountain roads to become safe from
avalanches; for just as soon as we could travel Brother was to take me
to the capital.
At last the dykes were dry--that was where the snow always melted
first--and we had a "gathering-green" picnic as a farewell to my
companions in Nagaoka. One sunny morning a group of us, with purple
scarfs on our heads and kimonos tucked up over our bright skirts,
dotted the dyke slopes, each carrying a small basket and a bamboo knife
and filling the air with laughter and merry calls as we hurried up and
down the banks, trying to see how many different kinds of green each
could find. Often in later years I recall that happy day as my last gay
time at home as a girl.
Finally the mail carriers reported that the overhanging snow-cliffs
had all fallen and the slopes were clear. Soon after came the day of
our departure. With a heart half of elation, half of regret, I bade
good-bye to Honourable Grandmother and Mother and with misty eyes was
carefully tucked into my jinrikisha by Ishi. Then, between lines of
bowing friends, our two jinrikishas and a baggage-laden horse led by a
coolie started on the eight-days' journey to Tokyo.
Most of the way we travelled in jinrikishas, changing them at certain
towns, but occasionally we had to go on horseback. My saddle was a
high box-seat; so Brother and the coolie rigged up a double-basket
held by bands across the horse's back. I sat in one part, and baggage
filled the other. As we went around the steep, curving road on the
mountain side, I could lean over and look far, far down to the fisher
villages on the coast. But it was more interesting, as we got farther
along, to look across the deep valley to the sloping hill-sides with
their terraces of ricefields--odd-shaped patches fitted in like the
silk pieces of a Buddhist priest's robe. In every little village of
thatch-roofed huts was a shrine set high in the midst of a few trees,
and, half-hidden in a hollow beside a stream, was whirling the great
narrow wheel of a rice-mill. The air was so clear that I could plainly
see the awkward lunge of a water-buffalo as he dragged a wooden
plough along the furrows of one of the rice-patches, and I could even
distinguish a scarlet flower stuck between the folds of the towel
knotted about the head of the coolie behind. In those days no one ever
wore a living flower, except to carry it to the dead; so I knew he was
taking it home for the house shrine. I wondered what kind of a home he
had.
I think it was our third day when I noticed that we were leaving the
snow country. No longer did the towns have their sidewalks roofed, and
these thatches bore no rows of avalanche stones. The houses looked bare
and odd--like a married woman's face with newly shaved eyebrows. But
we were not entirely beyond the sight of snow, for as we skirted Myoko
Mountain we saw a good many drifts and patches. The jinrikisha men said
snow lasted there until July.
"From the top," said Brother, "you can see Fujiyama----"
My heart thrilled, and I foolishly turned my head, feeling for a moment
that I was really near the sacred mountain which my eyes had never
expected to behold. And then, with a deeper, warmer thrill, I heard the
conclusion of his sentence:
"--and then, if you turn and look in the opposite direction, you can
see the plains of Echigo."
"We are very far away from home," I replied in a small voice.
Brother gave a quick look at my grave face; then he laughed.
"Also, if you look just beyond, you can see the Isle of Sado. If Matsuo
should not come up to expectations, here's some advice for you."
And his merry voice broke into an old song:
"_Nikuiotoko ni kisetai shima wa
Royagoshi ni Sado ga shima._"
I was shocked that Brother should sing a common servant's song, and
doubly shocked that he should joke so lightly about serious things; so
my face was still grave as we rolled along in our jinrikishas.
The Isle of Sado used to be a place of exile for criminals and was
considered by common people as the end of the world. This joking song,
which is popular among peasant girls, is literally a threat to present
to a disliked suitor, not the pleated garment which is the usual gift
of the bride to a groom, but instead, a convict's garb: meaning, "I
pray the gods will send the unwelcome one across the raging seas to the
end of the world."
We spent our fifth night at Nagano in the temple of Zenkoji where lived
the royal nun beneath whose high-lifted razor I had walked, years
before, in a procession of gaily clad little girls, for a Buddhist
ceremony of consecration.
The next morning, soon after we started, Brother halted and allowed my
jinrikisha to roll up to his side.
"Etsu-bo," he asked, "when did they give up making a priestess of you?"
"Why--I don't know," I said, surprised.
He gave a little scornful laugh and rode on to his place ahead leaving
me silent and thoughtful.
I had spoken the truth when I said I did not know. I had always
accepted my education with no thought of results. But Brother's laugh
had startled me, and, rolling along that mountain road, I did a
good deal of thinking. At last I believed that I understood. I know
my father had never approved, although he acquiesced in Honourable
Grandmother's wish that I should be educated for a priestess; and when,
after my brother's sad departure, he had quietly substituted studies
which would be of benefit should I ever hold the position of his heir,
I think Honourable Grandmother, aching with sympathy for her proud,
disappointed son, laid aside her cherished hope, and the plan was
silently abandoned.
In the province of Shinano, an hour or so from Nagano, my jinrikisha
man pointed across the river to a small wooded mountain.
"Obatsuyama, it is," he said.
How my mind went back to Ishi and her mother-love story which tells of
a time long, long ago, when there lived at the foot of this mountain a
poor farmer and his aged widowed mother. They owned a bit of land which
supplied them with food and their humble lives were peaceful and happy.
At that time Shinano was governed by a despotic ruler who, though
a brave warrior, had a great and cowardly shrinking from anything
suggestive of fading health and strength. This caused him to send out
a cruel proclamation. The entire province was given strict orders
immediately to put to death all aged people.
Those were barbarous days, and the custom of abandoning old people
to die was not uncommon. However, it was not a law, and many of the
helpless old lived as long as nature allowed in comfortable and welcome
homes. The poor farmer loved his aged mother with tender reverence,
and the order filled his heart with sorrow. But no one ever thought
a second time about obeying the mandate of a daimio, so with many
deep and hopeless sighs the youth prepared for what at that time was
considered the kindest mode of death.
Just at sundown, when his day's work was ended, he took a quantity of
the unwhitened rice which is the principal food of the poor, cooked and
dried it, and tying it in a square of cloth he swung the bundle around
his neck along with a gourd filled with cool, sweet water. Then he
lifted his helpless old mother to his back and started on his painful
journey up the mountain.
The road was long and steep. He plodded steadily on, the shadows
growing deeper and deeper, until the moon, round and clear, rose above
the mountain-top and peered pityingly through the branches upon the
youth toiling onward, his head bent with weariness and his heart heavy
with sorrow. The narrow road was crossed and recrossed by many paths
made by hunters and wood-cutters. In some places they mingled in a
confused puzzle, but he gave no heed. One path or another, it mattered
not. On he went, climbing blindly upward--ever upward--toward the high,
bare summit of what is now known as Obatsuyama, the mountain of the
"Abandoning of the Aged."
The eyes of the old mother were not so dim but that they noted the
reckless hastening from one path to another, and her loving heart grew
anxious. Her son did not know the mountain's many paths, and his return
might be one of danger, so she stretched forth her hand and snapping
the twigs from the bushes as they passed, she quietly dropped a
handful every few steps of the way, so as they climbed, the narrow path
behind them was dotted at frequent intervals with tiny piles of twigs.
At last the summit was reached. Weary and heartsick, the youth gently
released his burden and silently prepared a place of comfort, as his
last duty to the loved one. Gathering fallen pine needles he made a
soft cushion, and tenderly lifting his old mother thereon, he wrapped
her padded coat more closely about the stooping shoulders and with
tearful eyes and an aching heart said farewell.
The trembling mother voice was full of unselfish love as she gave her
last injunction.
"Let not thine eyes be blind, my son. The mountain road is full of
danger. Look carefully and follow the path which holds the piles of
twigs. They will guide thee to the familiar way farther down."
The son's surprised eyes looked back over the path, then at the poor
old shrivelled hands all scratched and soiled by their work of love.
His heart smote him and, bowing to the ground, he cried aloud:
"Oh, Honourable Mother, thy kindness thrusts my heart! I will not leave
thee. Together we will follow the path of twigs, and together we will
die!"
Once more he shouldered his burden (how light it seemed now!) and
hastened down the path, through the shadows and the moonlight, to the
little hut in the valley.
Beneath the kitchen floor was a walled closet for food, which was
covered over and hidden from view. There the son hid his mother,
supplying her with everything needful and continually watching and
fearing.
Time passed and he was beginning to feel safe, when again the despot
sent forth heralds bearing an unreasonable and useless order; seemingly
as a boast of his power. His demand was that his subjects should
present him with a rope of ashes. The entire province trembled with
dread. The order must be obeyed; yet who in all Shinano could make a
rope of ashes?
One night, in great distress, the son whispered the news to his hidden
mother.
"Wait!" she said, "I will think."
On the second day she told him what to do.
"Make a rope of twisted straw," she said, "then stretch it upon a row
of flat stones and burn it there on a windless night."
He called the people together and did as she said, and when the blaze
had died, behold, upon the stones, with every twist and fibre showing
perfect, lay a rope of whitened ashes.
The daimio was pleased at the wit of the youth, and praised him
greatly, but demanded to know where he had obtained his wisdom.
"Alas! Alas!" cried the farmer, "the truth must be told!" and with many
deep bows he related his story.
The daimio listened, then meditated in silence. Finally he lifted his
head.
"Shinano needs more than the strength of youth," he said gravely. "Ah,
that I should have forgotten the well-known saying, 'With the crown of
snow, there cometh wisdom!'"
That very hour the cruel law was abolished, and the custom drifted into
so far a past that only the legend remains.
As we went farther on, I found the customs so different from those of
Nagaoka that I felt as if I were already in a strange land. At one
place, long before we reached the village, we heard a hoarse voice
calling, "_Ma-kat-ta? Ma-kat-ta?_" (Is it sold? Is it sold?) and as
we rolled through the one narrow, crowded street we saw an auctioneer
standing high in the midst of dozens of bamboo baskets of beans,
carrots, greens, and bamboo shoots; while lying around him, in ungainly
confusion, were every size and shape of purple eggplant and long,
sprawling, delicious lotus roots.
Brother looked back and laughed.
"Who is he? What were all the people doing?" I asked, as soon as we
reached the end of the long street and rolled out on to the public road.
"It is a vegetable auction," Brother explained. "Merchants buy in
quantities, and every morning the things are auctioned off by the
basketful. Weren't those fine lotus roots? If we hadn't had breakfast
only a couple of hours ago I'd believe I was hungry."
At another place we went by a house where death had entered. Before
the door stood a funeral palanquin into which coolies with big hats
and crest-coats were just lifting the heavy wooden bucket containing
the body. Over it was thrown a small kimono of scarlet and gold,
showing that the dead child must have been a little daughter. The dress
would have been white for a son. Around stood a number of white-robed
mourners with white towels folded over their hair. As we passed, I
caught a glimpse of a screen placed upside down and the lighted candles
of a tiny shrine.
At one place, where the road ran close to a broad river with bold
bluffs coming down, in some places, almost to the water, we saw a
number of odd floating rice-mills with turning paddle-wheels that
looked like a fleet of boats standing motionless in a hopeless struggle
against a strong tide. I wondered where, in that rocky country,
were enough people to eat all the rice that was being ground; but
when we turned away from the river we suddenly found ourselves in
a silk-culture district, where our road ran through village after
village, each having its own mulberry plantation.
The town where we expected to spend the night was only a few hours
ahead when the sky began to darken with a threatening storm. Brother
was casting anxious looks backward when his jinrikisha man told him
that in the next village was a large house where travellers had
sometimes been kept for a night. So we hurried there, the last quarter
of an hour being a bouncing, breathless race between men and clouds.
The men won, whirling us up to the door, into which we ran unannounced,
just as the storm broke with a downpour which it would have been hard
to struggle through on the road.
It was an odd house where we had found shelter; but I know that even
my honourable father, on his journeys in ancient days, never, on any
occasion, received a more cordial welcome or more kindly treatment than
did we and our perspiring, laughing, boasting men at the end of our
exciting race.