SUMMER DAYS
A Swimming School--How I Was Taught to Swim--Diving--The Old
Home Week--Return of the Departed Souls--Visiting the Ancestral
Graves--The Memorable Night--A Village Dance.
The third summer in Tokyo had come. The air was fresh and cool, while
the morning-glories in our back yard were blooming lavishly, and the
Ainu chrysanthemums in white, pink, and purple, and the late irises
were seen carried round the street in flower-venders’ baskets. But it
soon got warmer as they vanished from the sight till I found it hot
even in one piece of a thin garment over my body, though my mother
starched it for me just stiff enough for the air to pass through from
one sleeve to the other.
In one of the canals near by, an annual swimming-school was opened.
The place was inviting in hot weather, besides, it was such fun to
bathe with hosts of boys, and to learn how to swim. I must confess that
I could not swim yet. I thought at first that it was quite an easy
thing, because I often saw a man swimming with his feet and performing
such a trick with his hands as peeling a pear with a knife and eating
it. But after a few trials I was obliged to correct my notion to such
a degree as to consider swimming an extremely difficult as well as
dangerous undertaking. Not only my body was found to be something
between a block of hard wood and a stone, and much nearer to the
latter, but once it stayed so long in the water, head and all, that I
experienced pretty nearly what it was to get drowned. But all this I
did in secret and did not tell to any of my folks. Indeed my mother
was keeping my younger brother from the water by telling him about the
story of a sea-monkey who would stretch his exceptionally long arm and
drag people into the depths, especially boys who went swimming against
their mother’s remonstrance. As an elder brother, I was bound to set a
good example.
A week after the opening of the school, however, I brought the
swimming matter to my mother’s attention, and piling up such reasons
as I thought most expedient, and rounding up by mentioning names of
a number of my schoolmates, as if they were co-petitioners, who had
been enrolled in the membership, I wanted her to ask my father. I had
anticipated a refusal from both mother and father, but my mother was
all right as long as the place was safe, while my father surprised me
by his instant permission. He was an excellent swimmer himself and must
have felt it a shame that his son did not know even how to keep himself
afloat. My poor younger brother, however, was to wait another year.
So I went to swimming. We had an exciting time in the canal, and the
heat of the sun ceased to be of any trouble to me. On the first day one
of the trainers supported me with his hands and made me move my arms
and legs according to his instruction. I made a vigorous effort, while
he carried me on as if I were making a progress myself. Now and then,
however, he would loosen his hold and see if I could keep myself going.
I was then taken with sudden fear, and, feeling that the water grew
instantly to be very deep, I gave a cry of horror and distress, and did
some splashing, too. The instructor laughed over my plight and told me
that I should be safe as he was near, and that I must try to acquire
the sense of ease with the water. As long as my limbs were moving
properly, I was sure to be floating. So I put confidence in his words
and cultivated assiduously what he called the sense of ease, which I
understood to be a suppression of fear. The first day, however, passed
without any result, in spite of my determination that I would go to
the bottom rather than call for help again.
But, strangely enough, at the very first unassisted trial on the second
day, my body did float. How joyful I felt at this, you can hardly
imagine. I swam round and round the place--of course stopping every
quarter of a minute--till I was fairly exhausted. On my return home,
however, I mustered courage enough to impart to my brother on the
matted floor my successful experience in swimming.
Diving came next. On my first dip I felt instinctively that man and
fish were at the opposite extremities of creation. The suppression of
breath and the closing of eyes were bad enough; but there was such a
roaring in my ears as if all the watery spirits were murmuring at the
intrusion, while my body was at once subjected to a different law of
repulsion. But it was great fun to play at being a sea-monkey and drag
the legs of idle boys, at which sport I had been a victim myself on
the very first day. So I began practising it, and in a few days was
already looking for a chance to apply my half-mastered skill. Seeing
once two boys near me engaging in splashing water, I plunged at once,
aiming at one of them. It was but a few yards to dive, but I came out
of the water without striking anything, and before I had time to brush
off the dripping water from my eyes, I was subjected to a furious
spray from the two boys, when, thud, came something on my side, and in
another second I was dragged into the water. A mouthful of water went
down my throat before I knew, and when I came to my feet with all the
water boiling around me, I noticed a third and new boy standing and
laughing over his trick!
So passed a good part of the summer till about the middle of August,
when the Japanese “Old Home Week” came. The principal day falls on the
sixteenth day of the seventh month, according to the lunar calendar,
which is about a month after the ordinary date. It is a sort of
Decoration Day, too, because we go to the temple yards and pay a visit
to our ancestral graves. Now for three years this duty was neglected by
us, and father thought it proper for some one to visit the old place
in the country. My uncle was also in a similar position, and it was
arranged that my aunt and Tomo-chan should go from their family while
I represented my own. And two days before the date we set out in a
conveyance called a kuruma.
I wasn’t quite sure of the significance of the graveyard visiting on
this special occasion, and so found time to ask my aunt of it. And
this was what she told me, not on the road, but in her house the night
before we started. (I had known the inconvenience of the kuruma in
keeping me separate from my aunt all the way, though it had the decided
merit, as it turned out, of packing Tomo-chan and myself in one seat.)
Now, when a man dies, he goes either to paradise or to hell, according
to Buddhism. In the former place, he is led to his seat on a large
lotus flower floating on the cool surface of the rippling water. The
sweet calmness of the summer morn is all his, my aunt said, but beyond
that there seems to be nothing going on in that floral berth. But in
hell, all is excitement. The king of devils will mete out punishment to
each arrival according to his guilt, and he is made by red and green
demons to tread on the hill of swords, to ride in the coach of fire, or
to bathe in the boiling caldron. But, good or bad, those departed souls
are allowed once a year to pay a short visit to their earthly homes,
and this happens on the sixteenth of the seventh month. So we go to the
graves of our ancestors, clean and decorate them so that the dead may
feel comfortable, and, delivering our message of welcome and turning
about, ask the invisible to get on our backs to our homes! I wondered
if my back was large enough for the whole train of my ancestors to
ride on.
At my native village we stayed at another uncle’s. A day’s ride in the
same narrow kuruma made Tomo-chan and me more companionable than ever,
while the strangeness of the new place kept us two always close by.
Everywhere we were welcomed as Tokyonians, and treated to melons and
rice dumpling. We had not, however, much time to spare, for we were
quite busy seeing to our family graves. We hired a man to weed and
clean the lot, sent enough offerings to the temple so that the priests,
when chanting for the rest of the departed, might think comfortably
of it, and, above all, took care that every grave might not lack
fresh flowers for two days, that is during our stay. On the sixteenth
day I was prepared to carry any number of invisible spirits from the
graveyard to the house. But as some one told me that the spirits would
not dare to come in the daylight, I was glad that my service was not
needed, after all.
The sun set gloriously behind the castle, and the mellow booming of the
temple bell was wafted through the evening air. Presently the misty
moon, just waning, rose from the plain, and the memorable night began.
In every house the rooms were swept clean and the tiny lights were
burning in the household shrine. In front, the flames from a heap of
flax stems, known as the “reception fire,” were dazzling, and, unheard
and unobserved, the ghosts of our fathers passed into the house.
I did not know how long they would stay, but bowing once respectfully
before the shrine, I went out with Tomo-chan to stay around. In the
temple ground there was an open space hemmed in by tall, shady pines,
where the young people of the village would assemble that night
and hold the annual dancing. And naturally our steps were directed
there. We found that already many of them were gathered, and, by the
uncertain light of paper lanterns hung here and there on the trees, we
saw that they were all dressed in uniform white and blue garments, with
folded pieces of cloth dangling about their necks. The browned faces of
the swains were not distinguishable in such dimness, but those of the
lasses looked distinctly lovely, the scratches and blemishes incidental
to their outdoor occupation being invisible. The swains grouped on this
side and the girls on the other; the former being not yet bold enough,
and the latter too shy, to mingle with one another. Presently some
sweet-voiced lad sang a ballad, and then all rose to arrange themselves
in rows, boys on one side and girls on the other. They called to the
singer to start anew, and began to trip to the song, clapping their
hands at a rhythmic turn. They never moved on, but closed in and again
drew apart on the same spot, all repeating the same movement. It was a
novel thing for both of us, and we watched them with great delight.
Song after song was sung, all bursting into laughing cheers after each
piece and sometimes going into such commotion that each lad paired with
his bonny lassie.
“Isn’t that delightful?” I asked Tomo-chan.
“Yes, lovely.”
“And simple, too.”
She nodded.
“Let’s watch again and see if we can learn,” I said to her, and we
stood at the end of the line.
The song went clear and plaintive and the touching trill was preying
upon the hearts of the dancers and working them into dreamy ecstasy.
The moon by this time climbed high up in the sky, and when a filmy
cloud glided off her face, the pale weird rays revealed Tomo-chan and
me dancing in the group!