During these months my greatest pleasure was going to the temple with Mother or Ishi. Mother’s special maid, Toshi, always walked behind, carrying flowers for the graves. We went first to the temple to bow our respects to the priest, my much-honoured teacher. He served us tea and cakes and then went with us to the graves, a boy priest going along to carry a whitewood bucket of water with a slender bamboo dipper floating on the top. We made bows to the graves and then, in respect to the dead, poured water from the little dipper over the base of the tall gray stones. So loyal to the past are the people of Nagaoka that, many years after my father’s death, I heard my mother say that she had never visited his grave when she had not found it moist with “memory-pourings” of friends and old retainers.
On February 15th, the “Enter into Peace” celebration of Buddha’s death, I went to the temple with Toshi, carrying as a gift to the priest a lacquer box of little dumplings. They were made in the shapes of all the animals in the world, to represent the mourners at Buddha’s deathbed, where all living creatures were present except the cat. The good old priest, after expressing his thanks, took a pair of chopsticks and, lifting several of the dumplings on to a plate, placed it for a few minutes in front of the shrine, before putting it away for his luncheon. That day he told me with deep feeling that he must say farewell, since he was soon to go away from Chokoji forever. I could not understand, then, why he should leave the temple where he had been so long and which he so dearly loved; but afterward I learned that, devout and faithful though he was to all the temple forms, his brain had advanced beyond his faith, and he had joined the “Army of the Few” who choose poverty and scorn for the sake of what they believe to be the truth.
One evening, after a heavy snowfall, Grandmother and I were sitting cozily together by the firebox in her room. I was making a hemp-thread ball for a mosquito net that was to be woven as part of my sister’s wedding dowry, and Grandmother was showing me how to put my fingers deftly through the fuzzy hemp.
“Honourable Grandmother,” I exclaimed, suddenly recalling something I wanted to say, “I forgot to tell you that we are going to have a snow-fight at school tomorrow. Hana San is chosen to be leader on one side and I on the other. We are to—”
I was so interested that again I lost my thread and it matted. I gave it a quick jerk and at once found myself in sad trouble.
“Wait!” said Grandmother, reaching out to help me. “You should sing ‘The Hemp-Winding Song.’ ” As she straightened my tangled thread, her quavery old voice sang:
“Watch your hand as it winds hemp thread;
If it mats, with patience wait;
For a thoughtless move or a hasty pull
Makes smaller tangles great.”
“Don’t forget again!” she added, handing back the untangled bunch of hemp.
“I was thinking about the snow-fight,” I said apologetically.
Grandmother looked disapproving. “Etsu-bo,” she said, “your eldest sister, before she was married, made enough hemp thread for both the mosquito nets for her destined home. You have now entered your eleventh year and should aim to be more maiden-like in your tastes.”
“Yes, Honourable Grandmother,” I replied, feeling with humiliation how true her words were. “This winter I will wind plenty of hemp thread. I will make many balls, so Ishi can weave the two nets for Sister’s dowry before New Year’s.”
“There is no need for such haste,” Grandmother replied, smiling at my eagerness, but speaking gravely. “Our days of sorrow must not influence your sister’s fate. Her marriage has been postponed until the good-luck season when the ricefields bow with their burden.”
I had noticed that fewer shop men had been coming to the house, and I had missed the frequent visits of tall Mr. Nagai and his brisk, talkative little wife, the go-between couple for my sister. So that was what it meant! Our unknown bridegroom would have to wait until autumn for his bride. Sister did not care. There were plenty of things to be interested in and we both soon forgot all about the delayed wedding in our preparations for the approaching New Year.
The first seven days of the first month were the important holidays of the Japanese year. Men in pleated skirts and crest coats made greeting calls on the families of their friends, where they were received by hostesses in ceremonious garments who entertained them with most elaborate and especial New Year dishes; little boys held exciting battles in the sky with wonderful painted kites having knives fastened to their pulling cords; girls in new sashes tossed gay, feathery shuttlecocks back and forth or played poem cards with their brothers and brothers’ friends, in the only social gatherings of the year where boys and girls met together. Even babies had a part in this holiday time, for each wee one had another birthday on New Year’s Day—thus suddenly being ushered into its second year before the first had scarcely begun.
Our family festivities that year were few; but
