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 goodbye 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 hillsides 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 kisetae 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
