TOM REYNOLDS AND MORIYAMA.

“Fun,” exclaimed Tom Reynolds, “You couldn’t have more fun than I had. No boy could stand it.”

This was said to a boy-friend after Tom had come home from Japan.

And Tom was right. He had had a splendid time.

Tom Reynolds was an American boy, whose father was engaged in business which made it necessary for him to visit Yokohama in Japan. It is probable that he would not have thought of taking Tom with him on this trip if it had not been for Moriyama. This yellow youth put the idea into Tom’s head, and Tom, who was as good a talker as he was a walker, which is saying a great deal, managed to convince his father that nothing would be of as great advantage to him as a journey to Japan.

School was nothing to a trip like this, Tom argued, and he argued so much that the end of it was he went to Japan.

Moriyama was a Japanese boy, and a first-rate fellow. He was one of the many Japanese youths who came to America to be educated, and he went to Tom’s school.

There these two boys became great friends. Moriyama was a very quick, bright youth. He could speak English very well, and he was rather better at English grammar than most of the other fellows in that school. The other fellows explained this by saying that Moriyama didn’t know anything about our grammar except what he had learned from books, and of course the books were right. But they had learned their grammar from all sorts of people, ever since they were little bits of chaps. And so they had learned all sorts of grammar, and had a good deal to unlearn when they came to the school.

But the fact was that Moriyama was as thoroughly in earnest abouthis studies as most boys are about base-ball. So it was no wonder that he succeeded.

He was not a large boy nor was he very young. As Tom put it, he was a good deal smaller than he was young. There were plenty of fellows in the school who could have whipped him, if they had wanted to, but they didn’t want to, for two reasons. He was a quiet, obliging boy, who seldom offended any one, and if any one had tried to whip him they would first have had to whip Tom Reynolds, which was no easy job. Tom had a fist as heavy as one end of a dumb-bell, and the muscles on his arms swelled up a good deal like the other end of a dumb-bell.

FUSI-YAMA.

Moriyama’s time at school was up, and he had to go to Japan. Tom’s time wasn’t up, but he promised to study ever so hard whenhe came back—with his mind improved by travel—and so the three of them, Tom, Tom’s father, and Moriyama, sailed for Yokohama.

This story will not be long enough for me to tell anything about the journey—how they sailed from New York to Aspinwall, and went across the Isthmus of Panama by railroad, and then took another steamship and crossed the Pacific Ocean; and how, at last they steamed up the bay of Yedo, and saw towering up to the sky, the great extinct volcano, Fusi-yama, the sacred mountain of Japan.

I cannot even tell about their landing at Yokohama, nor even very much about Tom’s adventures in Japan, but I can give you some of his experiences, and if you ever meet him, he can tell you the rest. And he will be very apt to do it, too, if you are the right kind of a boy or girl, for Tom is a great talker, and very sociable.

When they arrived at Yokohama Tom’s father took lodgings for himself and his son at the house of an American merchant in the town, but Moriyama went into the country where his family lived.

Of course it was very natural that he should want to see his father and mother, and brothers and sisters, but Tom could not help feeling sorry about it. It would have been such a capital thing to have had Moriyama to take him around at the very beginning of his visit, and tell him about all the curious things he saw.

But Tom had to do his sight-seeing pretty much by himself, at first, for his father was very busy, and the Americans that he met did not have much time to go about with a boy.

But Tom was not a bad fellow to take care of himself, and as his father engaged for him a horse and abetto, as a man who attends horses in Japan is called, he had every opportunity of going about as much as he wanted to.

When Tom’s horse was brought out for him the first time there were two bettos in attendance. One of them had clothes enough on, but the other one looked as if he were just ready to take a swim.

JAPANESE BETTOS.

This fellow was the one who accompanied Tom wherever he went. He was a good-natured man and very ready to talk, and if Tom could have understood a word he said, he might have been very interesting.

But they got along capitally together, and Tom rode about Yokohama all day, and came home at night, and asked questions of his father. In this way he got some information about the things he had seen, but in many cases he had to make up theories of his own about things. And some very curious theories he made.

There was a porter who had a lodge at the door of the house where they lived, and he used to strike on a gong every time any one entered. Sometimes he struck once, and sometimes two or three times, and Tom could not imagine what he did it for. He might have asked his father about this, but he made up his mind that he would find it out for himself.

You must not suppose that Tom’s father was not a good-natured man, or that he objected to giving information to his son. But the truth was that Mr. Reynolds was not only very busy all day, and very often at night, with his merchant friends, but he did not know a great deal about Japanese life himself.

As soon as he had got through with the most pressing part of his business, he intended to go about and see Japan. He had never been there before.

At first Tom thought that when he heard one crack on the gong it meant that that was the first time he had come in. But when he heard only one stroke the second and the third time, while some other people got two taps the first time they came, he knew that this must be a mistake.

Before he found out what these taps really meant Moriyama returned to town. Tom greeted him heartily enough, and as they went into the house together that morning the porter struck, first two taps, then one.

“What is that banging for?” cried Tom. “I’ve been trying to find out ever so long, but it’s too much for me.”

“Why two taps are for me and one is for you,” said Moriyama.

“How’s that?”

“He taps once for a citizen or a merchant,” said Moriyama, “and twice for an officer or an interpreter—I didn’t tell you I had been appointed an interpreter since I returned—and for a governor or a consul he’d strike three times, and four times for an admiral or higher officer.”

“Once for me and twice for you,” said Tom. “What a fool the man must be!”

“He does what he has to do, according to our laws,” said Moriyama.

“But anybody ought to know better than that,” cried Tom. “Look here! I’m going to talk to him and then you can interpret what I say, Mr. Two-taps.”

So Tom stepped up to the porter and remarked:

“I say old shaven head——how many bangs would he give for the Prince of Wales, Moriyama?”

“Four, I think.”

“Well then, old fellow, princes belong to the set that they take kings from, and I belong to the set that they take presidents from, and so we’re even, and I want you to pound four times every time I come in the house. Do you hear that? Tell him it, upside down, Moriyama.”

Moriyama, who was laughing at this speech, said something to the porter in Japanese, but I do not think that he translated Tom’s words.

But Tom never got but one bang when he came in, though he used to shake his fist at the porter every time he heard it.

Moriyama was very anxious that Tom should visit Yedo with him, and so after a few days spent in further sight-seeing in Yokohama, the two friends set off for the metropolis of Japan.

ENTRANCE TO A JAPANESE TAVERN.

They traveled on horseback accompanied by their bettos and other servants. They rode along the Tokaido, or great highway of Japan, and they were by no means the only travelers, for the road was crowded with foot passengers, men on horseback, and people in palanquins. The whole road was one lively scene, and to Tom it was a very interesting one. And the best of it was, that there was nothing, no matter how curious or outlandish, that Moriyama could not explain to him.

They stopped on the way at a tavern, which was rather different from anything of the kind that Tom had ever imagined.

When they reached the door they found a group of three or four persons examining the goods of a man who seemed to be a peddler. He was very anxious that his goods—and he did not seem to have many of them—should be appreciated, and the bystanders were quietly and earnestly listening to what he had to say.

But no one took notice of the newly arrived party.

After a little while, the landlord made his appearance, and though he seemed glad to see them, and brought them a few eggs and some other trifling refreshments, he soon went away again, and they saw no more of him until several hours later when they took their leave.

But their own servants cooked them a good dinner of things they had with them, and seemed to make themselves perfectly at home in the household of the tavern.

Tom said it was a good deal like working your passage on a ship, but Moriyama could see no objection to it. He was sure, he said, that he would rather be waited on by his own servants than by any one likely to be found at a roadside tavern, and he was sure their own provisions were better than anything likely to be found there.

This was all true enough, but Tom could not help thinking what a row would be kicked up in an American tavern, no matter how smalland mean it might be, if the guests brought their own provisions, and cooked them in the tavern kitchen.

They stopped at other places, at one tea-house in particular, where there were plenty of waiters, plenty of guests, and a very great plenty of tea.

They were two days on the road, although the distance was only about thirty miles.

It is impossible to tell one half that these two boys did and saw in Yedo.

They saw all sorts of shops, with curious signs, tea-houses thronged with customers; people at work at various trades—in workshops that were entirely exposed to the view of passers-by, and almost everything arranged in a different way from what Tom thought was right and proper.

JAPANESE BLACKSMITHS.

Here were a couple of blacksmiths with scarcely a stitch of clotheson, sitting down to their work, and one of them blowing the bellows with his heel.

LITTLE JUGGLERS IN STREETS OF YEDO.

Then they came upon a troupe of boy-jugglers directed by a man who sang horribly sounding words in a rasping voice, while he played upon a tambourine with two drum-sticks.

JAPANESE SOLDIER.

The boys’ heads were stuck into bags surmounted by hideous masks, and as they twisted themselves into all sorts of distorted positions, one of them standing on his hands on the stomach of another, who leaned backwards until his hands touched the ground, Tom thought they would certainly dislocate their spines.

He had turned many a handspring, and was quite expert on the horizontal bar at the gymnasium, but he never saw such body-twisting as this.

He would have watched these boys as long as they chose to perform, if Moriyama had not forced him away to look at other things.

They visited the parade ground, where they saw the soldiers drilling and practising with swords and muskets. The Japanese soldiers now use firearms, but they still carry one ortwo of their old-fashioned swords, and when they are in full costume they wear paper hats. Some of the fencing was very interesting to Tom. He had fenced a little at home, himself, but this vigorous work with swords was new to him.

NOON SCENE ON A JAPANESE CANAL.

The weather was quite warm during Tom’s visit to Yedo, and about the middle of the day the streets—especially the canals which take the place of streets, presented a very peculiar scene. Scarcely a soul was visible. Empty boats were fastened all along the shores, and all the houses, glistening in the hot sun, seemed as if they had been deserted.Not a sound was to be heard; and it was but very seldom that a moving thing was to be seen.

It was very much, as Tom said, like the enchanted city in the Arabian Nights, where all the inhabitants were changed into stone.

“But if you were to go poking about into some of those houses,” said Moriyama, “you’d soon find that these people are not changed into stone.”

Here and there the boys could see, between the screens that stood at the entrances of the houses, the people inside eating their dinners. The straw table-cloth—if there can be such a thing where there is no table—was always spread upon the floor, and the family sat around it eating rice. Sometimes they had meat or fish and vegetables, but Moriyama said their principal food was rice. And from the way they were eating it, they seemed to like it.

One night the boys went out on one of the many bridges in the city, and saw hundreds of small boats cruising about in all directions, with different colored lanterns hung about them; and besides these there were rafts from which fireworks were continually set off. The scene was charming, and Tom would have enjoyed it thoroughly had it not been for the music. This was so unearthly and hideous that poor Tom would have put his fingers in his ears had he not been afraid of offending the people around him.

But before he left Japan he became used to this music, and sometimes even fancied that he could make out some kind of a tune from the curious sounds of thesamsinsand thegottos, which are Japanese guitars and harps.

One day the boys saw a very jolly sort of a game which Tom determined to introduce in his school when he returned to the United States.

A long cable was stretched over one of the bridges, and two parties were formed, with about a hundred men in each.

One of these parties went to one end of the bridge and the other to the opposite end, and then the men seized the rope, and each party endeavored to pull the other over the bridge.

They pulled and tugged and yelled, until one side, finding that it was losing ground, suddenly, at a signal, let go the rope and over backwards went every man on the other side, pell-mell in one great kicking heap. Sometimes, Moriyama said, the rope broke and then everybody went over backward.

When the game was finished, they all went off laughing to some of the nearest tea-houses, and had a jolly time together, friends and enemies, all in the same crowd.

Among the most interesting places visited was a Japanese school. This was the rarest school that Tom ever saw. The little shaven-headed boys and girls were all seated on the floor, and the master sat on the floor too. In front of him was an affair like a stunted music-stand, on which he put his book, and the old tyrant leaned forward and cracked the bad boys with his fan. Think of an American teacher whipping his scholars with a fan.

Some of the youngsters were bare-footed, and some wore stockings made something like mittens, with a separate place for the big toe. The books were full of such a curious mixture of what seemed to Tom like black blots and scratches that he thought the Japanese youngsters must be extraordinarily smart to be able to make any sense out of them.

When Tom heard that these characters were read from top to bottom of the page instead of across he expressed the opinion that the Japanese probably added up their letters as they stood in the columns so as to find out what the whole thing came to.

The more he learned about the language of Japan, its different dialects, and its two alphabets, the greater became his respect for those who obtained a Japanese education.

“It must take you all your lives to learn how to read and write,” said he to Moriyama.

“We believe,” said the Japanese boy, “that it takes all of a person’s life to learn anything.”

A JAPANESE SCHOOL.

That this was a common opinion in Japan Tom soon found out for himself. Whatever the trade or profession in which a man was engaged,he seemed to have been at it all his life, and ten to one his father and his great-grandfather before him had followed the same business, and each one of the family had given so much time and attention to his business that he became almost perfect in it—as far as Japanese perfection went.

JAPANESE WRESTLERS.

For instance Tom went to a wrestling match, where the wrestlers, great powerful fellows, all belonged to a tribe or guild that according to their account, had existed ever since the third year of the first Mikado, which in our chronology would be the year 658 B.C.

JAPANESE BALANCING FEATS.

At any rate, they were men whose ancestors for hundreds of years had been wrestlers, and they themselves gave up all their time and thought to the attainment of perfection in their art.

Consequently they were splendid wrestlers.

Other gymnastic performers were equally proficient in different lines. Some of them had great long noses fitted to their faces, and on these noses they balanced themselves and each other, and did many other astonishing feats.

One man laid on his back supporting on one foot a fellow who stood on his nose, while, on the prostrate man’s nose, another man stood, balancing onhisnose an umbrella, while he kept five or six balls flying in the air, catching each one as it fell and tossing it up again, never allowing one of them to drop.

Each of these performers, no matter what else he was doing, held a fan in one hand, which was kept constantly in motion.

And in all the performances there was never a mishap or a mistake. Every man was absolutely perfect in his part.

When Tom went back to Yokohama he told his father that he had made up his mind that he was going to be absolutely perfect in some one thing. If the Japanese could succeed in this, he was sure he could.

He had not made up his mind what he would do, but it was to be something.

His father commended this resolution, and suggested arithmetic.

Tom did not feel altogether certain about arithmetic, but as soon as he could think of a good thing, he intended to commence the study of perfection.

When his father laughed a little at his enthusiasm Tom said that one great difficulty would be that he was afraid he could not find out what his father and grandfather had been perfect in. If he could do that, it would help him very much.

But we cannot mention all the curious things that Tom and Moriyama saw in Japan.

It would require a book to tell about the wonderful processions, such as that of the white elephant, which, by the way, Tom thought was a real animal, until he saw that its legs did not move, and that under each of its feet were two human legs belonging to the men who carried the huge stuffed creature—and the many other strange things that they saw in the streets and houses of Japan.

PROCESSION OF THE WHITE ELEPHANT.

Suffice it to say, that since Tom came home—and it has been some years since his trip to Japan—he has earnestly endeavored to discover what particular thing it would be best for him to learn thoroughly and completely.

I am not sure that he has even yet made up his mind upon the subject, but he is convinced that if his experience among the Japanese had no better effect than to teach him that to know how to do something perfectly well, it is greatly to be desired, and well worth striving for—no matter how much time and toil it may require.

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