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 CHAPTER XXI

NEW EXPERIENCES

S THE weeks and the months had drifted by, unconsciously in my mind the present had been linking itself more and more closely with the past; for I had been learning more clearly each day that America was very like Japan. Thus, as time passed, the new surroundings melted into old memories and I began to feel that my life had been almost an unbroken continuation from childhood until now.

Beneath the chimes of the church bells calling: “Do not—forget—to thank—for gifts—you ev—ery day—enjoy,” I could hear the mellow boom of the temple gong: “Protection for all—is offered here—safety is within.”

The children who, with their burden of books, filled the streets with laughter and shouts at 8:30 made the same picture to me as our crowds of boys in uniform and girls in pleated skirts and shining black hair, who, at 7:30, clattered along on wooden clogs, carrying their books neatly wrapped in squares of patterned challie.

Valentine’s Day with its lacy scenes of bowing knights and burning hearts, all twined about with ropes of rosebuds, and with sweet thoughts expressed in glowing, endearing words, was our Weaving Festival, when swaying bamboos were decorated with festoons of gay sashes and scarfs, and hung with glittering poem prayers for sunshine, that the herdsman and his weaver wife might meet that day on the misty banks of the Heavenly River which Americans call the Milky Way. 206