Page:Eliza Scidmore--Jinrikisha days in Japan.djvu/160

 of daily rubbing with a hot cloth are required to give a satisfactory result, and every subsequent year adds to the richness of tone and polish, until old tea-houses and temples disclose floors of common pine looking like rose-wood, or six-century-old oak.

The area of every room is some multiple of three feet, because the soft tatami, or floor-mats, measure six feet in length by three in width. These are woven of common straw and rushes, faced with a closely-wrought mat of rice-straw. It is to save these tatami and the polished floors that shoes are left outside the house.

The thick screens, ornamented with sketches or poems, that separate one room from another, are the fusuma; the screens shutting off the veranda, pretty lattice frames covered with rice-paper that admit a peculiarly soft light to the rooms, are the shoji, and in their management is involved an elaborate etiquette. In opening or closing them, well-bred persons and trained servants kneel and use each thumb and finger with ordered precision, while it is possible to convey slight, contempt, and mortal insult in the manner of handling these sliding doors. The outer veranda is closed at night and in bad weather by amados, solid wooden screens or shutters, that rumble and bang their way back and forth in their grooves. These amados are without windows or air-holes, and the servants will not willingly leave a gap for ventilation. “But thieves may get in, or the kappa!” they cry, the kappa being a mythical animal always ready to fly away with them. In every room is placed an andon, or night-lamp. If one clap his hands at any hour of the twenty-four, he hears a chorus of answering ''Hei! hei! hei's!'' and the thump of the nesans bare feet, as they run to attend him. While he talks to them, they keep ducking and saying ''Heh! Heh!'' which politely signifies that they are giving their whole attention. 144