Page:Eliza Scidmore--Jinrikisha days in Japan.djvu/177

 the rapture with which they attack the bar of sweets express most eloquent thanks.

When rain or fatigue prevented our making any outdoor excursions, the village street furnished us with an all-day occupation. A mossy and abandoned rice-mill faced us across the road, with a tiny cascade dripping down from the leafy hill behind it, feeding its overshot wheel, and dropping by dwarf water-falls to the side of the road, whence it ran down the slope to add its singing to the water chorus that makes all Nikko musical. Pack-horses, farmers, pilgrims, and villagers went picturesquely by, each pedestrian tucking his kimono in his belt to shorten it, and holding a vast golden halo over his head in the shape of a flat, oil-paper rain umbrella.

A small garden separated our summer home at Nikko from our landlord’s house, and from early morning, when his amados thundered open, until dark, when they rumbled shut, the whole conduct of Japanese household life lay before us. Our neighbors came out of doors betimes. A bucket of water from a tiny cascade filled the broad, shallow copper wash-basin, in which one by one they washed their faces. Meanwhile the kettle boiled over the charcoal fire, and some child ran down to a provision-shop for a square slab of bean-curd, which, with many cups of tea, a little rice, and shreds of pickled fish, composed their breakfast. Then the futons were hung over poles or lines to sun; the andons, pillows, and big green tents of musquito-nets put away; the tatami brushed off, and the little shop put in order for the day.

The women washed and starched their gowns, pasting them down on flat boards to smooth and dry; sewed and mended, scrubbed and scoured in the narrow alcove of a kitchen all the morning; while the children trotted back and forth with buckets of water to sprinkle the garden, wash the stones, fill the bath-tubs, and supply the kitchen. The rice, after being washed and rubbed 161