He was given his way, and he sowed the seeds and placed human manure over the ground as fertilizer. The farmers in Japan always use it for vegetables and rice. As the rear entrance of our house faced the vegetable garden, the servants protested vigorously at the bad odor. Jiya paid no attention to them. “We will have a good vegetable garden next summer,” he said.
But the odor became so objectionable that finally Father intervened, explaining that the manure was offensive and unsanitary. Jiya looked at him in bewilderment, but promised that thereafter he would use artificial fertilizer. He walked off mumbling to himself, “What a waste of good excrement! What a waste of good excrement!”
Having been a farmer, Jiya continued his habit of rising when the sun rose in the east. He then proceeded to waken the other servants by knocking at the wooden shutters. Ignoring their objections to being aroused so early, he removed the sliding shutters from the grooves. These shutter-panels were stacked during the day in a closet at the end of the long porch. Later in the morning Jiya removed the rest of the panels, beginning at the far end of the house, and working toward our rooms.
Each morning I was awakened by the gara-gara clatter of the panels. Floating in half-sleep, I listened to the sound. When Jiya reached our room, the removal of each shutter sent another shaft of light streaming through the paper sliding screens, until finally the night-heavy room was flooded with light. Each morning the sun made different shadows of hanging branches on the paper screens stretched on latticed frames.
“It is time to get up,” Jiya called, and added mischievously, “Your eyes will rot if you sleep late.”
I could smell the bean soup cooking in the kitchen while I washed my face. This welcome smell wakened me fully, and I hurried to the dining room before the others. “What is in the bean soup, Kimi?” I would ask. “Not spinach!” I did not like the greenish smell of spinach.
If she answered, “Wakame,” I was glad. Wakame is seaweed of soft blue-green color and has the rich smell of the sea.
In summer our breakfast consisted of this bean soup, steaming hot rice, salted cucumbers and eggplant from the garden. We children were given a raw egg each. It was broken into a small cup, seasoned with sugar, and beaten with a chop stick before we drank it with great relish. As master of the house, Father had an additional dish of cooked vegetables.
I had seen Jiya pour his bean soup over his rice, and I tried to imitate him. Father corrected me: “Little daughter, that is not the proper way to eat your food.”
After my breakfast I watched Jiya eat in the servants’ room. Three times he refilled his rice bowl, poured bean soup over it, and swallowed it quickly, without chewing. I told him how I had been corrected for doing it. “That is right, honorable little one,” he said. “It is bad for your stomach. I must eat this way because I have no teeth.”
Jiya told us many stories and brought us many traditions of the farm. While he remained with us, we never failed to observe the star festival on the seventh day of the seventh month. On this eve, Jiya cut two bamboo trees from our garden. One he called male and one female. He placed them on the front porch, where we decorated them with colorful tanzaku-strings, narrow strips of paper on which poems were written. A table covered with fruits and vegetables was placed as an offering to the stars between the two bamboos. Gazing up at the stars, we listened to Jiya recite the legend.
“Two stars who were in love with each other lived on either side of the River of Heaven,” he said. “They were permitted to meet only once a year, on the seventh day of the seventh month. If it rains that night they cannot meet. The rain is their tears. But if the sky is clear, the two loving stars shine brightly because they are happy, and they promise a good harvest. That is what makes me so happy tonight.” Jiya’s face shone.
Elder Sister Nobu was very beautiful to me under the bright stars. She recited:
On the River of Heaven
At the place of the ferry
The princess cried,
“Oh ferryman make haste across the stream,
My prince comes but once a year.”
Softly I repeated the words, pretending that she was the princess.
Younger Brother and I played beautifully together, even though I envied him as the center of the family. But he and Elder Sister were always quarreling. One day they started shrieking and screaming because she wouldn’t let him play with her doll. At first I paid no attention because it had happened so often; but after a while I was sorry for Younger Brother so unhappily crying. I gave him my favorite doll and told him he could keep it always, and I played with him the rest of the afternoon.
The next evening, on his return home, Father handed me a box tied with red ribbon. “It is a present for you, little daughter,” he smiled.
I was surprised. Never before had I alone received a gift. A rosy-cheeked, golden-haired doll clad in Western dress was sleeping in the box.
“Look! Her eyes are blue!” Elder Sister exclaimed in astonishment when I lifted the doll from the box.
“It is an American doll,” Father informed us.
This doll became my most treasured possession. I guarded it tenderly for many years.
For Elder Sister and me, the Doll Festival, on the third day of the third month, was an important occasion. Once, a week before the Festival, I cut my hand on glass when I was playing the role of wife with Younger Brother. I was confined to bed because of the deep cut, and Father said there would be no Festival for us that year. Elder Sister reproached me hotly: “How could you be so foolish as to cut your hand at this time!” My heart was shamed and gloomy.
Elder Sister pleaded with Father: “But the Ohinasama will be unhappy and cry in the storeroom if we do not take them out and decorate them.” The Ohinasama dolls are carefully stored away in individual boxes, and taken out only once a year for the Doll Festival. As second daughter I did not have a set of my own, but was permitted to share Elder Sister’s.
Father finally relented just one day before the celebration, and, with my right hand in a sling, I happily helped Elder Sister prepare the dolls. We set out the special tiered platform of five steps, and covered it with a scarlet rug. On the top step we reverently placed the Emperor and Empress. Just below we put the stately courtiers and ladies of the court. Beneath these came the five court musicians with their flutes and drums. The fourth step held the lowest rank of the court—the footmen. The last step was reserved for household accessories—beautifully lacquered furniture with gold design, dishes, and other articles. All the dolls were garbed in exact miniature reproduction of the ancient official court dress. Even the material was the same as that used in the official imperial costumes. I wanted to decorate some of my own everyday dolls and place them on the lowest step, but Elder Sister would not permit it. “We cannot have such plain dolls mix with royalty,” she said.
In the evening, little girl playmates were invited to join us. Beautifully colored bonbori lanterns glowed on the top of the doll platform, casting pink-cherry-blossom color on the faces of the dolls. We sat in front of the platform in hushed reverence and watched the expression of their faces change in the flickering light. The party repast of sweet wine and candy was served to us and to the dolls in the dolls’ dishes. We believed that they too partook of the feast.
Younger Brother, the only boy to participate in the festival, did not relish his secondary role on this occasion, and became sullen. Nobu upbraided him. “It is only because of the girls that you are able to have these goodies.”
“All right,”