I was generally happy in my childish days in Japan. I cannot put my finger on any particular thing as my chief happiness, but I think holidays made me as happy as anything. We have a number of holidays, among which the first and the greatest is New Year's Day.
The first three days of January! I shall never forget them. But like most celebrations New Year pleasure must be chiefly felt in a few preparatory days. In Japan full vigor is preserved among children for Happy New Year; here in America Merry Christmas, with its Santa Claus and his stockingful of presents, takes away the zest from children before New Year comes. The merriment of the season is materially heightened by the making of the mochi. The mochi, which I have referred to once before, is a glutinous cake made of rice; it is as peculiarly indispensable in the New Year feast as is turkey in the New England Thanksgiving dinner. It is generally no larger than a man's palm, therefore one family makes a great number of them. Many are stuffed with the an. The an is not necessarily sweet; some people like it flavored with salt. A large number of the mochis are not stuffed; they are suffered to dry and harden, so that they can be stored away for future enjoyment. At any time during the year you may get them out and steam or toast them. In our town there are men who make it their business to visit houses and help them in mochi-making. Just before New Year the professional mochi-makers work hard day after day. They could not always come in the daytime and made arrangements to visit us in the early morning. Then my sisters and I could hardly go to sleep in the great anticipation of joy. When the morning came, our house was thrown open, illuminated (for it was yet dark) brightly and cheerfully, and the whole household were up doing something with willing hand and heart. I cannot describe how happy I was in this scene. I tried, half in play, to help them and got in everybody's way. You know the holiday feelings are very difficult to reproduce with pen and ink.
Along the house on the street the men arranged a row of small earthen cooking stoves, which they had brought with them, each carrying two. The mode of carrying in this case, as well as in the transportation of any heavy load, is to use the shoulder as fulcrum and, laying on it an elastic wooden pole from whose ends hangs the burden, walk in steady balance, presenting the appearance of a pair of scales. Over the stoves were placed vessels of boiling water, over the vessels tubs with holes in the bottom and straw covers on top, in the vessels were heaps of rice washed perfectly white. The rice used in mochi-making is different from ordinary dinner rice; it is more glutinous when cooked and easily made into paste; it is a distinct variety selected in the beginning for the express purpose. The stoves are short hollow cylinders, open at the top and in the front; the top receives the bottom of the vessel, and the front opening or mouth ejects smoke and allows the feeding of fuel. They seemed on this occasion to blaze more brightly; we children went out and watched the dancing flames; they made our faces glow with their reflection.
When the rice was steamed long enough, it was transferred and made into paste in an utensil, like which I have seen nothing in this country. It is simply a stout trunk of a felled tree a few feet in height with its upper end scooped out. With it is a cylindrical block with a handle, a sort of pestle to press and strike upon the steamed rice. There was something joyous about the dull thumps when heard in the neighborhood, perhaps not to a foreign ear but to one brought up amongst customs associated with New Year holidays. And never at other times was our house so overflowing with hilarity as at this climax of domestic enjoyment. When the rice lost its granular appearance and became a uniform sticky mass, then it was placed upon a large board spread with rice flour. There it lay steaming, milk-white, this luxury of New Year,—luxurious even to the touch! The entire household flocked around it and made numerous round cakes. While our hands were busy, we interchanged many innocent jokes and merry laughs; the old people gave in to our sway, displaying a quiet humor in their looks.
We set up the New Year tree. It is a drooping willow tree thickly studded with rice-paste and hung with ornate cotton balls, painted cards, etc. Throughout the month of January it is to be seen in the parlor of every house nailed against the wall.
After nightfall on the last day of the old year a curious ceremony is performed. The worthy head of the family goes the round of his house with a box of hard burnt beans. Within every chamber he stands upright and throws a handful of the same, exclaiming at the top of his voice,—"Welcome Good Luck! Away with the Devil!" Now, the box used provisionally for a receptacle is a rice measure called m?su, which sounds like the verb meaning increase; and the beans are m?m?, which is the same as the noun meaning health, although written and accented differently. Putting them together we have a supplication in a play upon words,—"Increase health," or "May health increase!" Odd and fantastic as the notion appears, however, it is a hallowed custom and scrupulously observed. My father formerly performed the ceremony in our house; but when my eldest brother had grown up, he was assigned to the office, which he discharged with a comic gravity that I cannot forget.
The Japanese looks upon certain periods—I forget which—of his life as evil years. To avert hovering ill influences or to "drop" the years as they put it, the people take of the beans as many as their years, put them in paper bags together with a few pence and drop them at some cross-roads, taking care not to be seen. In this manner I have dropped several of my earlier bad years; I should have been wrecked a long time since, for life, but for the bags of beans!
In the same evening tradesmen desire to collect old bills and clear up the accounts of the passing year; and in order to do it they call at the houses of their debtors, lighting their way with lanterns which bear the signs of their commercial establishments. So general is this idea, and so customary has this proceeding become in time, that everybody expects it as a matter of course at the end of each year; debtors, too, are easily dunned. A consequence is one of the grandest displays of lanterns. What a delight it was to me to stand before my house and watch the countless lights move up and down the street! When I was older I was appointed lan............