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Now how is that for a soldier lady? It is quite cold to-day and I am indulging in the luxury of a roaring fire. You know the natives use little stoves that they carry around with them, and call "hibachi." But cold as it is, the yard is full of roses and the tea-plants are gorgeous. I don't wonder that the climate gets mixed, out here. Everything else is hind part before.
I was ill at ease, and made more so by realizing that I did not know what to say to this self-contained child of my own beloved land. I made a brilliant start, however. "Howdy. Do you like Japan?" The answer came with the sudden energy of a popgun: "No." Then she sat down close to a hibachi, her back against the wall. I went on, determined to be friendly.
"Country's all right," she answered. "But the natives are like punk imitations of a vaudeville poster; they're the extension of the limit." Her words, although English, were as incomprehensible to me as if I had never heard the language, but her scorn was unmistakable. As if to emphasize it, the hand she had persistently held behind her was thrust forward toward the burning coals in the hibachi.
We passengers squat Oriental fashion upon a mat in the centre of the boat, where a hibachi, well stocked with glowing charcoal, invites us to smoke.
I remained silent and waited. The old man emptied his little pipe, threw it down beside the hibachi, folded his hands, and looked at the lotus- flowers for some time before he spoke again. Then he smiled and said: 'Master, I married when I was very young. For many years we had no children: then my wife at last gave me a son, and became a Buddha.
When the little tables were taken away, the Mother said, "Come, my children, let us sit down beside the hibachi and get warm." The "hibachi" is the only stove, except the cook-stove, that they have in Japanese houses. It is an open square box, made of metal, with a charcoal fire burning in it.
He kindled it from the charcoal ember in the hibachi. He took three sucks of smoke, breathing them slowly out of his mouth again in thick grey whorls. Then with three hard raps against the wooden edge of the firebox, he knocked out again the glowing ball of weed. When this ritual was over, he replaced the pipe in its sheath of old brocade. The lawyer sucked in his breath, and bowed his head.
I walked up the main street. Great Scott! what a din! It was enough to drive anybody crazy. Each house, with its paper walls, hardly suitable for the climate, seemed to contain a regular pandemonium. Men and women were to be seen squatting on the ground round a huge brass hibachi, where a charcoal fire was blazing, singing and yelling and playing and clapping their hands to their hearts' content.
Then the pretty musume of the inn opens the chamber to the fresh mountain air and the early sun, rolls back all the wooden shutters into their casings behind the gallery, takes down the brown mosquito net, brings a hibachi with freshly kindled charcoal for my morning smoke, and trips away to get our breakfast.
To moisten the meal, tea without sugar is taken. A hibachi, or charcoal basin, generally occupies the central position, round which the meal is enjoyed, and on the fire of which the teapot is always kept easily boiling." When the Japanese housekeeper goes to market, she turns her attention, after the rice merchant's, to the fish and vegetable stalls.
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