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Show WOMAN'S 5 tain, and the first part "good spirit." Mrs. Nirayama's first name is "Yuki," snow, and her sister's name, that is Miss Mashimo, is "Yaye," cherry blossom. Speaking of a fine I view of 'Fujiyama" mountains, have from my window, when it is pleasant, the great volcanic mountain that the people consider sacred, and that we see pictured on everything almost, by way of decoration. In going to Nirayama's we had to take rikishas, and Miss Mashimo ran out and ordered them and her brother paid for them before we knew anything about it or could interfere. Arriving at the house, Mr N. and his wife met us at the door and We had to welcomed us most hospitably. take off our shoes again here, and I decided that if I lived in a Japanese Louse or visited them very often, that I would certainly wear Japanese shoes that can be put on and off with little trouble, and are so much like stilts that you never get your feet muddy. We had only been in the house a short time when they invited us to go and see We were the chrysanthemum exhibit. shoes on our to aud again go, put pleased and laced them up ready for our short walk. The gardens were beautiful with chrysanthemums of every variety pale laven der, pink, yellow, white, purple, and every shade of red. The boys, Sanford and Fred, had been there in the morning and had It was in a bought a large plant for us. over were and there twenty large pot, beautiful crimson flowers on it; it cost cents for the pot and all, delivtwenty-fivered. They Lad to fix a network of ropes so that amau could carry it on his back, and he .walked about two miles to our house. It would have been all the same if it had been four miles, though, for as I have said before, labor does not seem to count for much in this land, where washing and ironiug is done for two cents apiece, no matter what the size of the article. We saw another plant that we admired very much, and bought it lor twenty-tvv- o and a half cents There were about twenty beautiful white flowers on it. When we got home our Japanese convert said we had paid too much for it, about seventeen and a half cents would have been about right. How we ail wished we could have had some of these beautiful plants set down before you folks at home, I know you would appreciate them as much as we do. We have never been without flowers in our rooms since we came here. After we had seen enough of the chrysanthemum garden, we returned to the Nirayama's and they insisted on our staying to supper. They will send out to a restaurant and get foreign food for any of us who visit them, but it is not cooked in a way that is very appetizing, and we all prefer their food, that is, some of it, and what we don't like we don't need to eat. Their fish is cooked very nicely, broiled over a hibachi, sometimes, and then they have boiled fish, pickled fish, sweet potatoes and lotus root sliced and fried in batter, beans cooked in sugar, and seaweed pickled or boiled or something, I couldn't tell you what, for it looked terrible, and I could not get up sufficient courage to taste it, although I tried to taste everything just to see what it was. The'r rice is cooked very nicely, but without a particle of salt, and you are not supposed to eat anything on it, just eat it with chop-stickI am e - s. KXPONENT. getting quite expert with chopsticks, and the boys prefer them, for some things, to knives and forks. They had lots of ether things, sttange looking vegetables, pickled, fried or boiled, and served with various kiuds of sauces, and soup with many strange ingredients in it. I have counted twenty different kinds of their food some times when we have been invited out to dinner. We sit on the floor to eat, and the food is usually served on little ttays, one for each person, set on the floor before you, j but they have little tables sometimes, about We had a a half a foot or a foot high. of our of one taken terribly poor picture dinner parties, which I will send you, so that you can see the way we ate our dinner, although we look anything but lovely. We had a very pleasant visit this p veiling that I speak of at the Nirayama's, spending the time looking at photographs and curios that Mr. N. had brought from Germany and other places. He is a very intelligent man, has made a trip around the world in a suite of a prince of the Imperial He lived three years in Gerhousehold. many, and visited all the principal countries on his trip around the world. He has some of the most beautiful decorations, pins and medals that have been presented to him by the noted people whom he has met on his travels. One we especially admired was given him by Prince Henry of Germany, whom we all heard so much about just about a year ago. Mrs. Nirayama is a pretty, lively little person, and talks very fast, and what we" cannot understand from her words she makes out with signs. She is far from the downtrodden creature we are led to suppose that all Japanese women are. for she carries the money and the keys and looks after the valuables and when her husband wants anything he has to ask her for it. We think it is wonderful and very fortunate that the boys have been admitted to such fine families After spending a very pleasant evening we put on our shoes for the last time and came home in rikishas, for which Mr. Heber inNirayama insisted on paying. vited the families at both places aud all the boys to go to Asakusa Park next day to see the temples, flowers, menagerie, etc., and wl spi'nt a very pleasant day there. Monday, December 22, 1902. Two mails have gone since I commenced my letter, but it has seemed as though I could not find time to finish it. Another mail goes tomorrow, and I will make a desperate effort to get my letter off by that. We have been doing our Christmas shopping for the folks here, and with lessons, callers, etc., our time seems to fly. We are making all preparations for a Christmas just as near like what we have at home as possible, aud the boys have got a beautiful tree and it stands in place in one corner of our big dining room ready for the ornaments. Everything is so cheap here that for a few cents each we have almost more We heard than we can put on the tree. over a week ago that our Christmas hox was coming from America, but we Lave not heard of its arrival yet. (Since Aunt Gusta wrote this, I have received a card that our Christmas box is in Yokohama. H. J .G.) There is a steamer due today, and if it does not come on that we will not get it till after Christmas. We are all in hopes it will come, for Mr". Hedges said she has sent a plum pudding for me and a box of candy for Mrs. Ensign; and there is a cake one, besides the candy Lutie speaks about, and we are all quite anxious. The girls have been making candy today, for f'tai it does not come. We have all been invited to Yokohama for dinner Christmas Eve, and to ? pend the evening at It was her daughter who' Mrs. Bagnalls came over on the "Kaga Maru" with us, she had been in. America four years at school, and had just graduated. They are Mrs. has inand Bagnall wealthy people, vited us a number of times to call, but we were quite surprised when we got such a pressing and cordial invitation for all of our little colony, everyone, underscored, to We come down to dinner Christmas Eve. and think it rather strange, very nice, too, that of all the people here our American for some friends should single out the "Mormon Colony" for such a favor. The purser on the boat that Heber went home on, the "Gaelic," remembered us with a fine box of San Francisco candy, and a little remembrance for Mary in the shape of a candy plum pudding, on his last trip from America. Heber has hired a rikisha man this last mouth, so now we have our ' private car' riage, ' and it does not cost so much as it does at home. Just think, he only pays seven dollars and a half a month for the man, who furnishes his own rikisha and boards himself. He has a wife and child to support besides, and nothing but this seven dollars and a half for everything they have to eat and clothe themselves with. Of course have much she and the don't they clothing, child wear kimonos, and he wears some little pants that do not reach to his knees, and his feet and legs are bare this cold He wears some sort of a jacket weather. a aud big hat. They have only one little room, it looks about as large as our bath room at home, and" the rest of the building he uses for his rikisha. It is built in the front corner of our lot, and from our. standpoint has the choice of location, that and the woodshed, barn, etc. , but that is the way they arrange things here. Christmas will be a thing of the past 'when this letter leaches you, and I hope you will all have a happy time. We are all just as well and happy as we can be, and I feel more contented here all the time. Heber says all the time that we do not need to think of going home for two or three years longer, and I don't care so much as I did when we first came, then I thought a I have year would be all I would want. just room to sign my name, and send my love to all of you. With much love to you all, Aunt Gusta. NOTES AND NEWS Mrs. Squeirs, wife of the American minister to Cuba, is trying to organize a society for the prevention of cruelty to animals. King Edward's coming to the throne has with gorgeous magnificence. The report read like a chapter from the Arabian Nights. The expense, of course, has been lavish and enormous. At the same time the newspaper dispatches report a terrible famine in Finland thousand of brave and intelligent people are on the verge of starvation and in Russia a frightful famine of still wider extent, fifteen million hungry peasants and untold thousands of starving horses and cattle. fix. been celebrated in India |
