12. Two Family Scenes
1. Field on the Hill

The crop field of Kyozo's family was on a hill near the entrance of Koyazaka Slope, what we call now one of the "Kumano Ancient Roads". A narrow steep hill path aside Koyazaka leads up to the crop field for 15 minutes or so.
This is the story around when the Fathers from Shingu Teresia Church visited Kyozo.

It was a terraced field made use of the hill slope.
Sweet potato, wheat, pumpkin, pea, and other various vegetables. Kyozo's couple plowed the field for every food their family could eat at home.
There, they could look down at the Sea of Kumano. There was a tree of summer mandarins at a spot with a view, which bore a lot of fruits in the season. The fruits looked good, but too sour for the children.
At that time the song "The hill with mandarins blooming" sung by a young girl Masako Kawada was coming on the radio.

Mandarins are blooming
The road of memory, the road of a hill
Blue sea can be seen
And ships are hazy far away

The hill path up to the field was narrow enough for only one person. The parents went up and down with a balance stick hanging a load. Human excrement was a main fertlizer, so they managed to go up the path shouldering it in koetago, a special bucket.

The narrow path had been opened some time before and foot-beaten on the hill side. The children went up the path and helped their parents.
Rather dangerous, nobody fooled around there or no memory of losing the footing down to the cliff. It was hardship for them, but they stood it looking forward to their parents' pleasant face, and finally were beside themselves praised exaggeratedly by the parents.
However, snakes often appeared on the way, which did not attack them but scared them. What a shiver especially when they saw one near them crawling while making doo-doo.

Treading wheat plants in winter was a hard work for the children. The work had to be done through a raging cold wind on the exposed field. They felt frozen.

In the summer, scorching heat was merciless. Kuma, mother, repeated the words.
"Be careful not to get hakura (heat stroke)!"
The lunch of mugimeshi (boiled barley) sometimes went bad or was with ants on it.
Their father's favorite phrase was "Ants are very very strong, so they are nutricious, even not tasty."

2. Quarrel of Brothers

In the next year the Fathers from Australia visited Kyozo, he showed the unusual attitude as a papa.

On a fine day in May.
After school, his two boys hurry to the sand beach, leaving their back pack at home. They get there by about 5-minute running.
"Take care. Get along well."
The cry of mother Kuma gradually fades away.

Boys of similar ages gather together in various clothes and appearance with a stick bat and a cloth home-made glove each.
The brothers, Kyota and Kyoji, have each an oak bat made by their father and a glove by their mother.
The oak for a bat was what their father searched for and selected in the hill. It is light, strong and hits a ball far.

The boys are in charge of two defense positions because they are few. The diamond is triangle, so the infield players are only a pitcher and a catcher. Every other positions are defended by outfielders.
They are crazy about playing on and on until sunset. When they go back, they are all full of sand.

"How did you get so dirty! Enter a bath quickly!"
The eyes of Kuma, mother, doesn't look angry at the two boys covered with sand.
They enter a drum for a bathtub, so-called "Goemon bath" in a rear garden.

- - - - -

The two brothers of close friends had a quarrel.
It was just nothing but a battle of egos. The younger came back with his glove and bat in hand crying. The older followed in a sulky manner holding his tools under his arm, while gathering all his wisdom for how to excuse to his father.
Both did not mind that they are dirty with sand and sweat. The younger, sobbing, accused the older, and the older appealed the younger's fault in a loud voice.
Father did not hit them nor say anything. He took bats and gloves away from them quickly. Then he cut the two bats with a saw and threw them into the bath stove. The fire blazed up in the stove for a moment.
The two gloves made by mother were cut freely by a kitchen knife and were also threw into the bath stove.

The younger already stopped crying and the older forgot the excuse. Their faces kept twitched.

Since then, the boys did not hurry to the sand beach after school. No reason to go there.
Father who had enjoyed the best to watch his sons playing baseball never made a bat again. Neither did mother made gloves. Though they were such parents pleased with the brag talk of their sons during dinner.....

In those days, professional baseball together with sumo wrestling was a golden program of radio. The teams were the Giants, the Tigers, the Hawks, ..., the popular players were Bessho, kawakami, oshita, Aota, Stalhin, ...

The two boys, asked their future dream before, did not mind answering "My dream is a professional baseball player." In fact both of them were superior among boys of their ages, and especially the older Kyota was a pitcher and the 4th batter in school. He got the strike-out swinging by a perverse and fast ball mixing as a pitcher and hit a homerun over the artificial hill behind the ground as a batter. .....

Such rakugo or a comic story played by Kasho Sanyutei was popular at the time.

..... A son of a poor family broke a glass window in the neighborhood by hitting a homerun. Seeing his parents to apologize profusely because of no money to pay, he gave up his promising dream.

Kyozo's sons are going to go after a dream in another world.

Reading@12'13"
< Chapter 11 Chapter 13 >
Email Close