Twenty-Four Eyes

1

Miss Koishi

If, as they say, twenty years make a generation, this story began a little more than a generation ago. As for the memorable events of the time, the electoral system had just been revised, and the first election under the new Universal Suffrage Law had taken place in February. Two months after this election, on the fourth of April, 1928, a young woman arrived to teach school at a humble village on the Inland Sea, a farming and fishing community.

The village numbered only slightly more than a hundred families and was situated at the tip of a long cape that made the bay appear to be a lake. The villagers, therefore, had either to go by rowboat or to walk around by the long, winding path through the hills to visit the towns and villages across the bay.

Because the village was so isolated, the children of primary school age attended a branch school there for their first four years. When they reached the fifth grade, they were allowed for the first time to go to the school in the principal village three miles away. Their handmade straw sandals wore out each day, but the children were proud of this. How glad they must have been to wear new sandals every morning! In the fifth grade they began making their own sandals, too. It was fun to gather at someone's house on Sundays to make sandals. While they enviously watched the older ones, the younger children would learn the art without consciously trying. For the little children, growing up to be fifth graders was like becoming independent. Still the branch school was not without its share of fun.

The branch school had always had two teachers: a very old man and a very young woman. It had been that way since long ago, as though there had been a regulation about it. The old man lived in the night duty room next to the faculty room, while the young woman came from a long way off to school every day. The old man would teach the third and fourth graders, while the young woman taught the first and second grades. All this had long been common practice. The children called their teachers Gentleman Teacher and Lady Teacher instead of calling them by their names. The old man would settle down, hoping to retire eventually on a pension, while the young woman would leave after a year—or two at the most. It was said that the branch school on the cape was a place where men teachers with no hope to be principals spent the rest of their working days, and where the new women teachers got their first hard experiences. This was only rumor, of course, and could not be proven, but it was probably true all the same.

Now, let us go back to the fourth of April, 1928. That morning, the pupils, fifth grade and up, from the cape village were happily walking their three miles to the main school. They were all so happy to have been promoted to higher grades that their steps were light. The textbooks in their bags were all new, and the prospect of being taught by new teachers in new classrooms made them feel as though they were indeed marching over new roads. Besides, today they were looking forward to meeting on the way the new woman teacher who was coming to the branch school in their village for the first time.

I wonder what kind of a dame the new Lady Teacher'll be, said one of the boys of the upper grade school who would have been of about the same age as today's junior high school students. He used the rude word purposely.

They say this new one's just out of girls' high school, too.

Then she'll only be half-baked again, won't she?

After all, our village always gets half-baked teachers.

Poor villages have to put up with them.

Teachers who graduated from girls' high school only, rather than from regular teachers' colleges— perhaps they would be called assistant teachers now—, were called half-baked by evil-tongued grown-ups. These boys were mimicking them, pretending to be adults themselves. But they were not particularly malicious. The fifth graders who joined the upper-class pupils for the first time today, however, could only blink in astonishment and listen modesdy, as newcomers would. Yet it was the fifth graders who first shouted with joy when they caught sight of a figure coming toward them.

Hurrah! Lady Teacher!

It was Miss Kobayashi who had been teaching at the branch school until just recently. Usually she only made some brief response to the bows of the pupils as she passed them, but today she stopped and looked fondly at one face after another.

Today is really the last day. I'm afraid we won't be meeting any more on this road. I hope you'll all be good pupils.

Some of the girls were quite moved, and their eyes filled with tears. Miss Kobayashi had replaced a teacher who had quit because of illness. Yet unlike all the former women teachers, she had stayed at the branch school three and a half years. Therefore, the children she met on the path today had all once been her own pupils. According to custom, changes in the faculty were not announced until the first day of a new term, but Miss Kobayashi had defied this tradition and had told her pupils ten days in advance. On their way back from the closing ceremony at the main school on the 25 th of March, they had met her just where they were now standing, and she had made her farewells to them and given each a box of caramels. That was why they had been expecting today to see the new teacher coming their way. But Miss Kobayashi had come along first, to their surprise. Probably Miss Kobayashi was on her way to say good-by to the branch school pupils today.

Miss Kobayashi, where's the new teacher?

I guess she'll be along pretty soon.

What's she like?

I don't know yet.

Just out of high school again?

I really don't know. Anyway, don't any of you be mean to her, said Miss Kobayashi with a smile. She, too, used to be teased by the children on her way to school during her first year and had been made to cry, sometimes even right in front of them. Those who had made her cry were not among the group today; they were the older brothers and sisters of the children who were there. Most of the women teachers who came to the cape were made to cry at least once because they were young and inexperienced, and the children here knew this almost as a tradition. They were full of curiosity about the newcomer especially because Miss Kobayashi had been at the branch school so long. After they left her, they planned their tactics, all the while looking ahead, expecting at any moment to see the new teacher approaching them.

Shall we shout ' Potato girl!'?

What if she isn't a potato girl?

I'm sure she will be, though.

In that part of the country, sweet potatoes were grown in great abundance, and there was a girls' school right in the middle of the sweet potato fields. Miss Kobayashi was a graduate of that potato school, and the children took it for granted that the new teacher, too, would have come from the same place. They craned their necks at every bend in the path, expecting to see her. But, without encountering this much-awaited new teacher fresh from the potato school, they finally arrived at the wide prefectural road that led to the principal village. At once, they forgot all about her and started running, because the big clock in the hall of the inn on the prefectural road, which they customarily looked at, was ten minutes past the usual time. The clock was not ten minutes fast, but they had stopped ten minutes with Miss Kobayashi. They all went on running, raising the dust, their school bags rattling on their backs or tucked under their arms.

They did not think of the new teacher again until they were on their way home in the afternoon and had arrived at the path that branched off toward the cape from the prefectual road. Again, they saw Miss Kobayashi coming toward them. Miss Kobayashi, in her long-sleeved kimono, was moving her hands in a peculiar way, fluttering her sleeves.

Teacher!

Lady Teacher!

All the girls started running. As Miss Kobayashi's smiling face drew nearer and more distinct, the children realized that she was pretending to pull an invisible rope with both her hands, and they all laughed. She moved her hands alternately as though she were actually gathering in a rope, till at last she stopped and hauled them all in around her.

Miss Kobayashi, did the new teacher come?

Yes. Why?

Is she still at the school?

Oh, that's it, is it? She came by boat today.

She did? And did she go home by boat too?

Yes, she asked me to take the boat with her, but I said No, because I wanted to see you again.

Oh, boy! the girls shouted with joy, while the boys watched them, grinning. Then, one of the boys asked, What kind of a teacher is she?

She seems like a very nice teacher. She's awfully pretty, answered Miss Kobayashi, looking as though she had just remembered the fact.

Is she a potato girl?

No, no, she's much better than that.

But she's green, isn't she?

Suddenly Miss Kobayashi looked angry and said, Why do you say that when she's not even your teacher? Besides, there's no such thing as a teacher who's not green at first. You mean to make her cry the way I was made to cry, don't you?

Some looked away at the tone of her voice, knowing that she read their minds correctly. At the time Miss Kobayashi was first appointed to the branch school, the older pupils used to tease her in all sorts of ways. They would purposely form a line and bow with mock solemnity, or shout Potato girl! at her, or stare fixedly or just grin at her. In the course of three and a half years, however, she had become inured, and, no matter what they did, it no longer bothered her. In fact, she sometimes even teased them herself. After all, it was natural for her to want some kind of diversion on her three-mile walk.

After a while, another pupil asked, What's the new teacher's name?

"Miss Oishi. But she's very small. I'm tall although I'm a Kobayashi.* But she's really tiny. She comes only to my shoulders."

Really?

When the children laughed as though they were glad, Miss Kobayashi looked serious again.

But she's much, much better educated than we are. She's not half-trained like me.

Is that so? And does she come to school by boat? asked one for whom this was evidently a serious problem. Miss Kobayashi, seeing their concern, replied, No, it was only for today. You'll be meeting her from tomorrow on. But you can't make her cry. I warned her and said, 'You'll meet the main school pupils on your way to and from school, but if they play tricks on you, just pretend they're monkeys playing. If they say nasty things, pretend they're crows cawing.'

Gosh!

Goodness!

They all laughed, and Miss Kobayashi, too, joined in. Then they parted, but the children continued to call after her in turn until she disappeared around the next bend.

Teacher!

Good-by!

Miss Bride-to-be!

Good-by!

They already knew that Miss Kobayashi had resigned because she was going to be married soon. When she turned around to wave for the last time and then disappeared, they were left, as might be expected, with a strange, sad feeling in their hearts. Feeling tired, too, after the day's activity, they trudged on with heavy steps. When they arrived home they found the village in a hubbub.

The new Lady Teacher wears Western clothes!

She isn't a potato girl!

She's so small!

The next day, the children excitedly planned tactics to shock this little teacher who was not from the potato school. They were walking to school, whispering to one another. And then they were taken by surprise. The place was unfavorable, too. Near the bend which obstructed the view ahead, a bicycle, a rarity on that path, came suddenly into sight. It was upon them before they realized it, coming swifdy as a bird, and riding it, a woman in Western clothes. She smiled at them, said Good morning! and was gone, like a gust of wind.

She must have been Lady Teacher. They had been prepared for her to come plodding along on foot, and here she had swished past them on a bicyle. This was their first experience of a woman teacher riding a bicycle. Nor had they known a teacher who said Good morning! to them on her first work day. For a while, they just gaped after her. It was a complete defeat for them. She was certainly nothing like any new teacher they had ever seen before. They knew she would not be made to cry by any ordinary mischief.

She looks pretty tough.

A woman riding a bike!

Kind of fresh, isn't she?

While the boys thus criticized her, the girls also started discussing her with spirit, although from a different point of view, as is usually the case with girls.

What do you think? Maybe she's what they call a 'modern girl'?

But a modern girl has her hair cut short right here like a man, hasn't she? replied another, putting two fingers in the shape of scissors behind her ears. And she had her hair in a bun.

She's got Western clothes on, though.

Maybe her family runs a bicycle store, and that's why she's riding such a nice bike. It certainly was shiny.

I wish we could ride bikes too. It must be wonderful to ride along this road so fast.

How were they to compete with this bicyle? No doubt they all felt discouraged as though they had been ignominiously thrown in a judo match. Everyone was trying in his own way to think of ways to get the better of her. Before they could think of anything, however, they came to the end of the cape path. Once again, the clock in the hall of the inn told them they were late, by almost eight minutes. They set off with a rush; the pencil cases on their backs and under their arms began clattering all at once, and the dust rose in clouds from under their straw sandals.

At just about the same time, the villagers on the cape were also making a great fuss. The village wives had heard about the teacher having come by boat yesterday and gone back the same way without their knowing it. Today they were all the more curious about her since they had heard she wore Western clothes, wondering how she would look as she passed by. Particularly, the proprietress of the general store, at the entrance of the village, which was nicknamed the Checking Station, had been watching the street since the break of dawn, as though she had the right to see whoever came to the cape village before anybody else. Since it had not rained for quite some time, she thought it would be a good idea to sprinkle water on the dusty street for the new teacher. Just as she got outside with her bucket, however, a bicycle came speeding along. Before she knew what was happening, the woman on it passed by with a friendly bow and a Good morning!

Good morning, answered the proprietress, when it suddenly dawned on her who it was. But the bicycle was already going down the slope which began right there. She ran to the carpenter's next door in a great hurry and shouted at his wife who was soaking her washing by the well.

Listen, listen! A girl in Western clothes just went by on a bike! Was it Lady Teacher, do you think? "Was she wearing a white shirt and a black jacket