Totto-Chan, the Little Girl at the Window (13 page)

The headmaster happened to be visiting that class, standing in the back of the classroom, when she said it. Totto-chan could hear the homeroom teacher crying. "It was terribly wrong of me," she sobbed. "What can I do to apologize to Takahashi?"

The headmaster said nothing. Totto-chan couldn't see him through the glass door, but she wanted so much to be with him. She didn't know what it was all about, but somehow she felt more than ever that he was their friend. One must have felt that way, too.

Totto-chan never forgot how the headmaster had reprimanded their homeroom teacher in his kitchen and not in the faculty room, where the other teachers were. It showed he was an educator in the very best sense of the word, although Totto-chan did not realize that at the time. The sound of his voice and his words remained in her heart forever.

It was almost spring, Totto-chan's second spring at Tomoe, and the beginning of a new school year.

Tender green leaves were sprouting on all the trees in the school grounds, and the flowers in the flower beds were busy blossoming. Crocuses, daffodils, and pansies popped out their heads in Nm to say, "How do you do?" to the pupils of Tomoe, and the tulips lengthened their stalks as if stretching themselves. Cherry buds trembled in the soft breeze, all set and ready, waiting for the signal to burst into bloom.

The black popeyes, followed by the rest of the goldfish that lived in the small square concrete foot-rinsing basin by the swimming pool, shook themselves and started to swim about happily.

There was no need to say, "It's spring," for the season when everything looks shining and fresh and lively needed no announcement. Everyone knew it was spring!

If was exactly a year since the morning Totto-chan first arrived at Tomoe Gakuen with Mother. She was so surprised to find a Bate growing out of the ground, and so excited to see classrooms in a train, that she jumped up and down, and so certain that Sosaku Kobayashi, the headmaster, was her friend. Now Totto-chan and her classmates rejoiced in their new status as second graders while in came the new first grade children looking all around curiously just as Totto-chan and her classmates had done.

It had been an eventful year for Totto-chan, and she had eagerly looked forward to every single morning of it. She still liked street musicians, but she had learned to like many, many more things around her. The little girl who had been expelled for being a nuisance had grown into a child worthy of Tomoe.

Some parents had misgivings about Tomoe's education. There were times when even Totto-chan's Mother and Daddy wondered if they had done the right thing. Among parents who regarded Mr. Kobayashi's educational system dubiously and judged it superficially, just by what they saw, were some who became so alarmed about leaving their children at his school that they arranged to transfer them elsewhere. But the children themselves did not want to leave Tomoe, and cried. Fortunately, no one was leaving in Totto-chan's class, but a boy one grade above had rears streaming down his cheeks as he vented his despair by pounding on the head-master's back with clenched fists, the scab from a grazed knee flapping all the while. The headmaster's eyes were red from crying, too. The lad was finally led away from the school by his mother and father. As he went, he kept on turning around and waving, time after time.

But there were not many sad occasions like that, and Totto-chan was now a second grader, with the expectation of more daily surprises and delight.

By this time Totto-chan's schoolbag was well acquainted with her back.

Totto-chan was taken to Hibiya Hall to see the ballet Swan Lake. Daddy was playing the violin solo and a very fine troupe was performing. It was the first time she had ever been to a ballet. The queen of the swans wore a tiny sparkling crown on her head and leaped through the air effortlessly, like a real swan. Or so it seemed to Totto-chan. The prince fell in love with the Swan queen and spurned all others. Finally, the two of them danced together so tenderly. The music, too, made a great impression on Totto-chan, and after she got home she couldn't stop thinking about it. Next day, when she woke up, she went straight down to the kitchen where Mother was, without even brushing her hair, and announced, "I don't want to be a spy any more, or a street musician, or a ticket seller. I'm going to be a ballerina and dance in Swan Lake!"

"Oh," said Mother. She didn't seem surprised.

It was the first rime Totto-chan had ever seen a ballet, but she had heard a great deal from the head-master about Isadora Duncan, an American lady who danced beautifully. Like Mr. Kobayashi, Isadora Duncan had been influenced by Dalcroze. If the headmaster She admired so much liked Isadora Duncan, that was enough for Totto-chan, and although she had never seen her dance, she felt as if she knew her. So to be a dancer didn't seem anything out of the ordinary to Totto-chan.

It so happened that a friend of Mr. Kobayashi's who came and taught eurythmics at Tomoe had a dance studio nearby. Mother arranged for Totto-chan to take lessons at his studio after school. Mother never told Totto-chan that she must do this or must do that but when Totto-chan wanted to do something, she would agree, and, without asking all sorts of questions, she would go ahead and make the arrangements.

Totto-chan began taking lessons at the studio, longing for the day when she would be able to dance Swan Lake. But the teacher had his own special method. Besides the eurythmics they did at Tomoe, he would have the pupils amble about to piano or phonograph music, repeating to themselves some such phrase as "Shine upon the mountain!" from the prayer "Cleanse my soul; Oh, shine upon the mountain!" chanted by pilgrims as they climb Mount Fuji. Suddenly the teacher would exclaim, "Pose!" and the pupils would have to assume some pose they devised themselves and stand still. The teacher would pose, too, with some emotive cry like "Aach!" and assume a "looking up to heaven" pose or sometimes that of "a person in agony, crouching down and holding his head with both hands.

The image Totto-chan cherished in her mind, however, was that of a swan wearing a sparkling crown and a frilly white costume. It was not "Shine upon the mountain!" or "Aach!"

One day Totto-chan plucked up courage and went over to the teacher. Although he was a man, he had curly hair and bangs. Totto-chan stretched her arms out and fluttered them like the wings of a swan.

"Aren't we ever going to do anything like this!" she asked.

The teacher was a handsome man with large round eyes and an aquiline nose. "We don't do that kind of dancing here," he said.

After that Totto-chan stopped going to his studio. True, she liked leaping about in bare feet, not wearing ballet shoes, and striking poses she thought up herself. But, after all, she did so want to wear one of those tiny, glittering crowns!

"Swan Lake is nice," said the teacher, "but I wish I could get you to like just dancing according to you fancy.

It wasn't until years later that Totto-chan found out that his name was Baku Ishii and that he not only introduced free ballet to Japan but also gave the name Jiyugaoka ("freedom hill”) to the area. In addition to all that--he was fifty at the time--this man tried to teach Totto-chan the joy of dancing freely.

"This is your teacher today. He's going to show you all sorts of things." With that the headmaster introduced a new teacher. Totto-chan took a good look at him. In the first place, he wasn't dressed like a teacher at all. He wore a short striped cotton work jacket over his undershirt, and instead of a necktie, he had a towel hanging around his neck. As for his trousers, they were of indigo-dyed cotton with narrow legs, and were full of patches. Instead of shoes, he wore workmen's thick two-toed, rubber- soled socks, while on his head was a rather dilapidated straw hat.

The children were all assembled by the, pond at Kuhonbutsu Temple.

As she stared at the teacher, Totto-chan thought she had seen him before. "Where!" she wondered. His kindly face was sun burnt and full of wrinkles. Even the slender pipe dangling from a black cord around his waist that served as a belt looked familiar. She suddenly remembered!

"Aren't you the farmer who works in the field by the stream!" she asked him, delighted.

"That's right," said the "teacher, with a toothy smile, wrinkling up his face. "You pass my place ev’ry time you go fer yer walks to Kuhonbutsu! That's my field. That one over there full o' mustard blossoms."

"Wow! So you're going to be our teacher today, cried the children excitedly.

"Naw!" said the man, waving his hand in front of his face. “I ain't no teacher! I'm just a farmer. Your headmaster just asked me to do it, that's all."

"Oh yes, he is. He's your farming teacher," said the headmaster, standing beside him. "He very kindly agreed to teach you how to plant a field. It's like having a baker
teach you how to make bread. Now then," he said to the farmer, "tell the children what to do, and let's get started."

At an ordinary elementary school, anyone who taught the children anything would probably have to have teaching qualifications, bur Mr. Kobayashi didn't worry about things like that. He thought it important for children to learn by actually seeing things done.

"Let's begin then," said the farming teacher.

The place where they were assembled was besides the Kuhonbutsu pond and it was a particularly quiet section--a pleasant place, where the pond was shaded by trees. The headmaster had already had part of a railroad car put there for storing the children's farming implements, such as spades and hoes. The half-car had a peaceful look, neatly placed as it was right in the middle of the plot they were going to cultivate.

The farming teacher told the children to spades and hoes from the car and started them on weeding. He told them all about weeds: how hardy they were; how some grew faster than crops and hid the sun from them; how weeds were good hiding places for bad insects; and how weeds could be a nuisance by taking all the nourishment from the soil. He taught them one thing after another. And while he talked, his hands never stopped pulling out weeds. The children did the same. Then the teacher showed them how to hoe; how to make furrows; how to spread fertilizer; and everything else you had to do to grow things in a field, explaining as he demonstrated.

A little snake put its head out and very nearly bit the hand of Ta-chan, one of the older boys, but the farming teacher reassured him, "The snakes here ain't poisonous, and they won't hurt you if you don't hurt them."

Besides teaching the children how to plant a field, the farming teacher told them interesting things about insects, birds, and butterflies, about the weather, and about all sorts of other things. His strong gnarled hands seemed to attest that everything he told the children, he had found out himself through experience.

The children were dripping with perspiration when they had finally finished planting the field with the teacher's help. Except for a few furrows that were a bit uneven, it was an impeccable field, whichever way you looked at it.

From that day onward, the children held that farmer in high esteem, and whenever they saw him, even at a distance, they would cry, "There's our farming teacher!" Whenever he had any fertilizer left he would bring it over and spread it on the children's field, and their crops grew well. Every day someone would visit the field and report to the head-master and the other children on how it was doing. The children learned to know the wonder and the joy of seeing the seeds they had planted themselves sprout. And whenever two or three of them were gathered together, talk would turn to the progress of their field.

Terrible things were beginning to happen in various parts of the world. But as the children discussed their tiny field - they were still enfolded in the very heart of peace.

One day, after school Was over, Totto-chan went out the gate without speaking to anyone or even saying goodbye and hurried to Jiyugaoka Station, muttering to herself over and over, "Thunder canyon field kitchen, thunder canyon field kitchen...”

It was a difficult phrase for a little girl, but no worse than the name of that man in the comic rakugo tale whose name took so long to say he drowned in the well before his rescuers knew who he was. Totto-chan had to concentrate hard on the phrase, however, and if anyone nearby had suddenly started saying that famous long name that began, “Jugemu-Jugemu," she would have forgotten the phrase straight away. Even if she said, "Here we go," as she jumped over a puddle, she would be bound to get it muddled, so she could do nothing but keep on repeating it to herself. Thankfully, nobody tried to speak to her in the train and she tried not to discover anything interesting, so she managed to reach her station without even a single "What was that!" But as she was leaving the station, a man she recognized who worked there said, "Hello, back already?" and she was on the point of replying but stopped herself, knowing it would mix her up, so she just waved to him and ran home.

The moment she reached the front door, she shouted to Mother at the top of her voice, "Thunder canyon field kitchen!" At first Mother wondered if it was a judo yell or a rallying cry of the Forty-seven Ronin. Then it clicked. Near Todoroki Station, three stops beyond Jiyugaoka, there was a famous beauty spot called Todoroki Keikoku, or Thunder Canyon. It was one Of the most celebrated places of old Tokyo. It had a waterfall, a stream, and beautiful woods. As for field kitchen-that must mean the children were going to have a cookout there. What a difficult phrase to teach children, she marveled. But it proved how easily children learn once their interest is aroused.

Grateful to be released at last from the difficult phrase, Totto-chan gave Mother all the relevant details, one after the other. The children were to assemble at the school the following Friday morning. The things they had to bring were a soup bowl, a rice bowl, chopsticks, and one cup of uncooked rice. The headmaster said it became two bowlfuls when cooked, she remembered to add. They were going to make pork soup, too, so she needed some pork and vegetables. And they could bring something for an afternoon snack if they wanted.