from the neighborhood of the Eastern Temple had gathered the first crop of eggplants in wicker baskets and brought them to town for sale. “Eat young eggplants and live seventy-five days longer” goes the saying, and they are very popular. The price was fixed at two coppers for one eggplant, or three coppers for two, which meant that everybody bought two.
But Fuji-ichi bought only one, at two coppers, because—as he said—“With the one copper I now have in pocket I can buy any number of larger ones when the crop is fully grown.”
That was the way he kept his wits about him, and he seldom made a mistake.
In an empty space in his grounds he planted an assortment of useful trees and flowers such as willow, holly, laurel, peach, iris, and bead-beans. This he did as an education for his only daughter. Morning-glory started to grow of its own accord along the reed fence, but Fuji-ichi said that if it was a question of beauty such short-lived things were a loss, and in their place he planted runner-beans, whose flowers he thought an equally fine sight. Nothing delighted him more than watching over his daughter. When the young girl grew into womanhood he had a marriage screen constructed for her, and since he considered that one decorated with views of Kyoto would make her restless to visit the places she had not yet seen, and that illustrations of “The Tale of Genji” or “The Tales of Ise” might engender frivolous thoughts, he had the screen painted with busy scenes of the silver and copper mines at Tada. He composed Instructional Verses on the subject of economy and made his daughter recite them aloud. Instead of sending her to a girls’ temple school, he taught her how to write himself, and by the time he had reached the end of his syllabus, he had made her the most finished and accomplished girl in Kyoto. Imitating her father in his thrifty ways, after the age of eight she spilt no more ink on her sleeves, played no longer with dolls at the Doll Festival, nor joined in the dancing at Bon.[1] Every day she combed her own hair and bound it in a simple bun. She never sought others’ help in her private affairs. She mastered the art of stretching silk padding and learned
- ↑ A summer festival.
