Hiyoshi said nothing, looking confused. He lacked self-confidence, and he avoided his father's stare.
After all, it's only natural—he's a child, Yaemon thought, noticing his son's unworthy reaction. Maybe it's not in the blood after all, but in the surroundings. And his heart flooded over with grief.
Hiyoshi's mother had prepared their evening meal and was waiting silently in the corner for her husband to finish his talk. Her thoughts and her husband's were completely at odds. That her husband would push the child to become a samurai was hateful to her. She prayed silently for Hiyoshi's future. This is such an unreasonable thing to say to a child. Hiyoshi, your father speaks such words out of bitterness, she wanted to say. It would be wrong for you to follow in his footsteps. If you are a fool, then be a fool, but please become a farmer, even if you only have one small plot of land. Aloud she said, "Well, let's eat. Hiyoshi and Otsumi, come a little closer to the hearth." Starting with the children's father, she passed around the chopsticks and bowls.
Even though it was their usual meal—a bowl of thin millet soup—every time Yaemon looked at it, he felt a bit sadder, because he was a father who could not satisfy the needs of wife and children. Hiyoshi and Otsumi took up their bowls, their cheeks and noses turning red, and they sucked up the food with gusto, hardly thinking of it as poor at all. For them, there was no wealth beyond this.
"There's the bean paste we got from the master of the pottery shop at Shinkawa, and there are dried vegetables and dried chestnuts in the storage shed, so both Otsumi and Hiyoshi should eat a lot," Onaka said, wanting to reassure her husband about money matters. She herself did not pick up her chopsticks until her children had full stomachs and her husband had finished eating. Once the evening meal was over, they went to bed. It was pretty much the same in every other house. No lights shone in Nakamura after nightfall.
When darkness fell, footsteps could be heard scurrying across the fields and along the roads—the sounds of nearby battles. Ronin, fugitives, and messengers on secret missions all liked to travel at night.
Hiyoshi often had nightmares. Was it that he heard footsteps in the dead of night, or did the struggle for mastery over the land fill his dreams? That night he kicked Otsumi, who lay next to him on the sleeping mat, and when she cried out in surprise, he yelled, "Hachiman! Hachiman! Hachiman!"
Jumping up from the mat, he was instantly alert, and even though he was calmed by his mother, he remained half-awake and elated for a long time.
"It's a fever. Burn some moxa powder on his neck," Yaemon advised.
Hiyoshi's mother answered, "You shouldn't have shown him that sword, or told him stories about his ancestors."
* * *
The following year, the house was visited by a great change: Yaemon fell sick and died. Looking upon his dead father's face, Hiyoshi did not cry. At the funeral, he hopped and jumped around playfully.
In the autumn of Hiyoshi's eighth year, crowds of guests came to the house again. They spent the night making rice cakes, drinking sake, and singing. One of his relatives told Hiyoshi, "The groom is going to become your new father. He was once a friend of Yaemon's and also served the Oda clan. His name is Chikuami. You must be a good son to him, too."
Eating his rice cake, Hiyoshi went and peeked inside. His mother had made up her face and looked unusually pretty. She was with an older man he did not know, her eyes cast down. When he saw this, he became happy. "Hachiman! Hachiman! Throw flowers!" shouted Hiyoshi, who enjoyed himself more than anyone else that night.
Summer came around again. The corn grew high. Every day Hiyoshi and the other village children would swim naked in the river, and catch and eat the little red frogs in the fields. The meat of the red frog was even tastier than the honey sac of the Korean bee. Hiyoshi's mother had taught him about eating the frogs. She said they were a medicine children's disorders, and ever since then they had become his favorite food. It seemed that every time he was playing, Chikuami would come looking for him. Monkey! Monkey!" called his stepfather.
Chikuami was a hard worker. In less than a year he had put the family finances in order, and the days of hunger had gone. If Hiyoshi was in the house, he was always given chores to do from morning till night. If he was lazy or naughty, Chikuami's huge hand soon landed on his head. Hiyoshi hated this beyond endurance. He did not mind the work, but he tried to avoid attracting his stepfather's eye, even for a moment. Every day, without fail, Chikuami would take an afternoon nap. As soon as he could, Hiyoshi slipped out of the house. But before long Chikuami would go to fetch him back, shouting "Monkey! Where's our monkey gone?"
When his stepfather came looking for him, Hiyoshi dropped whatever he was doing and slipped in between the rows of millet. Chikuami would get tired of looking for him and start back. Hiyoshi would then jump out and let out a victorious shout. He never considered that when he returned home that night he would be given no dinner and punished. Carried away with his game, he couldn't help himself.
On this particular day, Chikuami was walking nervously through the millet, his eyes darting this way and that. "Where is the little devil?" Hiyoshi ran up the embankment toward the river.
When Chikuami got to the embankment, Ofuku was standing there alone. He was only one who wore clothes in the summertime, and he neither swam nor ate red frogs.
"Ah, aren't you the boy from the pottery shop? Do you know where our monkey is hiding?" Chikuami asked.
"I don't," Ofuku said, shaking his head a number of times. Chikuami intimidated him.
"If you lie to me, I'll go to your house and tell your father."
The cowardly Ofuku turned pale. "He's hiding in that boat." He pointed to a small river craft pulled up onto the bank. When his stepfather ran up to it, Hiyoshi leaped out like a river imp.
Chikuami sprang forward and knocked him down. As Hiyoshi fell forward, he hit his mouth against a stone. Blood ran between his teeth.
"Ow! That hurt!"
"Serves you right!"
"I'm sorry!"
After slapping Hiyoshi two or three times, Chikuami hoisted him up at arm's length and hurried back home. Although Chikuami called Hiyoshi "monkey," he did not dislike him. Because he was in a hurry to do away with their poverty, he felt he had to be strict with everyone, and he also wanted to improve Hiyoshi's character—by force if necessary.
"You're already nine years old, you little good-for-nothing," Chikuami scolded.
Once back home, he grabbed the boy by the arm and hit him several times more with his fist. Hiyoshi's mother tried to stop him. "You shouldn't be so easy on him," he barked at her.
When she started to cry, he gave the boy another beating.
"What are you crying about? I'm beating this twisted little monkey because I think it'll do him some good. He's nothing but trouble!"
At first, every time he was beaten, Hiyoshi would bury his head in his hands and beg for forgiveness. Now he just cried and cried—almost in delirium—and used abusive language.
"Why? Tell me why? You appear out of nowhere and pretend to be my father and swagger around. But my…my real father…."
"How can you say such a thing!" His mother turned pale, gasped, and put her hand over her mouth. Chikuami redoubled his rage.
"Smartass little good-for-nothing!" He threw Hiyoshi into the storage shed and ordered Onaka not to give him any dinner. From then until it got dark, Hiyoshi's shrieking could be heard coming from the shed.
"Let me out! You fool! Stonehead! Is everybody deaf? If you don't let me out, I'll burn the place down!"