I came very near sharing his fate while in Hakodate. The fisherman came to our doors each morning with his enormous baskets of fish swung over his shoulders. The maid, her mother, and myself, spent many interesting moments in turning over the scaly contents of his baskets in order to make our choice amongst the varied assortment he had for sale. I paid him by the week, and one morning was called to the kitchen by an indignant maid, who said the fisherman had greatly overcharged me. The amount was far too small, it seemed to me, to cause such keen excitement, and I intended to dismiss the man, saying I would pay him, but employ him no more. I went over to a bucket of water, and taking up the long-handled dipper to take a drink, and not noticing that it was broken, I gave it a little shake toward the fisherman, and said, “Oh, go away, and don’t make so much noise.” The cup part of the dipper flew off and hit the indignant fisherman in the eye, whereupon he immediately shouldered his baskets and started for the magistrate. Needless to say, I was frightened, and I immediately donned my bonnet and started for the Consulate. The Consul heard my story and sadly shook his head: “If you really hit that coolie and he has you arrested, I can do nothing. It will only make matters worse to have me to interfere, so the best thing for you to do is to go with me and find that fisherman; offer him half of your estate, but don’t get mixed up with the law in Japan.” For two hours we haunted side-streets, where at last we found our man, and, after a small money payment and a promise to take fish from him for the rest of the season, and practically binding myself to listen to his insolence as long as I was in Hakodate, he grudgingly assented to withdraw his charge.
These itinerant dealers make housekeeping in Japan easy. Men clad in blue cotton coats with great straw hats on their heads and baskets piled high with vegetables, come to the door each morning; one passing along the streets both night and day can hear the cries of the travelling vendors, selling all that the average householder may require.
Hakodate is filled with crows—monstrous, black, impertinent thieves, who will come boldly into the kitchen and take the fish from out the frying-pan. Mornings I would take a pan of corn, and in the rear of the house upon the hillside, and hitting upon the pan’s side with a spoon, would soon be surrounded by hundreds of these beady-eyed birds, that are almost considered sacred in this province. They were so tame that they would fight at my feet for the kernels, and I would be compelled to push them from my lap and then, much to the maid’s disgust, the greedy birds would follow me into the house.