June 23 the third year of Taisho, I was born at Kyoden, Oyabe city in Toyama prefecture (at that time, Kyoden, Mizushima village, West Tonami County), as the second son among nine siblings of father NAKAYAMA Ryouzou and mother Suzu.

My home was a branch family of NAKAYAMA Zenpei. Being at the side of Oyabe river, it was called Kawabata-shin ("New house at the side of the river"). My father Ryouzou was a son of Genzo the founder of the family. My mother Suzu came from HAYASHI Eitaro's family at Fukugami village. At that time most of farmers were tenant with only small fields; having a small amount of income and big family, they lived very poor life. My family kept 12 members with 1 cho 3 tan* of our own rice field along with 6 tan on lease and other side jobs.

* 1 cho 3 tan: apprx. 1300 sq. m., that is apprx. 36*36 m. (how small!)

My eldest brother Yozou, as soon as he left the elementary school, worked as a sawyer on trial for financially helping my father. My eldest sister got married to Hasegawa family at Mizushima village at the age of 17, when I was only 7 years old.

In my childhood, my parents often made me bring a season's present to the house my sister got married to. A two kilometers' bringing a heavy burden on my back on a roadway was pretty long and heavy for me. My sister's new home, however, had electric lights; its brightness surprised me, making me wonder how this can give such a bright light out. So, though the job was so heavy for me, it was always my great pleasure to see the miraclous light. Since I got some tips after this heavy task, it was also my pleasure to see inside the wrapping. I handed all of them over to my father to be saved.

Being a tenant farmer family of twelve, we - my parents and children - farmed our a little over 1 cho rice field; my brothers and sisters worked hard too. We usually ate dumplings or "Hattai" (made from wheat flower baked and ground) with only one cup of steamed rice. However little and poor it might be, we really enjoyed eating it together under a dark lantern or small lamp. Every evening around the fire, after warming up our hips one after another by holding on his legs, our father taught us how to make a straw rope. Then, getting good at that, we got our daily work quota from him. When any of us made longer than 10 fathom, after checking it our father gave one sen* to each of them in our with our names printed hung at a corner of the living room according to the amount of their work. While at first we only had to make 10 fathom a day, the better we got at that, the more we should make. At last we had to make 30 fathom a day, however we got two sen for that. My mother divided anything, even a piece of rice cake or an table orange, to each of us. That's why I loved to be around the fire. Moreover, after going to events at our neighborhood, or even to a near village, to cook for them, my father brought back some foods for us, and made us eat them, waking us up however late in the night it might be. Sometimes it was pretty heavy for me, but I enjoyed it indeed.

* One sen: one-handredths yen.

At that time, if we bring such things as eggs of locust, moles and **** to the village office, we could get some money according to the amount. My father didn't hesitate to help us to do this and that made our savings grow however slowly it might be. At that time when my family had an our own rice field of 1 cho 3 tan and another 6 tan on lease, helping my parents' farmwork was our daily work; for example, my elder sister nursed our youngest brother. I dragged the cart with my father, in place of which a motorcar works these days. On the way back, instead of the goods I was on the cart with "5 rin bar" my father bought for me, which made the work one of my happiest memories in my young days. "5 rin bar" was a cheap sweet; one can afford it by only 5 rin*. Of course at that time even that cheap sweet was pretty precious for boys and girls.

* Rin: one-tens sen, that is, one-thousands yen. As you know, today Japan uses only yen as the monetary unit. These sub-units are now used only in the stock market, foreign exchange and so on.

One summer day, when we brought summer rice from Yokka-machi to the storehouse of Maru-nou in front of the Isurugi station, my father bought me a straw hat after unloading the burden. Then, leaving me on the cart, he went to somewhere to drink. Left there for a long while, I fell asleep crying. Then a trouble began. Sleeping a while - I had no idea how long I had slept -, awaken by my father I sit on a "bandori" (straw rain-cape) on the cart with a 5 rin bar. Then my father drew it to home. At a point during that I fell asleep again. Getting to my house, I found my straw hat had gone to somewhere. My father scolded me, calling me idiot, and the tip of the day was dishonored.

In winter we wove straw rice-bags and my mother made all our cloths, for that she was pretty famous around there; we wore cloths hand-made by her. Children made straw stone-bags or straw ropes for damming and controling irrigation ditches since my father was the chief of the Kyoden ditch association. He also took a great care of the village, so that people in the village gave him a lot of thanks, I thought. Both of my parents paid many attentions to things about the temple; they never failed to visit there everyday in the evening, and I was frequently brought there by them.

When I was 9 years old, in the Spring 25 March Taisho 11 (1922), going back to our home with his younger brothers Jinichirou and Iwajirou from a certain newly-built house at Asaji, where my father was invited as a cook, he suddenly fell down to the ground in front of the house and deceased without recovering his consciousness. At that moment several memories occurred to me like dreams; in the preceding autamn, when we spreaded lime over fields, being still vigorous he taught me works; at that time, carrying 3 bales he helped me carrying 1 bale by making me cautious about grass roots, small rocks, small ridges or waters. He used to express his happy life, I remember too, by saying with his hands joined "I owe it to deities that you grow healthy" or "Every members of my family helps me so well, and now it enables me to buy liquor by a cask" to himself. At his last night my father took his last breath off with the halt of thundering pant. At the moment I found something, I found my mother moved to the Buddhist altar and cried on the floor. I see the scene still now. I could do nothing but beat my mother on her back, knowing that it couldn't get my father back. Finally I asked her what to do. Setting herself upright at the moment she told me, with joining her hands and praying, to put away the snowshelter in front of our house. Since my elder brother didn't go back home from the factory, I had to put it away by myself being only 9 years old; in a moment I found I couldn't do it only by myself and asked Niichiro in a branch family to help.

The eldest sister had already got married to a house in Mizushima; the eldest brother was working as a sawyer's apprentice to succeed our home - these two children are the former wife's -; the second daughter, 15 years old, was working as a baby sitter in Tokyo; the third daughter was dead; the fourth was 11 years old; the second son - the author - was 9; the third 7; the fourth 5; the fifth daughter was 3; the fifth son was only four or five month. The second daughter was at our home to celebrate the new year and could be at our father's deathbed. Even with such many children our mother worked harder than average men; besides rice farming she worked as a construction worker, sometimes for daily wage went out to help other farmers in planting or weeding, then in night weaved our cloths. Being only nine I too helped her in farming in place of my elder brother. When I was ten my family bought the first pedal-thresher in Kyoden; pedaling it gave us an unexpected pleasure and eased our task by saving time than manually while still we had to bundle straw up after that. In the same year my family bought a bycicle together with other two families; we used to keep it carefully in our storehouse after used. In 12th year of Taisho we welcomed an electric lamp, which shone every corner of the room so brightly that my mother had to clean them much more carefully than before.

One sunday I was told to glean at a three tan* ricefield several hundred meters away from our house. Also I was told to babysit my four younger sisters and brothers while doing that. When I bent down, the youngest 10 months baby began to cry. So I put him down on the ground but he didn't stop crying. Then I ordered other three children to play with him, however only to make them cry together. They prevented me from working. I was so at a loss that I even thought in vain to bring them back to let them sleep. There being no easy way out, I decided to continue my work out, letting them crying. I gleaned in a hurry until sunset came down. Since I could glean not more than one tan, I worried what it would bring to me when I went back home with this poor result. Anyway it was already dark and I had to go back home. Unfortunately I was right: as soon as we came to our house, our mother cried "You left your brothers and sisters, even neglecting your work, didn't you? We cannot let you in nor give you meals. Go out with your backpack!" and shut the door out. I couldn't give back even a single word. Feeling at loss, I cried for the night under the eaves of our chicken house in the barnyard, sitting on a "gravel box", that is, my mother's tool box for construction. I looked up the beautiful sky, on the other side, in fine weather. The big King-star shining clearly above a pine tree, shooting stars with long tail going through the sky one after another with heavenly beauty but without any sound; seeing them I thought my father, taking the star icon, stretched his hand out and called me up to the heaven saying "hurry up." Such a feeling soothed my distress and set I thought I would fly up to the clear skies. However hungry I was, nobody allowed me to enter the house. At the end of that long hugry night I saw the sky whitened in the east, then a sunrise turned the sky red. Seeing this I made up my mind to go back to the field and walked to there with a basket on my back. On that way my grandmother came with my elder sister to bring me to breakfast.

* three tan: apprx. 30 ares.

While I was devoted to working with pride, giving more importance to it than studying, my relatives of the same age were all good at studying. It made me hate to go to relative's house to meet them.

I loved sports too. To enjoy them I used to visit elementary schools inside West-Tonami county of course, and sometimes even those in East-Tonami county as well. Many times I was allowed to join in prefectural tournaments. Even once my team got the gold medal for total points in the prefectural olympic games for elementary students; which make us brought on a rickshaw from a ground of the normal school, whose building is working now as the prefectural office, to the Toyama station. That was my first experience on a rickshaw. I found then that riding a rickshaw needed some techniques. City officers welcomed us at the Demachi station and brought each of us to home on a bicycle this time.

Until then, I guess, we could keep our life on an average level due to my brother's lumber-dealing company run little bit pretty well. As for myself, I continued to work on fields, not only ours but sometimes other families' as well. My family let me go to advanced elementary school, but I prefered farmworking and helping my mother and spent one-thirds of my school days there for them. Besides these, since Takizawa girls' high school (Tonami girls' high today [Tonamino high today (2003) (translater)]) was under construction at that time, I went there to help it and got some money.

When I was on the sixth grade, Emperor Taisho passed away. The Spring I graduated the advanced elementary school, Muzushima elementary got the new gymnasium for the third anniversary for the new Emperor Showa, and gathered so many people to the ceremony. The gymnasium, costed twenty thousand yen including the land for it, was one of the most magnificent buildings in West-Tonami county; so that even a local newspaper took it worth for mention.

When I was student, I exchanged a promise with YOKOI Ryozo - a classmate of mine - that both of us would go to the same workshop to be craftsmen of same sort. Mr. Yokoi, in reality, went to Osaka by himself; myself, on the other hand, to Kanazawa to be a woodworker because my mother didn't allow me to go to Osaka. We became craftsmen in the same kind, anyway.