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CHAPTER XIX.
A TALK OVER THE CHRYSANTHEMUMS.
"TpRONTING the swift Ashiwa River, and opposite
J- the peach-orchards on the flats at the base of
the hills, stood the house of Doctor Sano. It was
a pretty two-story dwelling of wood. It was not
roofed with black velvet, though
it seemed so. It
was covered with those thin shingles, a span long
and four fingers wide, which the Japanese carpenter
uses by the thousands for one house, tacking
them on with wooden pins which he supplies from
his mouth, though he holds a reserve supply in his
wallet. A railed veranda ran along the front of
both
.
stories, somewhat like that of a tea-house, for
the doctor liked to view the scenery by day and
night. Being a physician, he could act independently
and with more freedom than other folks in building
a house, in growing a beard, in not shaving his head
or wearing pomatumed top-knots, in carrying one
sword instead of two, and in studying Dutch or
other strange books, with no one to find fault with
him for doing so. His study was in the front room
of the second floor. Around the walls were ranged
boxes on top of each other and closed with panels
which slid up and down, the handle being a peg in
the center. These were in reality library cases, and
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