Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-09-22

our Japanese was not fit for cultured
ears.
Thus became fairly well acquainted
I learned much of his early life, of his
ideas on religion and literature, and of
his plans for the future. In turn. he
asked many questions about america for
at that time he had never left his own
country.
One night he asked me what pork and
beans meant. He had read the express
sion frequently in accounts of American
army life. | answered that pork and
beans are to an American soldier what rice
Is to the Japanese soldier and gave fur
ther details. He said that he hoped some
time to know the taste of the dish.
NY reply WAS a promise to see if cur
cook could not prepare something to at
least approximate the real old army pork
and beans. | added that the best time
to have it would be the Fourth of july
as that would be our national holiday
] offered a tentative invitation for him to
join us al table that occasion He
said that if we We're still in Fa-ku-Men
at the time he would surely accept
out of that chance remark grew our
celebrated Fourth of July banquet
Washburn and | had chosen the bean
mill of the adjoining house for our sleep
ing quarters, as 1t seemed the cleanest
room IN the menage. 1t looked on the
compound where roamed pigs. donkeys.
dogs, cats and horses. The next morning
one of the pigs Uttered under the stems of
the bean MILL and l almost annihilated
several of the young ones by mistakenly
stepping into them as | came out after
breakfast.
Take care. cried Washburn: those
shoats will make fine eating if YOU can
keep your feet out of them tor a few
weeks
"A good idea said I. 1T is about five
he.
just right then to make pork for our
beans
So they did. When Earl our No /
boy, brought the chief dish on at the
banquet. two little shoats, roasted whole,
We're hoatlng IN sea of beans. The
trencher was made out of huge cedar
plank brought down from the Sunsari
originally for d coffin but we had divert
cd It's purpose into a more useful channel
But this is ahead of the story Then
and there we determined to give a Fourth
or July banquet with all the trimmings
everything from cocktails to speeches,
with pork and beans as the piece de re-
Sistance.
If you will remember where we were
and the conditions under which we were
living YOU will realize the obsta cles We
town with any civilized supplies was
Dalny, 800 miles away. We had had moth
ing but rice, fish timed stuff or an occa-
sional Chinese dish for months vet we
proposed to give a banquet with all the
orthodox courses, wines. music, speeches
and setting.
The most important thing, was to de-
terminc If the general would actually
accept our invitation. With any Other
army ii might seem feasible. but not
with the Japanese, and with any other
Japanese general than Noai it would
have been impossible to have lured him
10 feast in the midst of his army, on
the possible verge of battle. to celebrate
the national holiday of foreign power
For long we considered the fact that
after all, we were mere civilians with
out an iota of standing beyond that ex-
tended by the extraordinary hospitality
of the commander. Soon We saw that
even If his wonderful good nature could
be imposed upon il would not do TO ask
him to fulfill 4 light premise if We in
tended to take advantage of it TO the
extent of an Ella borate ceremony.