Before long, in 1924, toddler Kiyo had a big surprise. She
remembers, “Suddenly, in the middle of summer, Tomomi came home
with a little baby wearing a knitted white hat and wrapped up in a soft
white blanket.” Tomomi and Shinji called the baby boy Seiji. Then in
the winter of 1926, baby boy Sanji arrived, and two years later, baby
boy Aizo. “I loved every baby that came along,” Kiyo says. “They were
my little brothers and sisters.” This love for young children endured
throughout Kiyo’s life.
Shinji worked for years to learn English. Mrs. McClintock, the
wife of the peach orchard owner, had taken a special interest in Shinji.
She gave him lessons until he could read and speak near-perfect
English. The Satos spoke Japanese at home, and Shinji wanted to teach
English to Kiyo before she entered first grade. After long days of hard
work, Shinji read to Kiyo and her siblings from books he bought at a
used bookstore. The English words came easily to Kiyo. She learned
from popular stories such as
Dick and Jane
, the
Little Red Hen
, and
Hansel and Gretel
. Kiyo’s mother said
Hansel and Gretel
was a bad story
for children. “A little boy and a little girl push a woman into an oven to
burn. It does not matter that she is a witch!”
From then on, Shinji made up his own stories for the children.
Some were about Kuzu, a simple boy who always managed to solve
problems. For example, what happens if you drop a grape into a hole
and your hand is too big to get it out? Easy peasy. Use your chopsticks!
Another story was about a carpenter who found a bag of gold and hid
it under a tatami mat at home. He was so worried about the gold being
stolen that he lost all joy in life, unable to focus on anything else. One
day when the carpenter looked under the straw mat, the gold was gone.
Furious that his worries had come true and the gold was gone, he fell
asleep. The next day, he woke up to find he was once again happy,
enjoying the sun’s warmth and the singing of birds. Kiyo and her
brothers and sisters laughed and clapped their hands in delight. They
liked these stories better.
15
An Ordinary Family
