Heart of a Samurai

Life changes drastically for Manjiro. Whitfield and Albertina marry and start a farm, and Manjiro gets a horse and plenty of farm chores alongside his new mother. His horse, Plum Duff, becomes his best friend, but he cannot seem to stay on her back. Falling off Plum Duff leads to making a new friend, Terry, as the boy helps him find her after she runs away. The two rename the horse Duffy and spend their days fishing and talking about samurai. Manjiro tells Terry that if he goes home, he will become a samurai.

Manjiro writes imaginary letters to his mother over the months in America, noting the differences between Japan and America. He is delighted by the contrasts, but Americans are not always delighted with him.

Manjiro and the Whitfields experience prejudice and racism at two different churches. Manjiro is confused, thinking he has done something wrong, but eventually realizes he looks different from the others, and they view this as something bad. The elders want him to sit with the Black people in sequestered balconies, which the Whitfields reject wholeheartedly. Mrs. Whitfield insists that Manjiro view himself as an equal and explains that the racism in America is unacceptable. She encourages him to change the world, and Manjiro wonders if he can change Japan as well as America.

Manjiro and Whitfield maintain their relationship through working together and talking, although Manjiro is not sure Whitfield is enjoying himself. Manjiro attends Stone House School, where he learns reading, writing, and arithmetic, but he soon outgrows it. Whitfield gets him accepted into the prestigious Bartlett School of Navigation. The captain warns that he must meet the school standards and cannot get into trouble if he wants to keep attending, and Manjiro promises to do so.

On Manjiro’s first day at Bartlett, a boy named Job pulls a coin on a string to fool him. Manjiro offers to help him improve his prank, but Tom, a tall boy with racist opinions, mocks them both. Manjiro performs a magic trick by pulling Tom’s coin out of a nearby girl’s ear, which makes Tom angry but delights the girl, to Manjiro’s gentle embarrassment. Tom leaves in disgust and continues to reject Manjiro even though most students, including Job, accept him. Tom accuses anyone who befriends him of being anti-American.

When spring returns, Tom begins to bully Manjiro. Job and Terry suggest he fight or challenge him in some way, but Manjiro refuses, not wanting to risk expulsion from school. They get sidetracked discussing sword fighting and samurai, which Mrs. Whitfield overhears; she worries that he is being bullied and recommends that he talk to Captain Whitfield. Troubled, Manjiro goes to talk to Duffy; her presence calms him.

Manjiro announces to his friends that he challenged Tom to a horse race. Tom’s family has extremely fast horses, and Duffy is barely more than a pony. Terry and Job are upset because of his slim chance of winning—or even staying on his horse—but agree to help him practice. Thoughts of Catherine, the girl he delighted with the magic trick, distract Manjiro, but the thought of her watching him lose motivates him to practice. Practice goes badly, and Manjiro regularly falls off Duffy. Despite the setbacks, he insists, “Fall down seven times, get up eight” (161), quoting his mother.

Before the race, he talks with Captain Whitfield who, he notes, has become more like a close friend than a father. Whitfield tells him that he is returning to sea to help pay the bills, leaving Mrs. Whitfield to run the farm. He explains that he has prepared an apprenticeship for Manjiro with a cooper, Mr. Hussey, so that he can learn a trade. The captain assures him that he can continue attending Bartlett. Manjiro cannot find words to express his complex emotions and simply tells the captain he will miss him, to which the captain mysteriously responds that there will be a new companion for him soon enough.

The race becomes more of an event than expected, with many boys and girls watching and shaved ice and pennants galore. Job notes that Tom has a black eye, but Manjiro is too distracted by Whitfield’s revelation to care. The race goes badly for Manjiro as he cannot stop dwelling on losing Whitfield. Still, he approaches the finish line confident of victory—until he sees Tom standing with his horse, Lightning, waving to the crowd. Before anyone can speak, Tom’s father charges up to him and slaps him across the face. He drags Tom and the horse away.

Manjiro contemplates Tom’s cruelty towards people and kindness towards Lightning and realizes Tom’s bruises likely come from home. He then finds Tom in a ditch and helps him, giving him his mother’s advice from the previous chapter.

Manjiro discovers and voraciously reads The New American Practical Navigator. He earns money to buy a copy and keeps himself so busy he is not lonely, especially after Mrs. Whitfield gives birth to a son, William Henry. Manjiro is delighted by the baby and dreams of him visiting Japan when they are adults.

As May Day approaches, Terry helps Manjiro work out how he should confess his feelings to Catherine. Terry is confused by Manjiro’s expressions of affection, as he wants to tell her she is “as beautiful as a right whale” (176) and smells “as good as rice cooking” (177). Manjiro eventually writes a poem and leaves it at her door but runs away before knocking. He later overhears Catherine talking about his gift with her friends. She is taken with him and says she would marry him, but her friends mock her and remind her that nobody would allow it. A mortified Manjiro berates himself for thinking he could be an American. He goes to stare at the sea and realizes America is not as wonderful as he thought, and Americans and Japanese behave with similar disrespect towards each other. The narrator says, “A wave crashed against the rock and flung cold spray into his face as if to wake him up. He had been in a long dream, but his enchantment had come to an end” (183).

Manjiro’s apprenticeship starts, and he grows homesick for Mrs. Whitfield and his family in Japan. The cooper does not feed him or the other apprentices enough, and Manjiro grows sick. As his illness worsens, Mrs. Whitfield goes to fetch him, but Manjiro feels lonely and far from home.