Umé San in Japan

Tei shook her head. "The august father commanded that it should not be done," she said. "The baby was so frail that there have been no visits from anyone since he was first seen in our house."

"Then the baby might just as well have been a girl," said Umé decidedly.

"Oh no!" said Tei. "There have been dozens of presents of rice and silk, and many other things. And there have been letters of congratulation. And to-day, when we return from the temple, many, many people will come to see the baby, because they could not come before."

"What name was given to the baby on the seventh day?" asked Umé curiously.

"He is to be called Onda," answered Tei.

Before Umé could ask any more questions they had reached the temple.

Everything seemed to go wrong with Tei. She caught her clog as she was getting out of the jinrikisha and fell upon her nose. It bled a little, just enough to make her say pitifully, "Oh, how truly sad! It will never bring good luck to the dear brother."

But Umé was always quick at thinking of a way out of trouble. Near the entrance to the temple stood a deep basin filled with water. With this water everybody washes his hands before going in to pray. Umé lifted a spoonful of the water and rubbed it over her cousin's nose. "That will make it as well as ever," she told Tei.

"What is that in your other hand?" asked Tei, seeing that Umé was using only one hand, and that the other was tightly closed.

"It is a rice-cake to feed to the goldfish in the temple lake." One can always buy rice-cakes at the temple gate, but Umé had thoughtfully brought one from her home.

Umé would have almost preferred feeding the fish to seeing the ceremony of placing the new baby under the protecting care of the patron saint of the temple. Baby Onda's father had chosen the God of Learning to be his son's patron saint. He wished to have the child become very studious and know thoroughly all the wisdom of Confucius and the old, old gods of learning and wisdom.

Before going into the temple everyone slipped out of his clogs, washed his hands, and made several bows at the entrance.

Tei's father then pulled a rope which rang a bell to attract the attention of the god. There was a moment when he clapped his hands together three times to be sure that the god was listening. After that he asked very earnestly that his little son might be carefully guarded and guided along the rough path of wisdom. Then he clapped his hands twice to show that his prayer was ended.

It was so solemn and impressive to little Umé that she forgot her rice-cake and let it drop to the temple floor as she clasped her own hands in prayer.

Then followed the gift to the gods, and one to the priest of the temple. The priest blessed the new baby and he was safely placed under the care of Sugawara-no-Michizanè, the God of Literature, in the Kameido Temple in the city of Tokio.

The ceremony was not very long. The moment it was over Umé and Tei stole as quickly as they could out of the temple, and ran down to the lake where the goldfish were waiting to be fed.

Of course they stayed there so long, feeding first one fish and then another, and watching them spread their fan-like tails and glide away to nibble the bits of rice-cake, that Tei's father came to look for them.

"We have no more time," he said gently to them. "Unless we are soon at our unworthy house, all the honorable guests will be there before us."

The jinrikisha runners were told to hurry home, and they obeyed so well that Umé and Tei clung to one another and gave little shrieks of delight.

Hardly had they reached home when the guests really did begin to arrive. All the relatives and friends came by ones and twos and threes; some in jinrikishas and some on foot,--all who had sent presents and all who had waited to bring them.

Umé and Tei counted the different pairs of clogs that were left at the veranda steps, and there were over one hundred pairs.

"Such an illustrious crowd!" said Tei, drawing in her breath with excitement.

But there was little time to count and look. The two children were needed to help pass tea and cakes to the visitors. It was dark before everybody was at last gone and the baby's first party was over.

"Baby Onda is tired with so much looking and holding and praising," said Umé to her mother as they went home through the gardens. "He will never go to sleep again, or else he will sleep for a week of days."

"He is an honorable boy child," answered her mother. "A boy must learn early to bear hardships."

"It is no hardship to receive honorable praise," said little Umé.

CHAPTER VI

CHERRY-BLOSSOM TIME

"The cherry trees in Ueno Park are in full blossom to-day," read Umé's father in the morning paper. "The Emperor visited the park yesterday to see the beautiful flowers."

"The joy began to grow with the first pink buds," Umé went on, "and now that all the cherry trees everywhere are in blossom,--in our garden, in Tei's garden, and in all the gardens; along the streets and river banks, and in all the parks, my heart is bursting with gladness."

"When hearts feel that way," said her mother, "it is because they wish to offer thanks to the gods. We will all go to the temple to-day and leave a gift, and then we will go to the beautiful Ueno Park, where there will be many others who feel the way that you do in their hearts."

"It is the way we Japanese always feel when the cherry trees hang out their pink garlands," said Umé's father.

Tara was bouncing a ball in the garden and heard this talk about the cherry blossoms.

"Wait until my festival," he said, "and then you will see what it is really like to feel gladness."

"Your festival," said Umé, "and pray what may your honorable festival be?"

"The fish-tree festival is the one I like," answered Tara, and he gave his ball a great toss into the air.

Umé looked puzzled for a moment, then she cried, "Oh, he means the Flag Festival!"

"Come, children," interrupted their mother, "find the lunch boxes and help to put all in peaceful readiness for our journey to the park."

Tara picked up Baby Yuki and gave her a toss into the air. In doing so he discovered that she had lost her name-label. It is a common thing for a Japanese child to wear a wooden label tied around his neck, on which his name and address are printed. Then if he is lost he can be returned to his home.

Tara made a new label and tied it so firmly around the baby's neck that her tiny fingers could not possibly loosen the strings.

"Now, O Yuki San," he said, "you are all ready to go to the park, where you can get lost a dozen times if you wish, honorable Sister," and he gave her another toss for good luck.

In the meantime Umé found that her clog string was broken. "I may as well get a new string for each clog," she said. "When one breaks, I find that the other soon breaks also, for loneliness."

But there were no extra strings hanging in the clog-closet where some were usually to be found, and Umé had a great hunt for them.

Yuki San, and not Saké, was the thief this time. She had put them carefully away in one of the drawers of the writing cabinet the day before, when she was playing that her shoe was a doll-baby and must be tied to her back with its strings.

By the time they were all dressed in their finest clothes, three jinrikishas were waiting at the gate, and Tara rode off proudly with his father, while Baby San sat beside her mother, and Umé rode with her grandmother.

The streets were crowded with people dressed in gay kimonos and carrying paper parasols or fans. Some were riding, some were walking, and all were happily chatting and laughing.

"Is everyone in the whole world going to Ueno Park?" Umé asked her grandmother, and immediately forgot her question in listening to the sounds of gongs and tinkling bells that filled the air. The joyous sound of bells is always a part of the Cherry-blossom Festival in Tokio, and makes the city a very merry place.

The long avenue leading up to the entrance of the park, which is on the brow of a high hill, was arched overhead with the blossoming branches of the cherry trees.

"The pink mist almost hides the blue sky," said Umé, "but the sunshine comes dancing through. See how gently it touches the pink petals with its rosy light!"

The little party rode through the park looking at the cherry trees and watching the crowds of people. Umé kept her poor grandmother's head bobbing to right and left as she spoke of one strange sight and then another.

First it was, "O Ba San, look at the Japanese baby in the American baby-carriage. It cannot be that he likes it as well as riding on his sister's back."

Next it was, "O Ba San, see the little foreign children playing with the cake-woman's stove."

Umé would have liked to stop the jinrikisha man and watch the white-faced children as they made little batter cakes and fried them over the charcoal.

"We must not stop now," said her grandmother. "Your honorable father will tell us when we may stop."

Umé came as near pouting as a Japanese maiden can. "I think I have heard that the foreign children tell their fathers when they wish to stop in the honorable ride," she murmured.

"They are all barbarians, those foreigners," said her grandmother. "You can see by the gardens of flowers that they wear upon their heads, that they know nothing of propriety."

Umé, who had never worn a hat in her life, could say nothing to that. Every little foreign girl she saw was wearing a hat on her head on which there were many flowers of half a dozen different colors and kinds. Although it was a sight to hurt her eyes, Umé would have been glad to leave the jinrikisha and study the dresses of the little foreigners. Most of all she wished to join them in their play of cake-making.

"They must be glad to come to Japan and learn so many new ways to be happy, O Ba San," she said.

The grandmother did not quite understand Umé's way of thinking. "In what way?" she asked.

"To ride among the beautiful cherry trees, with their delicious pink odors, in the beginning," said Umé. "I know that in no other country can the trees be so lovely and hold so many flowers."

As if her father knew that Umé longed to see something of the foreign children's play, he stopped his own jinrikisha man at that very moment, and the rest of his party stopped beside him.

Under a particularly large and beautiful cherry tree a group of both foreign and Japanese children were gathered around a peddler who carried a tray of candies upon his head. In one hand he held a drum and on his shoulder perched a monkey dressed in a bright colored kimono.

The man danced and sang a funny song about the troubles of Daruma, a snow man. Once in a while he beat the drum, and all the time he was jumping and twisting about until it seemed as if his tray of candies must surely fall off his head to the ground; but it never did.

When the monkey jumped from his master's shoulder and snatched off one of the boys' caps, putting it on his own head, all the people, big and little, screamed with joy.

By that time a great crowd of merrymakers had collected, and Umé's father told his coolie to go on. So the little party started on again, and soon passed an open space among the trees where Japanese fireworks were shooting into the air. The Japanese send off their fireworks in the daytime, as well as at night, to make their festivals more festive.

The swish of the quick flight of a rocket into the air made every one look up. In a moment a big paper bird popped out of the rocket and came sailing slowly down to light on the top of one of the trees.

Then another rocket, and still another, was sent up, and from one came a golden dragon with a long red tongue and a still longer tail.

Umé's father dismissed all of the jinrikisha coolies, and after they had watched the fireworks a little while, the family went into a tea-house to eat their lunch and rest from the confusion.

As Tara looked out over the gaily dressed crowds he said boastfully, "There can be no other country in the world with such fine, brave people."

"It is true that we are a brave people," his father answered. "Many times, when I was no older than you are, little son, has my mother wakened me very early in the morning and put a toy sword into my hand. 'Your companions are out playing the sword-game. Join them!' were her words. And although the ground was white with snow, and I was very sleepy, I always went as she bade me."

Tara looked at his father in admiration.

"There has been much fighting with real swords here in this very park," his father continued. "There was once a big battle under these cherry trees where you see nothing to-day but crowds of happy people with no thought of anything but enjoying the Cherry-blossom Festival."

"I shall not be perfectly happy until I have made cakes as the foreign children were doing," said Umé.

In the path outside the tea-house Umé had caught sight of a woman with a little charcoal fire in a copper brazier, which she thought her father might also see. The little old woman was neatly dressed, and carried over her right shoulder a bamboo pole from which hung the brazier, a griddle, some ladles and cake-turners. There was also a big blue and white jar of batter and a smaller one of sauce.

Umé's father beckoned to the woman, and to the children's joy she brought the things to the tea-house door, where Umé was allowed to make cakes for the whole family.

Baby San toddled up the steps with a cake for the grandmother. On the way she tumbled down and dropped it in the dirt. Then a fresh one had to be made and carried very carefully up the steps.

There were many children, with their fathers and mothers, coming and going past the tea-house. There were groups of students and parties of young ladies; there were jugglers and toy peddlers; and over everything the cherry trees were scattering their falling petals.

There was a merry-go-round near the tea-house, and the crowds of people made it a gay place with their fun and frolic.

It was lucky that Baby Yuki had her tag around her neck. Once she slipped beyond her mother's watchful care and was only found after much questioning and searching.

When, at last, she was placed once more in her mother's arms, the grandmother said that it was time to go home.

"We have seen many cherry blossoms, and Umé's heart must be peacefully small once more," she said. "It is better to go home before we tire of so much merriment."

The jinrikisha men trotted all the way home, and the happy day was over all too soon.

CHAPTER VII

THE FLAG FESTIVAL

It was the fifth day of the fifth month, which is the day of the Flag Festival in Japan.

Tara slipped out of his wooden clogs and ran into the room where Umé was gathering her books together for school. "Baby Onda's fish is up at last," he shouted, "and as far as you can see the ocean of air is full of fishes. Did I not say that the fifth day of the fifth month would be filled with gladness?" he demanded.

"Yes, Tara, but I have far too much to do to talk with you now," said Umé very primly.

"At least you can condescend to come out on the veranda just one moment to look at cousin Onda's fish."

"Very well, honorable Brother," said Umé, and she followed him to the veranda.

Both children laughed aloud at the sight of the enormous paper carp flying from the top of the bamboo pole on their cousin's house. The fish was at least twenty feet long and was made of strong Japanese paper. Its great mouth and eyes were wide open and it had swallowed so much air that it looked filled to bursting. A mighty wind blew it this way and that, up and down, making it look like a real fish that had been caught with a hook and was trying to escape.

"Onda's father is augustly proud because he has a son," said Umé. "He has found the biggest fish in all Tokio to fly, and the people will know that he has only a very little son."

"He will grow larger," said Tara loyally.

"And as he grows larger the fish will grow smaller," answered Umé. "Your own fish is only half as large as Onda's."

From a pole in the Utsuki house flew Tara's fish, while from poles as far as the eye could see flew fishes of all sizes and colors. Some poles held two, three, or even five or six fishes. There was a fish for every boy who lived in every house, and every fish was a carp, because in Japan the carp is the fish that can swim against the swift river currents and leap over waterfalls.

In the room where the dolls had sat in state for the girls there is now a shelf for the boys' toys. There are many toy soldiers, figures of great heroes, men in armor, men wearing helmets and carrying swords, and some carrying guns or drawing tiny cannon on wheels. Tara had his soldiers arranged as if they were fighting a battle, and it was truly a most warlike scene.

The morning had been full of excitement. Tara had already observed the day by taking a bath in very hot water steeped with iris flowers. He had arranged his toys and soldiers. He had been to the kite-maker and bought a huge kite decorated with a picture of the sun in the brilliant red color which is dear to all Japanese children.

He had also run over in his mind the stories that he could remember of Japanese warriors of the past, for well he knew that before the day was over his mother would question him about them all.

He had also recited his catechism to Umé, and had answered bravely all the questions as she read them.

"What do you love best in the world?"

"The Emperor, of course."

"Better than your father and mother?"

"He is the father of my father and mother."

"What will you give the Emperor?"

"All my best toys, and my life when he needs it."

Now he was busy tying a long silk string to his kite and getting it ready to fly.

Umé forgot her school books and ran down the garden path to look once more at the bed of iris which was now in full bloom beside the brook.

"To-morrow I will gather some of the leaves and flowers," she said, "and arrange them in the tall green jar for the alcove. That will keep away evil spirits from our home."

Then she ran back to the house, making the motions of the flying fishes with her hands.

"If I were an honorable boy," she cried, "I would sail away from Japan to every country where there are dragons, and kill them all. Then I would come back home again and tell all about it, so that all the children and their children, as long as Japan lasts, would learn about me!"

Tara looked at Umé as contemptuously as a Japanese boy ever looks at his sister, which is not saying much, because in Japan the boys and girls are taught to be most polite to each other.

"That is not the way of a true patriot," he said. "We men must stay at home and defend our country from enemies that may attack us from without. True glory will find us; we do not need to run all over the world looking for it, and then perhaps, miss it after all."

"Well spoken, my son," said his father from the veranda, where he had heard Tara's words. To Umé he said, "Our bravest men, the men who have given their lives for their country, and whose names will ever be spoken with reverence by our children's children, have died in the home-land."

He spoke solemnly, and Tara, who adored his father, moved close to his side as if to catch his brave spirit.

Umé also loved her father. She was grieved that he should speak to her in a tone of rebuke. She whirled about and fluttered to his other side, nestling under his arm and smiling the sweetest of smiles up into his face.

"Now I see, O Chichi San, why we fly the brave carp for our boys," she said prettily, "and why we steep the hardy iris flower in their bath water."

Her father looked down into her face. "You knew that very well before," he said with a smile. "You have heard of the wonderful strength of the carp ever since Tara was born. You know that every father who flies a paper carp for his son at this festival time does it with the hope that the boy will heed the sign and grow courageous and strong to overcome every obstacle."

But Umé still smiled up into her father's face. She felt that he was not yet quite pleased with her.

"Will you not come home early from the honorable business and tell us stories of the old war heroes?" she asked softly. "The mother tells them faithfully well, leaving out no brave detail, but she has never fought, as you have done, for our beloved Emperor. It is you alone who can make us feel the joy of battle so that even I wish I could wear a sword and fight with it for our country."

Umé had conquered. Her father put his hand upon her head in loving consent. "When our women also are ready to give their lives for Japan," he said, "the country will never suffer defeat."

But Umé told her cousin Tei later in the day that one need not always fight to win a victory.

CHAPTER VIII

THE SINGING INSECTS

Umé sat on the edge of the veranda, taking coins from a little silk bag and spreading them out before her.

"Ichi, ni, san, shi, go," she counted, up to fourteen. "Fourteen sen," she said. "If I had one more I could buy the kind of singing insect I like best."

"What is that?" asked Tara.

"It is a kirigirisu."

"What shall you buy, then?" asked Tara.

"I shall have to buy a suzumushi, and two other honorably cheap ones," Umé told him.

"Ask the august father for one more sen," Tara advised.

But Umé shook her head. "The august father has given me all the sen he has for me this month," she answered.

"How do you know?"

"Because I have already asked for one more sen, and that was his honorable answer."

"I have one sen which you may have if you will let me call the kirigirisu partly mine," said Tara. "I have a black cricket, a little grass lark, that I caught in our own garden last night, and it chirps so cheerfully that I do not need to buy any other singing insect."

"It does not matter whose insect it is," said Umé, "if it only sings."

So Tara gave his sen to Umé and she went to find Tei, who went with her down to the street of shops. There, among numberless other booths, the children found one where nothing but singing insects were for sale.

The insects were of different colors and sizes. Some were black, some were brown and some were bright green. The one that Umé chose looked much like a brown grasshopper.

"He sings most musically in the hours of darkness," said the insect merchant. "While you lie in your bed he will say to you, 'Tsuzuré--sasé, sasé, sasé.'"

Both little girls laughed at the words, which mean, "Torn clothes--patch up, patch up, patch up."

"They are strange words for the honorable insect-singer," said Tei.

Each insect was in a little cage which was made of horsehair or fine strands of bamboo. The cages were of different shapes and sizes for the different kinds of insects. Some were tall and shaped like a bee-hive, some were oblong and others were square. Umé's kirigirisu was in a cage four inches long.

Tei also had a few sen. She looked at many insects carefully and finally chose a beautiful bright green grasshopper that made a sound like the weaving of a loom:--"Ji-i-i-i, chon-chon! Ji-i-i-i, chon-chon!"

Then home trotted the two little girls with their cunning cages.

It was a very warm day and the good mother was waiting for them with cups of cold tea. She looked at the insects and smiled at the baby who kotowed an honorable welcome to them.

"When I was a child," she said, "my unselfish mother told me a wise story about those same two insects."

Immediately the children seated themselves.

"We will be most respectfully quiet and listen, if you will tell it to us," said Umé.

"Long, long ago," began the mother, "when Japan was young, there were two faithful and obedient daughters who supported their blind old father by the labor of their hands. The elder girl spent all her days in weaving while the other was just as industriously sewing. In that way they took faithful care of their blind father for many years.

"Finally the old man died, and so deeply did the two daughters mourn for him that soon they died also.

"One summer evening a strange sound was heard on their graves. It was a new sound that no one had ever heard there before, and it was made by two little insects which were swinging and singing on a blade of grass above the place where the two daughters lay.

"On the tomb of the elder was a pretty green insect, producing sounds like those made by a girl weaving,--'Ji-i-i-i, chon-chon! Ji-i-i-i, chon-chon!' This was the first weaver-insect. On the tomb of the younger sister was an insect which kept crying out,--'Tsuzuré--sasé, sasé! tsuzuré--sasé sasé, sasé!' ('Torn clothes--patch up, patch up! Torn clothes--patch up, patch up, patch up!') This was the first kirigirisu.

"Since that time these same little insects cry to every Japanese mother and daughter to work well before the cold winter days, to do all the weaving and sewing and mending and have the winter clothing ready.

"We used to believe that the spirits of the two girls took these shapes," she ended.

In the silence that followed the story, Tei's little insect sang, "Ji-i-i, chon-chon! Ji-i-i, chon-chon!" and Umé's answered, "Tsuzuré, sasé, sasé! Tsuzuré, sasé, sasé!"

The night was creeping over the garden. The sound of the temple bells rang through the air, and little flashes of light twinkled in unexpected places.

The children gathered closer to the mother and begged for one more story before bed-time.

"Did you ever hear of Princess Splendor?" she asked.

The children never had heard the story, and their mother told it to them.

"She was a beautiful little moon-child who came down to the world hundreds of years ago. There was but one way for her to come, and that was on a silver moonbeam.

"While she sat on a pine branch resting from her journey, a wood-cutter found her and took her to his home, where she stayed for many years.

"But the Emperor, passing through the forest, wondered why the little brown house of the wood-cutter shone with such a wonderful glow, and when he found that there was a beautiful moon-child there, he went to see her.

"By day or by night it was just the same with the house; it always shone with the glory of the Princess Splendor.

"Of course the Emperor wished to marry her; but he had been too late in finding her, because she was to return to her home in the moon at the end of twenty years, and the end of the twenty years had come.

"She begged to stay with the Emperor and began to weep, but it was of no use. The moon-mother took her home and tried to comfort her; but her tears went on falling, and they take wings to themselves as fast as they fall. These fireflies are the golden tears of the lovely Princess Splendor."

It was quite dark when the story was finished, and Tei jumped up. "I must go home and show the intelligent insect to my honorable mother," she said.

"Tara and I will walk across the gardens with you," said Umé.

She reached under the veranda for three slender bamboo poles, while Tara ran for candles to put in the paper lanterns which hung on the end of the poles.

Soon the three lanterns went bobbing down the garden path through the dusk, and the sound of happy voices floated back to the mother.

"It was of no use!" said Umé's voice.

"What was of no use?" asked Tara.

"Princess Splendor could not marry the right prince," answered Umé.

The mother smiled, and rising, carried Yuki San into the house, while the temple bells were still ringing through the twilight.

CHAPTER IX

A TRIP TO KAMAKURA

It was a hot morning in midsummer. The veranda shutters had been open all night and the shoji had been only half closed so that tiny breezes might creep through to cool the pink cheek of Umé San, as she lay on the floor under a thin silk coverlet.

All night the kirigirisu had sung in his cage near Umé's bed; and all night the mosquitoes had buzzed and sung outside of Umé's own cage of green mosquito netting.

At four o'clock, just as the sun peeped into the room, Umé opened her eyes. "Oh, little kirigirisu," she whispered, "I like your singing much better than that of the mosquitoes. Gladly would I put them all in a cage in the godown."

Then she thought of her morning-glories and pattered out into the garden to look at them.

"How lovely they are," she said, as she touched them gently with her fingers. "This white one makes me think of Fujiyama when it is covered with snow; and this pink one is like the mountain at sunrise."

As she spoke, the little girl looked across the city roofs to where her beloved mountain, Fujiyama, lifted its head like an inverted flower, tinged with the pink of the rising sun.

Just then her father came out to look at the morning-glories, too, and after the morning greetings, Umé told him her fancy about Fujiyama.

"Your thought is a poem, little daughter," said her father. "This very day you shall see the mountain in all its glory. Here we can see only its snow-capped crown, but on the way to Kamakura there are wonderful views of our sacred Fuji."

After breakfast there were great preparations for the journey to Kamakura. First, each one in the family, one after the other, had to take a hot bath. Then the best kimonos were put on, and the best paper parasols were taken out of a long box in the godown.

One servant ran to order the jinrikishas to take them to the station. Another packed rice, pickled radishes, and tiny strips of raw fish into the lunch boxes.

Umé's mother was in every part of the house at once, and even the grandmother seemed excited at the thought of going to the seashore.

Umé ran across the garden to tell Tei about the trip and bid her cousin sayonara, and Tara found a box of his best fishhooks and tucked them into his sleeve pocket.

"I may catch an eel," he said, "and then we can have it fried for our dinner."

At last the whole family were in the jinrikishas and were whirled so fast to the station that they had to wait a long time for the train.

The children were glad to stand on the platform, watching the throngs of people and seeing the interesting sights. Newsboys were running everywhere calling their papers; strangely-dressed foreigners were hiring jinrikisha-runners to take them over the city; a police sergeant was walking up and down; and electric cars were bringing passengers to the station with much ringing of bells and clanging of gongs.

"I fear Yuki-ko will not like her first ride in a train," said Umé, as the child hid her face in her mother's kimono at the sight of a big engine.

"I well remember my first sight of an engine," said the grandmother. "When I was a little girl there was not a railroad track in all Japan. When the first trains ran through the country, the peasant women thought the engines were horrible demons, and ran screaming away from the puffing and hissing."

"I, too, remember the first engines," said the father. "Many were the honorably strange sights that went with them. One morning a man took off his clogs at this admirable station and set them with worthy care upon the platform before he entered the train. It was his peaceful expectation to find them waiting for him when he left the train in Yokohama."

At that moment an engine came puffing down the track, and soon they were all seated in one of the open cars and gliding swiftly out of the city.

The children pointed out to each other the lotus blossoms in the moats, the little boats in the canal and the freight boats on the Sumida river.

The father and mother talked about the tea-farms and the fields of rice and millet through which they were passing. Many crows flew cawing over the heads of men and women who were working in the deep mud of the rice fields.

"Pretty birds!" called Baby San.

"She means the white herons," said Tara. Dozens of the long-legged herons were stalking about in the muddy fields near the track; and farther away, many pieces of white paper fluttered from strings which were stretched across the fields of rice.

Yuki San saw no difference between the birds and the fluttering bits of white paper.

"Those small white ones scare the unworthy crows away, little flower Sister," explained Tara; but the baby sister shook her head and said, "No, pretty birds!"

Umé turned the baby's head gently away from the fluttering scarecrows. "Look at the pretty flowers," she said.

Beautiful lotus blossoms were growing in the muddy ditches beside the track. The baby bobbed her head to them and begged them to stand still, but they all hurried past the hands she held out to them.

"The lotus is Buddha's flower," said O Ba San. "It grows out of the dirt and slime to give us blossoms of rare beauty. Such may be the growth of our hearts if we choke not their good impulses."

"It is a long way from Buddha's flower to his mountain," said Umé, as she looked off to where Fuji rose in the distance.

"Is it true," asked Tara, "that on the days when we cannot see the mountain through the mist, it is because it has gone on a visit to the gardens of the gods?"

"That is what I always thought when I was a child," his grandmother answered.

"And do many pilgrims every year climb the long way up its steep sides to the top?"

"Yes, my child."

"And must I also climb to the top some day, if I wish to please the gods?"

"Yes, unless the gods should honorably please to take away your power to climb."

"Oh," gasped Umé, "I hope the gods will never do that!"

She looked anxiously at her feet and said, "I hope they will never need my feet for anything. So unworthily short a time have I used them, that they cannot be fit for the gods."

"Let your use of them be always in the service of the gods, and the more honorably old they grow, the more favor will they find in the sight of the gods," answered her grandmother.

But Tara did not like such serious talk. "How does the earth get back on the mountain--the earth that the pilgrims bring down every day on their sandals?" he asked.

"It is said that it goes back of itself by night," his grandmother replied, and added, "but I would rather speak of the path of straw sandals which the pilgrims leave behind them as they toil up the rough sides of Fujiyama."

"Then what do they do?" asked Umé.

"They take many pairs with them, so that when one pair is worn out they may have others."

"But I thought the pilgrims were honorably poor," said Umé.

"Not always," said her grandmother. "And sandals cost but an insignificant sum. A pair may be bought for a few rin."

"Then I will go myself, some time," said Umé, as if the only reason she had never been to the mountain-top was because she had never known the price of sandals.

But before they could say anything more they were in Yokohama, where they were to leave the train and ride in jinrikishas to Kamakura.

After they had left this city, with its busy streets, its harbor dotted with boats and big foreign ships riding at anchor, the road led along a bluff from which there was a beautiful view of the bay.

It was intensely hot and the noonday sun beat fiercely down upon them. Umé held a big paper parasol carefully over her grandmother, and Tara and his father waved their fans slowly back and forth to catch the little breezes from the sea.

In the distance were green fields of rice, little vegetable farms, tiny houses, low blue hills, and beyond all, Fujiyama, rising majestically to the clear blue sky.