Julia Dalrymple

“ 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?" ”

“ Japan is a paradise of flowers and of treasure-flowers, as the Japanese mothers call their babies. In no other country in the world do they both form so large a part of the daily life of the people. From the first white plum blossom to the last gorgeous chrysanthemum the path of the days is strewn with beautiful blossoms; and from the time of the Dolls' Festival to the New Year's Celebration there is a constant round of simple pleasures for the children.
Happy children! who are always laughing and never crying ”

“ Baby Yuki forgot her clogs at once. She knelt upon the floor and held up her tiny hands for the tea-bowl.
"Oh, Umé! She is too little to whip the tea," said Tei when she saw that her cousin meant to give the baby a bowl of tea powder and a bamboo brush with which to whip it into foam.
"I will watch her," answered Umé. "It may be that the dolls forget all they learn about the tea-ceremony when they are shut up in the godown for a whole year. While I am teaching Yuki San, they may learn it all over again by most carefully watching us." ”

“ The snow made the garden, with its trees and pond and bridge, look like fairyland.
"I will go to the garden-house for my stilts," said Tara, "then I can walk about in the snow on my heron-legs as the white herons walk in the mud of the rice-fields."
Stilts are made of bamboo sticks, and are called "heron-legs," after the long-legged snowy herons that strut about in the wet fields. Wooden clogs will lift their wearers out of the mud of the streets in bad weather; but the boys are always glad of an excuse to get out their stilts. ”

“ There were also many court ladies, dressed in lovely silks and crêpes, their black hair fastened with jeweled hairpins.
"Are they not beautiful?" asked Tei, clasping her hands.
Umé looked tenderly at the lower shelves, where the more common dolls and toys were placed. "These are like the people we see every day, and I love them," she told Tei; "but when I look at the emperor dolls it makes me think of our own beloved Emperor, and I would give up all my toys for him." ”

“ That last day before the New Year was a very busy one in the Utsuki household. There were gifts to be put into dainty packages, the pine-tree arch to be decorated, the last stitches to be taken in the new kimonos, and the last bills to be paid--even the smallest one that might possibly have been overlooked.
There is a beautiful custom in Japan of beginning the year without a debt. Every bill is paid and no one owes a single sen when the old year dies and the new year dawns. ”

“ The click of wooden clogs, the clank of Japanese money, and the merry talk of the children, all trying to be heard at the same time, made it a jolly affair.
The doll chosen by Tei was the one which was being admired by two other little girls at the same moment. It was a boy baby with pink cheeks and black eyes and a little fringe of very black hair; and it was dressed in a lovely red silk kimono covered with yellow chrysanthemums.
"It is very like the new brother at home," said Tei, as she counted out the sen and gave them to the doll-shopman. ”

“ The "honorable start" was made at last and the three jinrikisha coolies dashed through the gate, one behind the other, Tara and his father in the lead.
A fuzzy caterpillar was humping his way along the road outside the gate. The three runners turned aside and left a large part of the road to the caterpillar, although so much room was more than the fuzzy creature needed. The men thought that perhaps the soul of an ancestor might be in the little insect, and they feared to crush it.
The city was in its gayest holiday attire. Red and white Japanese flags adorned every house. ”

“ She sprang to her feet as she said it, and danced up and down the room, clapping her hands and singing a queer little tune.
"I have the most honorably best time in the whole year when the Dolls' Festival comes," she cried.
It was not to be wondered at. Then all the dolls and toys and games that little girls love to play with are set out on the shelves in the honorable guest room; and for three days they have a holiday from school and play all the day long.
The doll-shops are always merry with children waiting to buy dolls and crowded with dolls waiting to be bought. ”

“ It is the day when all the people, from the highest to the lowest, have a holiday. For days, and even weeks, preparations are made to celebrate the festival with proper ceremony. Never are the streets of the cities and towns so filled with gayly dressed crowds of people hurrying here and there, buying and selling, as during the last days of the dying year. ”

“ Then the cold ones may sit around the fire on the floor, draw the quilt over their knees and into their laps, and soon become perfectly warm.
Tara and Umé had heard many a delightful story as they sat snuggled under the warm quilt on winter evenings.
On this evening their father said suddenly, "The white snow-flakes will fall to-night and cover the earth as the white plum blossoms cover the trees."
Tara sprang from under the quilt and ran to open the shutters so that he might see for himself how the weather looked outside. ”

“ Umé laughed softly now as she folded the puffs away in their closet. "There are still many things to make my birthday a happy one," she said to herself. "There will be a game with Cousin Tei after breakfast, and perhaps she will give me a gift." She said the last words in a whisper, so that her mother would not hear. No matter how much she might long for a gift, it was not becoming in her to speak of it beforehand.
She was sure that there would be gifts from her father and mother and from the respected grandmother. ”

“ But one evening, only two days before the New Year Festival, the air was so chilly that the veranda shutters were all tightly closed and the shoji drawn together, while the family sat around the fireplace.
Lift up the square of matting in the middle of a Japanese living-room and you will find, sunk in the floor, a stone-lined bowl a few inches deep. This is the fireplace. When the day is cold the maid puts a shovelful of live coals into this bowl, places a wooden frame about a foot high over it, and covers all with a quilt. ”

“ 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 [pg 55] the veranda, where he had heard Tara's words. ”

“ Umé would have read many of the rules to the dolls, but her mother called both children to leave their play and go with the grandmother and old Maru to listen to story-telling in the street of theaters.
"It is a very different thing to tell the simple truth at one time and to listen to honorable stories at another," said Umé to the dolls as she left them.
In the street of theaters are many little booths in which there are men who tell the most enchanting stories. Sometimes they tell fairy stories, sometimes ghost stories, and sometimes stories of Japanese gods and heroes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The treeless streets, as far as one could see, were a bower of pine and bamboo. Little children ran into the road, dressed in new kimonos and sashes. Boys were making images of Daruma Sama in the snow, messengers were bearing gifts from one house to another, and men dressed in uniform were already going to pay their respects to their beloved Emperor. ”

“ 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?" ”

“ House-owners give the firemen a great many presents to keep them faithful to their duty.
As the two little girls watched the men running to the fire with a little box of a hand-engine, and with the beautiful standard in the lead, they thought it a fine sight.
"Tara says he is going to be a fireman when he grows up," said Umé. "He says it is because a fireman gets so many presents."
Tei shook her head. "It is a sad thing when a fire burns a thousand houses as it did in our city last year," she said. ”

“ She beat the tray with her chopsticks and called for the rice-cakes even as they were disappearing down the honorable throat of her father.
Tara laughed. He was very fond of his little sister. That she should do such an unheard-of thing as to demand cakes from her father seemed to him exceedingly funny. His father smiled, too.
"Your grandmother will have a task to teach you what is proper, Yuki San," he said.
At last the breakfast of rice, tea and raw fish was over. The little lacquer trays were all taken out of the room, and the father was ready to go to his silk shop. ”

“ Every house is thoroughly cleaned from roof to veranda, the shoji are covered with fresh papers, [pg 108] new kimonos and sashes are made, new hairpins purchased, new mats are laid on the floors and the old ones are burned.
On the last day of the old year every room is dusted with the feathery leaves of a green branch of bamboo. Then the gateway is decorated with a beautiful arch, one of the Japanese symbols of health, happiness and prosperity. ”

“ Little Japanese girls and boys do not like to be ridiculed. So, when Tara spoke that way, it usually ended in Umé's saying, "Don't call me that name, Tara. My secret was only about the tea-party that Tei and I are going to have in the garden."
And soon Tara would know just what kind of cakes they were going to have; because in Japan the cakes are made to suit the season, if one wishes to have an elaborate party. ”

“ This street is lined with booths on each side, and in each booth there is a man selling toys, or candies, or paper parasols, or kites, or something to tempt the rin and sen out of a child's pocket.
Wherever there is a temple in a Japanese city there is also a toy-shop, and where there is a toy-shop there is, of course, a toy which one must surely buy. The children love to buy the toys and play with them in the temple gardens. ”

“ In all the toy-shops there are images of this saint with his large head and big round body which has no trouble in sitting still.
The Japanese children make their snow men in the image of Daruma Sama. They give him a charcoal ball for each eye and a streak of charcoal for his nose and mouth, and then they have a fine snow man.
It was almost the end of the year before Tara had an opportunity to make a Daruma. In Tokio snow rarely covers the ground for more than [pg 105] twenty-four hours at a time, and sometimes there is a winter with almost no snow at all. ”

“ It is quite necessary to have some such place, which cannot easily be destroyed, because Japan is so often visited by earthquakes, and in the cities there are often terrible fires. Perhaps this explains why the Japanese have so little furniture and so few ornaments in their houses.
"I hope that there will not be a fire or an earthquake while the dolls are in the house," said Umé, standing off to see if there were a pair of chopsticks on each tray.
"How many dolls are there on the shelves?" asked Tei. ”

“ But Japan is a country where the people do everything in an original way. The carpenter pulls his saw toward him when he saws, and the planer pulls his plane toward him when he planes a board. Everybody sits down to work, and the horse goes into the stall tail first.
The Japanese school children can never understand how the English children can make sense out of books that one reads from left to right and from the top to the bottom of the page. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The sands were strewn with lovely shells, left by the tide, and Baby Yuki soon had the sleeve pockets of her kimono filled full of pearly beauties that looked like peach blossoms.
Tara cared nothing for the shells. He spoke [pg 75] about the great tortoise which is said to live among the caves of the island, and of the bronze dragons which twisted around the gate through which they passed to enter the long climbing street of the town.
"I will ask the august father if we may visit the cave of the dragon," he said.
"Japan must have been full of dragons once," said Umé. "Who killed them all?" ”