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[Illustration: UMÉ SAN IN THE FIELD OF IRIS]
LITTLE PEOPLE EVERYWHERE
UMÉ SAN
IN JAPAN
BY ETTA BLAISDELL McDONALD
AND JULIA DALRYMPLE
Authors of "Manuel in Mexico," "Raphael in
Italy," "Kathleen in Ireland," etc.
[Illustration]
Illustrated
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1909
_Copyright, 1909_,
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
_All rights reserved._
Published September, 1909.
Printers
S. J. PARKHILL & CO., BOSTON, U. S. A.
PREFACE
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; who are taught
filial respect, reverence, and unquestioning obedience, but are
surrounded in their homes with an atmosphere of kindness, cheerfulness
and loving care.
It is true that the New Japan is very different from the Old. Railway
trains and electric cars are taking the place of the jinrikisha and
kago; modern school-houses, with desks, chairs, blackboards, and the
latest methods of teaching are fast replacing the tiny school-room with
its matted floors and its lessons learned by rote. But the spirit of the
common people is unchanged. The children play the same games and listen
to the same delightful tales; and their fathers and mothers hold to
their old superstitions, their ancestor-worship and their love of
nature.
This story is a picture of the simple life of a Japanese family. To
follow little Umé San through the year, to play with her dolls on the
days of the Dolls' Festival, to go with her to the parks to admire the
cherry blossoms or chrysanthemums and join the crowds who are
celebrating these joyous seasons, to feed the goldfishes and doves in
the temple gardens, to buy toys and gifts in the streets of shops, and
to welcome the New Year with festivity and merrymaking, is to catch a
glimpse of the rare charm and spirit that pervade life in this "Land of
the Rising Sun."
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. LITTLE MISS PLUM BLOSSOM . . . . . . . 1
II. UMÉ'S BIRTHDAY . . . . . . . . . 9
III. TEI BUYS A DOLL . . . . . . . . . 18
IV. THE DOLLS' FESTIVAL . . . . . . . . 26
V. A VISIT TO THE TEMPLE . . . . . . . 36
VI. CHERRY-BLOSSOM TIME . . . . . . . . 42
VII. THE FLAG FESTIVAL . . . . . . . . 51
VIII. THE SINGING INSECTS . . . . . . . . 57
IX. A TRIP TO KAMAKURA . . . . . . . . 63
X. THE ISLAND OF SHELLS . . . . . . . . 74
XI. A DAY IN SCHOOL . . . . . . . . . 82
XII. YUKI SAN IN THE STREET OF SHOPS . . . . . 88
XIII. THE EMPEROR'S BIRTHDAY . . . . . . . 95
XIV. DARUMA SAMA . . . . . . . . . . 104
XV. NEW YEAR'S DAY . . . . . . . . . 111
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Umé San in the Field of Iris . . . . FRONTISPIECE
Boys Playing Marbles . . . . . . . _Page_ 12
Umé Riding in a Jinrikisha . . . . . " 37
"The Cherry Trees in Ueno Park are in full
Blossom" . . . . . . . . " 42
There was a Fish for every Boy . . . . " 52
Fujiyama, the Sacred Mountain . . . . " 69
"Nothing can harm the Great Buddha" . . . " 73
"Umé caught her first Glimpse of the Lovely
Green Island" . . . . . . . . " 74
The Street of Shops and Asakusa Temple . . " 91
UMÉ SAN IN JAPAN
CHAPTER I
LITTLE MISS PLUM BLOSSOM
The little plum tree in the garden had blossomed regularly every year
for ten years on the twentieth day of the second month. That day was
Plum Blossom's birthday.
On the day that she was born the little plum tree had blossomed for the
first time. For that reason she was called Umé, which is the Japanese
word for "plum blossom"; and for her sake the tree had opened its first
blossoms on that same day for the next nine years.
Now, on the day before her eleventh birthday, all the buds were closed
hard and fast. Umé looked at them just before going to bed and there
seemed no chance of their opening for several days.
"Perhaps the weather will be fine to-morrow, Umé-ko," said her mother,
as she spread a wadded quilt on the floor for her little daughter's bed.
"If it is, and the sun shines honorably bright, the buds may open before
the hour of sunset."
"I will say a prayer to Benten Sama that it may be so," answered Umé.
Benten Sama is the Japanese goddess of good fortune, to whom the little
girl prayed very often.
She knelt upon the mat and bent down until her forehead touched the
floor, after the Japanese manner of making an honorable bow. She clapped
her hands softly three times, and then rubbed one little pink palm
against the other while she prayed.
"Dear Benten Sama," she said, "grant that just one little spray of the
plum blossoms may open to-morrow."
For a moment she was very still, and then she added, "If they are open
when I first wake in the morning, I will honorably practise on my koto
for one whole hour after breakfast."
Then little Umé Utsuki slipped into her bed upon the floor, laid her
head on the thin cushion of her wooden pillow, and drew the soft puff
under her cunning Japanese chin.
"Good-night, dear Benten Sama," she whispered softly, and fell asleep
with the words of an old Japanese song on her drowsy tongue:--
"Evening burning!
Little burning!
Weather, be fair to-morrow!"
The buds on the plum tree outside were closed hard and fast, and the
house walls about Umé were also tightly closed. The bright moon in the
heavens could find no chink through which to send a cheering ray to
little Umé San.
All through the night the frost sparkled on the bare twigs of the dwarf
trees in the garden. All through the night the plum tree stood still and
made no sign that Benten Sama had heard Umé's prayer. When the moonbeams
grew pale in the morning light the buds were still tightly closed.
Umé stirred in her bed on the floor, crept softly to the screen in the
wall and pushed it open. She moved the outer shutter also along its
groove and stepped off the veranda without even stopping to put on her
white stockings or her little wooden clogs.
Down the garden path to the plum tree she pattered as fast as her bare
feet could carry her.
Alas, there was nothing to be seen on her plum tree but brown buds!
She looked up into the gray morning sky and tried to think of something
else; but her gay little kimono covered a heart that was heavy with
disappointment.
The tears tried to force their slow way into her eyes, but the little
girl blinked them back again.
Umé's ten years had been spent in learning the hard lesson of bearing
disappointments cheerfully. Now, with the shadow of tears filling her
eyes, she tried to bring the shadow of a smile to her tiny mouth.
"Benten Sama did not honorably please to open the buds," she whispered
with a sob.
Then, standing on the frosty ground, with her bare toes numb from the
cold, Umé made a rebellious little resolve deep in her heart where she
thought Benten Sama would know nothing about it.
She resolved not to practise on her koto at all after breakfast.
There were two reasons for making the resolve so secretly. She might
wish to pray to Benten Sama again some time, although if the goddess
were not going to answer her prayers it did not seem at all likely; and
besides, it was being very disobedient, because it was the rule that she
must practise one-half hour every morning after breakfast.
Suddenly she realized that her disobedience would hurt her mother, who
was not at all to blame because the plum tree had not blossomed; but
just as her resolution began to weaken, her mother came out upon the
veranda and called to her.
"The plum branch which your august father brought home only a week ago
is full of blossoms," she said, as she led the child back into the
house.
It was true. In a beautiful vase on the floor of the honorable alcove
stood a spray of white plum blossoms. Umé's mother pushed the sliding
walls of the room wide open so that the morning sun might shine full
upon the flowers.
The little girl ran across the matted floor and knelt joyously before
them. "They are most honorably welcome!" she cried, and bent her
forehead to the floor in salutation.
She forgot at once her disappointment in the garden and her resolve not
to practise. She touched the sweet blossoms with loving fingers and
called her brother to look at the beautiful things.
"Come Tara San! Come and look at the eldest brother of a hundred
flowers!" she called.
Not only Tara, her brother, but Yuki, her baby sister, also came to bend
over the blossoms in delight.
The spray stood in a brown jar filled with moist earth; here and there
the brown color of the jar was flecked with drifts of white to represent
the snow on bare earth, and the branch looked like a tiny tree growing
out of the ground.
The plum is the first of all the trees to blossom in Japan, and for that
reason it is called "eldest brother" to the flowers.
While the children touched the blossoms gently and chattered their
delight, their mother was busy, waking the servants, sliding back all
the wooden shutters of the house, folding the bedding and putting it
away in the closets.
Umé left her flower-gazing and sprang to her own puffs before her mother
could touch them. "I will put them away," she said, and folded them
carefully as she had been taught to do. After breakfast they would have
to be taken out and aired; but the room must first be put in order for
the morning meal.
Umé's bed was made, as are all Japanese beds, by spreading a quilted
puff upon the floor. With another puff over her, and a wooden block on
which to rest her head, the little girl slept as comfortably as most
people sleep on mattresses and soft pillows.
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. That was to be expected, and had even
been hinted. The grandmother had mentioned an envelope of paper
handkerchiefs the very day before, after Umé had made an unusually
graceful bow to her.
In her heart Umé wanted most a pair of little American shoes, but she
had never dared to ask for them because her father did not like the
dress of the American women. In fact, he often told Umé to observe
carefully how much more graceful and attractive the kimono is than the
strange clothing worn by the foreign people.
The little girl sighed as she remembered it. Just then she heard her
father's step in the next room and turned quickly to bow before him.
The maids had brought several lacquered trays into the room, one for
each member of the family, and had set them near together on the floor.
Each tray had short legs, three or four inches high, and looked like a
toy table. On the tray was placed a pair of chopsticks, a dainty china
bowl and a tiny cup. Now one maid was beginning to fill the bowls with
boiled rice and another was pouring tea into the cups.
All three children remained standing until the father entered the room.
Then each one, even Baby San, bowed before him, kneeling on the floor
and touching his forehead to the mat and saying, "Good morning,
honorable Father."
To their mother the children bowed in the same way, and also to their
grandmother when she came into the room. Everything would have been most
quiet and proper but for the baby. She liked to bump her little forehead
on the floor so well that she kept on kotowing to old black Tama, the
tailless cat, who stalked into the room. As if that were not enough, she
bowed to each one of the breakfast trays until her mother seated her
before one of them and gave her a pair of tiny chopsticks.
Then there was the waiting until the grandmother and the father and
mother were served, which seemed to the baby to take too long a time.
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.
His jinrikisha was waiting at the garden gate. In their place on the
flat stone at the house entrance stood his wooden clogs, and all the
family gathered at the door to bid him "Sayonara."