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."
[Illustration: "The Cherry Trees in Ueno Park are in full Blossom."
_Page 42._]
Umé turned from looking at the cherry blossoms in the garden to look at
her mother who stood on the veranda.
"Something will honorably give way in my heart, O Haha San," she said.
"What do you mean, Umé-ko?" asked her mother.
"My heart is greatly joyous over so many blossoms," answered the little
girl. "It has grown so big that I would feel better if it should take
itself to the godown and leave me without it."
"Foolish Umé!" said her mother, but she smiled at the child's fancy.
"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.