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."

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.