A DAY IN SCHOOL

What country is it that starts its children off to school very early in the morning? Japan, of course, the island kingdom, "The Land of the Rising Sun,"--and that is as it should be.

It was early in the "hour of the hare," as time would have been reckoned in the days of old Japan; but the American clock in the kitchen said half-past six, when UmÉ finished dressing for school.

She wore a plum-colored plaited skirt, with a blue kimono tucked inside, and she said to her mother, "May I now go to the honorable lesson-learn school, O Haha San?"

There was plenty of time between half-past six and seven o'clock for her to reach the school building and be in line with the other children when they greeted the teacher.

But all the other little girls were bending up and down in their greeting to the teacher when UmÉ at last slipped into her place among them. She said her happy "Ohayo!" just after the other lips were all closed upon the "good-morning."

She whispered to Tei as they slipped into their seats, "We must eat our unworthy lunches together. I have brought a bad piece of pickled radish for you. It was because I ran back to the dirty house for it that I was honorably late."

The Japanese people are all alike! When they mean one thing they say another. UmÉ really meant that their lunch was delicious; that her pickled radish was the best to be had in Tokio; and her house the sweetest and cleanest in the world; but it would have been very bad manners to say so; and to be late to school is not at all honorable in Japan.

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.

UmÉ's teacher read the lesson aloud and the children read it after her. They read from the bottom to the top of the page, from right to left, and from the end of the book to the beginning.

From seven until twelve o'clock the children were busy with their lessons and recitations, stopping to eat their lunches in the middle of the forenoon, and for a short recess at the end of every hour.

UmÉ loved to go to school. Tara always said, "It is because I am obliged to, that I go to school," but UmÉ knew that her school-days were the happiest she would have for many years. After they were over, she would go to her husband's house and take the lowest place in his family, as is the custom of Japanese maidens.

Before that time she must learn to sew, cook and direct the servants in every household duty; she must also learn the tea-ceremony and the ceremony of flower arrangement.

All these things she learns, as well as reading, writing and music.

The tea-ceremony, which sounds so simple, is a very old and difficult one. Every position of the one who conducts it, as well as that of the bowl, spoon, tea-caddy and towel, is regulated by rule.

Bowls are used instead of teapots, and tea powder instead of tea leaves. There is a sweeping of the room at the right time, and a walking out into the garden at another right time. Oh, it is not so simple as it sounds!

The ceremony of arranging flowers is also very hard to learn. People who have learned it thoroughly are said to have charming dispositions as a reward of merit. They are gentle, self-controlled, peaceful-hearted and always at ease in the presence of their superiors, besides having many other virtues.

UmÉ enjoyed it all. Everything she did was prettily and gracefully done. Whether she bent over a difficult, unruly spray of blossoms, or over her writing brush to make the difficult characters, her sweet oval face was never clouded.

After the writing lesson was over on this opening day, she took her copy book, which was soggy with much India ink and water, and beckoned Tei to take hers also into the yard. There they spread the books in the sun to dry.

Tei's family had been away for a month for the sake of Baby Onda's health, and the two little girls had not seen each other until now.

"What did you see at Nikko?" asked UmÉ.

"We saw the most beautiful building in Japan; the tomb of the great Iyeyasu," answered Tei.

"I also was at Nikko and played with Tei in the temple yard," said a third child who overheard their talk.

The three little girls walked back to the school-room together and UmÉ said, "I have asked my mother to take me to Nikko some time."

"There are beautiful temples there," said Tei. "The mad pony of the illustrious Iyeyasu is there in a stable which has wonderful carvings over the doorway. It was there we saw the three monkeys your honorable mother spoke about one day."

UmÉ drew her breath in a long sigh. "I have always wished to see those monkeys," she said.

"After you have seen them," said Tei, "you will never again wish to see evil, hear evil, nor speak evil."

The little girls drew away from one another and fell into the three positions. They made a cunning picture as they stood, UmÉ with her fingers over her ears, Tei with her mouth covered, and the third little girl covering her eyes.

The teacher stood in the doorway and smiled--"The little dumb monkey, the little deaf monkey, and the monkey that will not see any evil!" he said.

The three little monkeys bowed to the ground and ran laughing for their lunch boxes.

"What do you think Tara is doing in his school this minute?" asked Tei, as they began eating rice-cakes.

"He is perhaps having military drill," said UmÉ. "Or he maybe is hearing about Iyeyasu; that when he went into battle he wore a handkerchief over his head, but after the victory he put on his helmet."

Tei sighed. "I wish there were not so many things to learn about our great heroes," she said.

UmÉ laughed. "Let not the honorable teacher hear you say such a thing," she said, "else we shall have another history book given us, with the example of brave and loyal Japanese women to read in it."

No country in the world has so many books of history for the children to learn as Japan. It was not strange that Tei sometimes found it wearisome. There was all the history of Old Japan to be learned, as well as all about the New Japan, and even UmÉ was never sorry when the noon hour arrived and they were dismissed from school.

They bowed low to the teacher, and the teacher bowed low to them, and they clattered toward home with a great chattering of soft voices.

But the voices were all hushed when UmÉ told her playmates that she had visited Benten Sama's temple at Enoshima in the time of great heat.

"Oh, UmÉ! what favor did you ask of the dear goddess?" asked Tei.

UmÉ shook her head, as she had done when Tara asked her the same question.

"I will wait and see if she grants it to me before I tell it to any one," she said, and opened her pretty paper parasol.