DARUMA SAMA

Among the stories which O Ba San told to UmÉ and her brother was one about Daruma Sama.

Daruma Sama was a Japanese saint who lived many, many years ago. It was his great desire to cross the sea on a leaf, but in order to do so it was first necessary for him to pray long and sincerely to the gods.

He knelt in prayer for many years, and at last his feet and legs fell from his body because they had been idle so long a time.

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 twenty-four hours at a time, and sometimes there is a winter with almost no snow at all.

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. 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.

He was so eager that his fingers slipped and pushed a hole through the paper covering of the shoji. His mother looked sadly at the torn place. "It was only this morning," she said, "that I put new papers on the shoji to be in readiness for the New Year. Baby Yuki's fingers had made many holes in the paper walls."

In a moment Tara ran back into the warm room. "It is faithfully true,"' he cried. "Even now white flakes are falling."

In the morning it was as if they had moved to a different world. 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. They walk on them so much that they become expert in their use and can run and even play games on them.

UmÉ looked rather sadly at the new white world outside.

"The snow has come too soon," she said.

"Why?" asked Tara.

"Because I have no time for play," answered UmÉ. "There are gifts to finish, and I must also help the honorable mother to make all clean and sweet for the New Year."

"Let the gifts honorably wait until the hour of the horse," said Tara, "so that you may play with us this morning in the garden."

But UmÉ went dutifully to her sewing. She was making a bundle handkerchief for Tei out of a piece of bright colored crÊpe with her family crest embroidered on it.

After that was finished she made a lucky-bag to hang on the New Year's arch at the house door.

The lucky-bag was made of a square of Japanese paper. Into it UmÉ put several things which are known to bring good luck--a few chestnuts, a bit of dried fish, and a dried plum. She tied them up in the paper with a red and white paper string, and put the bag away until the arch should be ready.

New Year's Day is the most important time in the whole year in Japan. 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.

Every house is thoroughly cleaned from roof to veranda, the shoji are covered with fresh papers, 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.

On each side of the gateway two holes are dug in which are planted small pine trees. On the left is the tree which represents the father, on the right is the mother-pine. Beside these are set the graceful stems of the bamboo, the green leaves towering above the low roof and rustling in the wind. From one bamboo stalk to the other is hung a thick rope of rice-straw, beautifully plaited and knotted, to give a blessing to the household and keep out all evil spirits.

From this rope hang yellow oranges, and scarlet lobsters which with their crooked bodies signify long life and an old age bent with years. There are also fern leaves, a branch of camellia, a piece of seaweed, a lucky-bag, flags, and strips of white paper which are supposed to be images of men offering themselves to the gods.

Everything about the pine-tree arch has a meaning, and signifies wishes for health, strength, happiness, obedience, honor and a long life.

Of course there must be a decoration inside the house as well. Tara and UmÉ went to the shops with their father to choose one for the alcove room, after the Daruma Sama was made and UmÉ's sewing finished.

The children chose a harvest ship, a junk about two feet long, made of straw with twigs of pine and bamboo in the bow and stern. It was loaded with many bales of make-believe merchandise in which were little gifts, and was sprinkled with gold-dust to make it look bright. There was a red sun on one side of the boat and the sails were of scarlet paper.

On the way home they passed a shop where foreign shoes were offered for sale, and where some one at that moment was buying a pair of red shoes for a little girl about as old as UmÉ.

UmÉ held her father still to watch the child try them on her little feet, and they certainly made the feet look very pretty.

UmÉ's father smiled at the look in his daughter's eyes, but he soon drew her away to a toy-shop out of sight of the little red shoes. There they bought a ball for Baby Yuki and gifts for the mother and grandmother, going home only when they could carry nothing more.

If ever there is a time and place when enticing red shoes can be forgotten, it is New Year's time among the shops in Japan. No one ever thinks of staying indoors then, else he would miss the gayest, liveliest, brightest time of the whole year.

The shop-keepers have to fill their shelves with great quantities of new things to match the New Year; there are new games, new kimonos, new clogs, new toys for sale everywhere, and even the story-tellers brighten up their old stories to make them seem like new.

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.

When at last UmÉ said her honorable good-night to her father and mother and went to her wooden pillow she was very tired.

As she crept under the warm coverlet she whispered drowsily, "May Benten Sama, or Kwannon, or one of the illustrious goddesses give me what I have prayed for so long." Then she fell fast asleep.