But it was too late! While Umé had been talking with Tei, the baby had
been pouring the tea over her head. She was still holding the bowl above
her head when Umé looked, and the water was still trickling down over
her hair and into her eyes.
She smiled sweetly up into Umé's face. "The honorable fountain!" she
said.
"The Japanese tea-ceremony has nothing to do with the honorable fountain
in the garden," said Umé as she clapped her hands for old Maru, the
nurse.
"Naruhodo!" said old Maru, as she brought towels and wiped the tea from
the baby and the mat with many exclamations of amazement.
"Naruhodo!" she repeated, as she watched the two older children try to
teach something of the tea-ceremony to the baby.
But Yuki San was soon tired of sitting still. She like to watch the tea
powder foam in the bowl, but when she tried to put her tiny hands into
the dish and play they were fishes, Umé gave her a doll and sent her off
to play by herself.
"It will never do for the dolls to see such unworthy actions," Umé told
Tei. "They will think it is all a part of the august tea-ceremony."
It was much easier to teach the dolls without the baby's help, and there
was everything to teach them with. There was a toy kitchen with its
charcoal brazier, its brushes and dishes. There was a toy work-box with
thread, needles and silk.
There were toy quilts and wooden pillows and flower vases; and there
were toy jinrikishas with their runners.
Umé and Tei taught the dolls the proper bowings for the street and those
for the house. They changed the food on the trays, and taught the girl
dolls that they must most carefully wait upon the boy dolls, as Umé
herself had been taught to wait upon Tara, although she was older than
her brother.
Umé even read aloud with much emphasis from the "Book of Learning for
Women": "Let the children be always taught to speak the simple truth, to
stand upright in their proper places, and to listen with respectful
attention."
There are many other directions in the book, all of which the little
women of Japan learn by heart. Umé would have read many of the rules to
the dolls, but her mother called both children to leave their play and
go with the grandmother and old Maru to listen to story-telling in the
street of theaters.
"It is a very different thing to tell the simple truth at one time and
to listen to honorable stories at another," said Umé to the dolls as she
left them.
In the street of theaters are many little booths in which there are men
who tell the most enchanting stories. Sometimes they tell fairy stories,
sometimes ghost stories, and sometimes stories of Japanese gods and
heroes. Umé and Tei liked the fairy stories best of all.
"The old man in this booth tells fairy stories faithfully well," said
the grandmother as they stopped before a tiny house decorated with paper
parasols and lanterns, and with a long red banner floating above it from
a bamboo pole.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account