On the day that she was born the little plum tree had blossomed for the first time. For that reason she was called Umé, which is the Japanese word for "plum blossom"; and for her sake the tree had opened its first blossoms on that same day for the next nine years. Now, on the day before her eleventh birthday, all the buds were closed hard and fast. Umé looked at them just before going to bed and there seemed no chance of their opening for several days. "Perhaps the weather will be fine to-morrow, Umé-ko," said her mother, as she spread a wadded quilt on the floor for her little daughter's bed. "If it is, and the sun shines honorably bright, the buds may open before the hour of sunset." "I will say a prayer to Benten Sama that it may be so," answered Umé. Benten Sama is the Japanese goddess of good fortune, to whom the little girl prayed very often. She knelt upon the mat and bent down until her forehead touched the floor, after the Japanese manner of making an honorable bow. She clapped her hands softly three times, and then rubbed one little pink palm against the other while she prayed. "Dear Benten Sama," she said, "grant that just one little spray of the plum blossoms may open to-morrow." For a moment she was very still, and then she added, "If they are open when I first wake in the morning, I will honorably practise on my koto for one whole hour after breakfast." Then little Umé Utsuki slipped into her bed upon the floor, laid her head on the thin cushion of her wooden pillow, and drew the soft puff under her cunning Japanese chin. "Good-night, dear Benten Sama," she whispered softly, and fell asleep with the words of an old Japanese song on her drowsy tongue:-- "Evening burning! Little burning! Weather, be fair to-morrow!" The buds on the plum tree outside were closed hard and fast, and the house walls about Umé were also tightly closed. The bright moon in the heavens could find no chink through which to send a cheering ray to little Umé San. All through the night the frost sparkled on the bare twigs of the dwarf trees in the garden. All through the night the plum tree stood still and made no sign that Benten Sama had heard Umé's prayer. When the moonbeams grew pale in the morning light the buds were still tightly closed. Umé stirred in her bed on the floor, crept softly to the screen in the wall and pushed it open. She moved the outer shutter also along its groove and stepped off the veranda without even stopping to put on her white stockings or her little wooden clogs. Down the garden path to the plum tree she pattered as fast as her bare feet could carry her. Alas, there was nothing to be seen on her plum tree but brown buds! She looked up into the gray morning sky and tried to think of something else; but her gay little kimono covered a heart that was heavy with disappointment. The tears tried to force their slow way into her eyes, but the little girl blinked them back again.