A fuzzy caterpillar was humping his way along the road outside the gate. The three runners turned aside and left a large part of the road to the caterpillar, although so much room was more than the fuzzy creature needed. The men thought that perhaps the soul of an ancestor might be in the little insect, and they feared to crush it. The city was in its gayest holiday attire. Red and white Japanese flags adorned every house. Men dressed in uniform were hurrying through the streets, soldiers were marching toward the parade grounds, and there were crowds of happy people everywhere. After riding over the wooden bridge Tara and his father took their way to the Emperor's review, while the other two jinrikishas turned toward Asakusa Temple. Umé sat up very straight, making herself as tall as possible, and said, as she watched her father being whirled down the street, "My son, it is now my unworthy privilege--" then stopped, because her mother looked at her in reproof. "It is my unworthy privilege to remind you that respectful children do not thus mimic their parents in voice and word," said her mother gravely. "I will ask to be forgiven when we are in the temple," said Umé penitently. She was still serious when she dropped a rin into the grated box that waits always for offerings in the temples. "May I write a prayer to the goddess Kwannon?" she asked, as the coin clinked against others in the box. "Is there something you very much desire, Umé-ko?" asked her mother with a smile. Umé nodded. "There is something I have asked from every one of the gods and goddesses you have ever told me about," she said. "I have been asking for it constantly ever since my last plum-blossom birthday." "Kwannon is the goddess of mercy; perhaps she will be merciful to you and grant your wish, whatever it may be," said her mother. So Umé wrote her wish on a slip of paper and hung it where hundreds of other prayers were hanging on a lattice in front of a shrine. Afterwards she went with her mother to the corner where the god Binzuru was waiting to cure any sort of disease. Umé's mother had an ache in her back. She rubbed her hand gently over the back of the god and then tried to rub her own back; but it was not easy to reach between her shoulders and rub the pain away. After she finished reaching, her back ached more than before. "We will go to the gardens at Dango-Zaka; there we shall forget our aches in looking at the lovely flowers," she told Umé. Baby Yuki was already feeding the goldfish and did not care whether her mother stayed at Asakusa Temple or not.