he laughter in the morning when they related their dreams.
Yoshi-san said he had dreamt he had a beautiful portmanteau full of nice
foreign things, such as comforters, note-books, pencils, india-rubber,
condensed milk, lama, wide-awakes, boots, and brass jewelry. Just as he
opened it, everything vanished and he found only a torn fan, an odd
chop-stick, a horse's cast straw shoe, and a live crow.

When at home, the children, for the first few days of the New Year,
dressed in their best crepe, made up in three silken-wadded layers.
Their crest was embroidered on the centre of the back and on the sleeves
of the quaintly flowered long upper skirt. Beneath its wadded hem peeped
the scarlet rolls of the hems of their under-dresses, and then the
white-stockinged feet, with, passing between the toes, the scarlet thong
of the black-lacquered clog. The little girl's sash was of many-flowered
brocade, with scarlet broidered pouch hanging at her right side. A
scarlet over-sash kept the large sash-knot in its place. Her hair was
gay with knot of scarlet crinkled crepe, lacquered comb, and hairpin of
tiny golden battledore. Resting thereon were a shuttlecock of coral,
another pin of a tiny red lobster and a green pine sprig made of silk.
In her belt was coquettishly stuck the butterfly-broidered case that
held her quire of paper pocket-handkerchiefs. The brother's dress was of
a simpler style and soberer coloring. His pouch of purple had a dragon
worked on it, and the hair of his partly shaven head was tied into a
little gummed tail with white paper-string. They spent most of the day
playing with their pretty new battledores, striking with its plain side
the airy little shuttlecock whose head is made of a black seed. All the
while they sang a rhyme on the numbers up to ten:--

"Hitogo ni futa-go--mi-watashi yo me-go,
Itsu yoni musashi nan no yakushi,
Kokono-ya ja--to yo."

When tired of this fun, they would play with a ball made of paper and
wadding evenly wound about with thread or silk of various colors. They
sang to the throws a song which seems abrupt because some portions have
probably fallen into disuse; it runs thus:--

"See opposite--see Shin-kawa! A very beautiful lady who is one of the
daughters of a chief magistrate of Odawara-cho. She was married to a
salt merchant. He was a man fond of display, and he thought how he would
dress her this year. He said to the dyer, 'Please dye this brocade and
the brocade