backward, sometimes
further to the rear than the next leap made up for, then steady progress,
then a slip, but every moment nearer, until, clearing foam and ripple and
spray at one bound, it passed the edge and swam happily in smooth water.

It was inside the Dragon Gate.

Now came the wonderful change. One of the fleecy white clouds suddenly
left the host in the deep blue above, dipped down from the sky, and
swirling round and round as if it were a water spout, scratched and
frayed the edge of the water like a fisher's troll. The carp saw and
darted toward it. In a moment the fish was transformed into a white
dragon, and, rising into the cloud, floated off toward Heaven. A streak
or two of red fire, a gleam of terrible eyes, and the flash of white
scales was all that Gojiro saw. Then he awoke.

"How strange that a poor little carp, a common fish that lives in the
river, should become a great white dragon, and soar up into the sky, to
live there," thought Gojiro, the next day, as he told his mother of his
dream.

"Yes," said she; "and what a lesson for you. See how the carp persevered,
leaping over all difficulties, never giving up till it became a dragon. I
hope my son will mount over all obstacles, and rise to honor and to high
office under the government."

"Oh! oh! now I see!" said Gojiro. "That is what my teacher means when he
says the students in Tokio have a saying, 'I'm a fish to day, but I hope
to be a dragon to-morrow,' when they go to attend examination; and that's
what Papa meant when he said: 'That fish's son, Kofuku, has become a
white dragon, while I am yet only a carp.'"

[Illustration: THE ASCENT OF THE DRAGON'S GATE.]

So on the third day of the third month, at the Feast of Flags, Gojiro
hoisted the _nobori_. It was a great fish, made of paper, fifteen feet
long and hollow like a bag. It was yellow, with black scales and streaks
of gold, and red gills and mouth, in which two strong strings were
fastened. It was hoisted up by a rope to the top of a high bamboo pole on
the roof of the house. There the breeze caught it, swelled it out round
and full of air. The wind made the fins work, and the tail flap, and the
head tug, until it looked just like a carp trying to swim the rapids of
the Yellow River--the symbol of ambition and perseverance.

THE PROCESSION OF LORD LONG-LEGS.

Lovely and bright in the month of May, at the time of rice-planting, was
the day on which the daimio, Lord Long-l