she must share her father's affection with the newcomer, but it didn't last long, for Bo was so cunning and soft and fat, and he clung to her so confidingly, that she couldn't be jealous very long.

66

The tears welled up in Yoshi's eyes and made the lights twinkle dizzily, and a lump came in her throat. Bo hung a dead weight at her back, and she hitched her shoulder a little to change his position. "I. must go! He is sound enough asleep now!" she said to herself, but turned back once more to see the crowd before the present booth. A young man and woman were just coming out from the building. Yoshi shook a little in spite of herself as she looked at them, and was glad that Bo was asleep so that he was not frightened. Foreigners!" she said, under her breath, and thought if the Russians looked like that the Japanese must surely be brave to meet whole armies of them. What giants they were, and how red their hair was! What long noses they had, and what fierce eyes! And their voices! Dear me, what a strange gabble they used! Yoshi's eyes opened roundly, and she stared frankly and satisfyingly at the strangers. She could not understand their talk, for it was in English, but she saw that they had many tickets.

"What are we to do with these things?" said the man. "I can't understand enough of the lingo to know what they're for. I don't see why these Tokyo Japs are so stupid. None of the shopkeepers know any English."

The young lady, who had big blue eyes and curling hair, and was altogether a fearsome object from the Japanese standpoint, made answer promptly and decidedly "Give me Yokohama every time for shopping. Some of the Japs there are really quite intelligent. Even the jinrikisha-men understand what you say. . . . Oh! I see! You take your tickets in there and they give you things for them. And hear the crowd shout! I don't believe I want to do that and be shouted at. What time is it, anyway?"

Nine-thirty. If we're going to catch the last train to Yokohama we must toddle. Where are those rickshaw boys? Hi, there! Haiaku "1

1 Hurry!

“Oh, Arthur, look at that little girl with a baby on her back staring at us! Let's give her the tickets. Let's give her the tickets. Perhaps she'll get something she likes."

Here, you!

"All right! Here goes. Ne-San!1 Here! Agemasho ! 2 It took O-Yoshi-San some time to understand that these strange beings were offering her tickets, and her first impulse was to refuse them, bowing as low as Bo's weight on her back would allow her to, and growing very red in her embarrassment. But one of the jinrikisha-men, in attendance upon the foreigners, explained to her that they were Americans, not Russians, and that though they looked fierce, they were really good-natured, only rather stupid and rough in their manners, and that she had better take the tickets. So O-Yoshi-San took them, with many bows and smiles and murmured words of thanks, and the foreigners mounted their jinrikishas and were trundled out of the courtyard.

The interest of the crowd, which had been concentrated on the Americans, suddenly turned to O-Yoshi-San. The receiver of tickets at the booth, smiling blandly, called out, "Come here, Ne-San, and exchange your tickets." It was so late now that the kwan-ko-ba had nearly emptied itself, and there was no one in the line ahead of the excited little girl. With red cheeks, and lips half trembling, half smiling, she handed up the tickets and reached out her hands for the precious pink and white balls. "Twenty tickets!" said the man, and counted out twenty balls, more than Yoshi's hands could hold, but she dropped the surplus into her long sleeves.

66

'Banzai !" shouted the crowd behind her, and her breath came in little pants as she cracked open the first ball and handed the tiny folded paper to the reader.

"One first-class pair of scissors !" he shouted to the third man, who took them from their place and laid them down on the counter before O-Yoshi-San. She drew a long breath of delight. She had so wished she could give something to her mother for New Year's, and now here was just the thing. Her black eyes danced, and the crowd murmured approvingly.

Elder Sister, a form used in addressing a young girl of the common people. "I will give you.

She crunched another ball in her hands, and when the reader took the paper he shouted loud and clear, "One fine umbrella!" There it was on the counter, a great fat red and white umbrella, with bamboo sticks and oiled paper cover, large enough to protect Yoshi and Bo together from the pouring rain. Next came a gay calico furoshiki, and then a tiny pipe. A thermometer in a long white paper box puzzled the little girl somewhat, but she took it gratefully as a part of her amazing good luck. Towels, packages of envelopes, rolls of writing-paper, a pair of fuzzy red flannel socks ("Just the thing for Bo!" was Yoshi's ecstatic thought), four bundles of chopsticks, a package of tooth-powder, one decorated comb such as women wear in the hair, one hairpin with a cherryblossom on its top, a teapot, two glass tumblers, a pretty crape yeri, or collar, these were some of the things that the papers cailed for and that were placed on the counter before the excited child. When the reader shouted, "One pair of first-class geta!" and a beautiful pair of lacquered wooden clogs with red velvet strings was handed out, Yoshi hardly believed it could be true. It seemed as if she could not wait to finish her business, so eager was she to get home and show her mother the wonderful things that had come to her. She felt down in the bottom of her sleeve. Only one ball remained, and she took it out and crushed it between her palms. "One first-class bureau with four drawers!" shouted the reader. "Banzai!" yelled the crowd, and Yoshi stood dazed and overwhelmed by her luck. A bureau! What in the world should she do with it? It took two men to move it out to the front of the booth, and her other property was already filling the counter. Utterly bewildered, she looked about her. The men in the booth unfolded the furoshikis, of which she by this time possessed three, and began wrapping things up in them. By skillful arrangement, everything except the umbrella and the bureau was finally packed and tied safely in the three bundles.

"And now, Ne-San, you must take your things away, for it is time to close for the night," said one of the men, kindly.

A collar sewed to the undergarment and showing at the neck of the kimono.

"The lights are going out inside, and we must shut up, too. Shall we call you a jinrikisha?"

Poor little Yoshi, suddenly brought face to face with the incumbrances of wealth, found her joy changed to anxiety. She might, even with Bo on her back, manage to get the three bundles home, but what to do with the umbrella and the bureau she could not imagine.

"Jo-ya,"1 said a voice by her side, “do you want to sell the bureau? My wife wants one, and I will give you three yen for it, and take you and your bundles home beside." Yoshi turned quickly and looked at her deliverer. He was a jinrikisha-man, in the costume of his calling— a pleasant-looking, elderly man, rather shabby, but clean, and trim of figure. "I know your father," he added, "and we shall all be glad when he comes back from the war safe and sound."

He'll come, never fear," said her friend; " and now jump into the kuruma, and I will put in all your things and take you and Bo-ya home to your mother. It's late for little folks to be out. Here's your three yen. Tell your mother all about it, and say that your father's friend, Heisaku-Tamura, bought the bureau from you, and brought you home."

Almost before Yoshi knew what had happened she was safely tucked away in the kuruma, her furoshikis about her, and Bo in her lap. And then they were at the gate, and Heisaku gathered up the baby and the bundles in his strong arms, while Yoshi pattered beside him with the lantern to the little house at the back of the compound.

"Excuse me, mamma, for being so late," was the formal apologetic greeting with which little Yoshi met her mother's wondering gaze, but she might have saved her breath, for her words made no impression upon the dazed woman. She was scanning the bundles, the sleeping baby, the big umbrella, and Yoshi's red

Equivalent to Sissy or Missy.

2 Fifty cents. 9 Jinrikisha.

cheeks and dancing eyes, and could neither hear nor speak for a moment or two.

"Yoshi," she said at last, and there was a suspicion of alarm in her voice, "where have you been, and how did you come by all these things, and how did you get them all home? Tell me as quick as you can "

"That isn't all. Look here!" and Yoshi drew out from the folds of her sash the three yen that Heisaku had given her, and waved the notes before her mother's astonished eyes. "I got them all at the kwan-ko-ba, and a good jinrikisha-man, who said he knew father, brought me home with them, for I could never have carried them all. He said to tell you that his name was Heisaku-Tamura, and you would know him. He bought my bureau and paid me three yen for it."

"But I don't understand yet, Yoshi. I know Tamura-San,. and he is a good, kind man, but what do you mean by your bureau? Tell me the whole story from the beginning. What have you been doing since you went out with Bo?"

"I was so afraid of those foreigners," she said. They were terrible to look at, but I am glad I was not too much afraid to take their tickets. It is good for even a woman to be brave, isn't it, mother?" was the quaint moral that she deduced from her evening's adventure. She handled all her treasures over deftly and lovingly, pulling out the furoshikis into shape and folding them with tender pats. "Won't you look fine in that comb when father comes back?" she said to her mother. "And I can wear my new yeri and geta and this hairpin in my hair. He'll never guess how poor we've been while he was away. And these scissors will make your work easier, won't they? They are so sharp and new! And Bo-ya can wear his new red socks, and if it rains as it did when Marquis Oyama came home, we can all go down to meet him under this big umbrella. And we can buy him a great feast with my money, and ask Tamura-San and his wife!"

Yoshi's head was full of plans and her tongue of words. She had forgotten her fatigue in her excitement, and it took some diplomacy on the part of her mother to quiet her down enough to go to bed.

When the futons 'were at last laid out, filling the three-mat room so that there was barely space along the edges for the hibachi and the contents of Yoshi's bundles, the little girl lay with half-open eyes for a long time, her outstretched hand fondling one after another of her treasures.

She did not hear the rumble of the outer shutters when her mother threw them open at dawn, and when she woke at last with a start it was to see her mother seated on the floor already at work, Bo-ya smiling and gurgling on his back beside her.

Oh, mamma, I didn't mean to sleep so late,” she said as she bounced to her feet. "I wanted to be up early to get the things for to-morrow."

"There is plenty of time, Yoshi. When I finish this last case I am going out to take them back and get my money. Then we will go shopping together."

Yoshi ate her breakfast of cold rice and hot water while her mother finished her work. Then they tidied the room by rolling up the beds and putting them into the closet. Suddenly, in the midst of their work, Yoshi stopped and clapped her hands.

"Such a good idea!" she said. "Listen, mother! When we go out, let us take that long thing of glass and wood that they gave me last night, and see whether we can sell it to the second-hand store across the street. O-Ji-San, there, buys all sorts of things, and perhaps he would want it. And the chopsticks-we have so many that we can't use them all, and they are just like those that the sobaya * uses. Perhaps if we took the sobaya O-KamiSan a few bunches, she would give us some soba tickets. Then when papa comes I can run out and get him something nice to eat at once."

The poor mother's heart was wrung every time Yoshi spoke so confidently of her father's return, but she smiled happily at the little girl. She could not bear to lessen her pleasure in her great adventure, or cast a shadow over her serene faith in the future.