I.
| merry | alcove | festival | polite |
| packed | budding | storehouse | sashes |
A beautiful garden lies back of the house where Hana and Tora live.
In Japan the people love the flowering trees and plant them in their gardens. Now it is early springtime and the plum trees are just beginning to burst into bloom.
The children ask us to go with them and look for the first plum blossoms. The pink buds are pushing out of their brown coverings. "Oh, I am so glad!" Hana says. "Soon the peach trees will bloom, and then it will be time for the Doll Festival.
"How I wish I could show you my dolls! I have more than a hundred, but they are all packed away in the storehouse.
"Some of them are very old. They used to belong to my grandmother and to my great-grandmother. The doll I like best was given to me when I was a baby. It is as large as I am, and it can wear my clothes.
"When the Doll Festival comes I have a merry time. In the morning when I get up I find all my dolls waiting for me in the guest room.
"With them are doll houses, little tables, sets of dishes, and boxes full of pretty gowns and sashes. The first thing I do is to dress all the dolls in their best clothes.
"Of course they must have something to eat, for it is the Feast of Dolls.
"I make tea for them and put dishes of candy and cake and rice on their little tables. It is not polite to leave anything on one's plate, and so Tora and I have all the food that the dolls do not eat.
"For three whole days I can play with my dolls. Then I take off their beautiful clothes and put on their sleeping coats. My mother packs them in their boxes and stores them away for another year, until the Feast of Dolls comes again."