ONE day, not very long after Christmas, Mrs. Thornton said to Rose,—
“Rose, dear, I am going to the Japanese Shop to buy a wedding present, and I think you would like to go, wouldn’t you?”
“What is a Japanese Shop?” asked Rose.
“Oh, it is a very wonderful shop,” said her mamma. “I can’t begin to tell you about all the curious things which they sell in a Japanese Shop. You must come and see for yourself.”
So Rose put on her hat and coat and went with her mother to the Japanese Shop. What a wonderful place it was, indeed! Rose felt just as if she were in some strange, new kind of Fairyland, such as she had never before heard about. Everything was colored so bright and beautiful! There were such queer-shaped things sitting about on the floor and standing up in the corners! Curious lanterns swung from the ceiling, and tall screens of black and gold, with pictures of wonderful long-legged birds flying across, made dark nooks, in which strange bronze animals lurked surprisingly. Everything smelt sweet and rich, too, almost with the Christmas-tree fragrance of mamma’s holiday secret.
Rose wandered about by herself while her mother was looking at the funny lamps hiding under colored umbrellas, which she called wedding presents, though Rose did not understand why. They did not interest her like Christmas presents, which were very different. But over in a corner, all by itself, Rose found something which she thought would make the loveliest Christmas present,—the most wonderful Christmas present that any little girl could have. And oh! how she wanted it for her very own!
It was a toy garden; the kind that is put into the guest-room of a Japanese house to amuse visitors.
My! It was a wonderful little garden,—a real, truly live garden, with growing trees and plants and moss. But it was all so tiny that it could stand on a little table no wider than Rose’s arm was long. And though the trees were really, truly grown-up trees, a great deal older than Rose,—older even than her mamma, whom Rose thought very old indeed,—they were no taller than Rose’s little hand.
This is the way the garden looked. First, it was almost square and there was a little stone wall all around it, about an inch high. In the middle of the garden was a hill built of rocks, and on the top of the hill was a lawn of green moss, with a tiny pagoda, or Japanese house, no bigger than a match-box. The sides of the hill sloped down, very green and smooth, and at the foot was a little brook of real water, winding around the whole garden. The tiniest path of sand crept zig-zag down the hill to a bit of a red bridge that crossed the brook, for the people in the house at the top of the hill to use. And all along the brook grew little baby plants, and the wonderful dwarf trees that I told you about. Pine-trees they were, most of them, and the pine needles had fallen on the ground and had turned rusty brown, just as everyday pine needles do. Only these were ten times smaller. Rose wondered who lived in the little house at the top of the hill, and she said to herself:—
“Oh, how I wish I were little enough to live in that dear little house, and play in that sweet little garden, and climb up into those darling little trees! Oh, how I wish I could be littler!” And that was something which Rose had never before wished.