"'It's a Matsuri—a festival,' Seki explained."
"But why do they put out fishes?" persisted June.
"'Tis the carp fish," said Seki San, "because the carp very strong and brave, he swim against the current, fight his way up the waterfall, not afraid of the very bad discouragings, like good boy should be."
June was much more interested in the fish than in the moral, and when Toro brought a big red one for him and a paper cap and banner, he hastened away to be dressed so that he could be ready for the festivities.
Taking it all in all, it was about the happiest day he had ever spent in his life. When he and Toro started forth the streets were already full of people, men and women in holiday attire, little girls in bright red petticoats and fancy pins in their hair, every boy with a fish on a stick, small children with bald-headed babies tied on their backs, all trotting merrily along to the matsuri.
Everywhere June went a crowd went behind him, for a little foreign boy with gray eyes and fair hair, and strange foreign clothes was one of the greatest sights of the day. Sometimes a woman would stop him and look at his hat or his shoes, and a circle would close in and Toro would be bombarded with questions. But the people were always so polite, and their admiration was so evident, that June was rather pleased, and when he smiled and spoke to them in English, they bowed again and again, and he bowed back, then they all laughed.
It was a terrible trial to June not to be able to ask questions. He was brimful of curiosity and everything he saw and heard had a dozen questions hanging to it. Usually Seki San supplied the answers but to-day Toro was in command, and while he was a very careful little guide, keeping tight hold of June's hand, pointing out all the interesting sights, and trying to explain by sign and gesture, still he did not know a single word of English.
After passing through many gay streets they came to a tall red gate which June had come to recognize as the entrance to sacred ground. But inside it was not in the least like any churchyard he had ever seen. It was more like the outside of a circus where everything delightful was happening at once. On one side was a sandman making wonderful pictures on the ground with colored sand. First he made a background of fine white sand, then out of papers folded like cornucopias he formed small streams of black and red sand, skilfully tracing the line of a mountain, using a feather to make the waves of the sea, and a piece of silver money to form the great round moon, and before you knew it there was the very picture you had seen on fans and screens and tea-pots ever since you could remember, even down to the birds that were flying across the moon.
Then there were jugglers and tight rope walkers, and sacred pigeons that lit on your head and shoulders and ate corn out of your hand. June thought he had never seen such greedy pigeons before. Two or three perched on his hand at once, and scolded and pushed each other, and even tried to eat the buttons off his blouse!
Up the mountain side, flanked by rows of stone lanterns, ran a wide flight of steps and at the top was the gate-way to the temple itself. On either side were sort of huge cages, and in them the most hideous figures June had ever seen! They were fierce looking giants with terrible glass eyes and snarling mouths with all the teeth showing, just as the Ogre's did in the fairy tale. One was painted all over green, and the other was red, and they held out clutching fingers as if ready to pounce upon the passer-by. While June was looking at them and feeling rather glad that they were inside the cages, he saw two old men dressed in white, climb slowly up the steps and kneel before the statues. Bowing their heads to the earth and muttering prayers, they took from their belts some slips of paper, and after chewing them into wads began gravely to throw them at the fierce green demon behind the bars.