It was not a common thing for the two children to wander away in this manner. They had so many playthings and so much room in the two gardens that they were quite contented to play together at home all day long after they had finished their house duties and the lessons at school were over.
Today the children were to have a holiday; and while Umé's mother thought she was at Tei's house, Tei's mother thought her little daughter was at her cousin Umé's.
It was the middle of the afternoon before the two little girls returned home. They went first to the street of toy-shops and Umé bought a big red ball and a fairy-story book full of the most delightful pictures.
Then they sat down on the temple steps to look at the pictures, and would have read the story, too, but in a moment a man came down the street with a crowd of merry children following him. He stopped in front of Umé and quickly made five or six butterflies out of pieces of colored paper he took from his sleeve pocket.
The man blew the butterflies up into the air and kept them flying about by waving a big fan. At last he made a beautiful yellow one light on Tei's hair.
"Keep it," said Umé, "it will bring good luck," and she gave the man a rin for it.
At one of the booths near the temple she bought two baked sweet potatoes and some rice-cakes, and the little girls ate their luncheon, holding the crumbs for the pigeons that flew down to eat from their outstretched hands.
Now the sen were all spent; but there were still many pleasant things for the two little girls to do. They ran down to the pond in the temple garden to look at the goldfish. Then they played a game with the new ball, and watched a group of boys playing marbles. They even played blind-man's-buff with some of the other children, and were really very happy.
