"These are for good luck," she said, and placed the bits of fish carefully in a little lacquered box.
Of course there was the envelope of paper handkerchiefs from her grandmother. There was also a beautiful new kimono from her mother, and from her father there was a hairpin with white plum blossoms for ornament.
Tara gave her a doll dressed in a kimono like her own new one. "I kept it in the godown for a whole week of days," he told her.
"Yes," said the mother softly, "and it was not very hard to make such a small kimono secretly."
"I shall call her Haru," said Umé, "because she has come to me in the first days of the honorable springtime."
"On the day that I brought the hairpin home and hid it in your mother's sleeve," said her father with a smile, "I felt deeply deceitful."
Suddenly Umé felt very unhappy. She looked at all the loving faces and remembered that she, too, had this very day been most deceitful.
"Now let us look at Umé's plum tree," said the grandmother.
All the family rose from the floor and followed the good father into the garden. Yuki San toddled along on her wooden clogs, and behind the baby marched tailless Tama, keeping a sharp eye on the baby's hands. Tama did not like the feeling of those little hands.
They stopped under the plum tree and the father pointed to the branches. Umé looked, and the sight of the tree sent the blood into her face and then out of it. The buds all over the branches were shyly shaking out their white petals.