Small as she was, Yuki-ko could slip her feet into her wooden clogs without any help when she could find them; but Saké, the dog, generally found them first and as there was never a bone for him to hide, he liked to hide the tiny shoes.
Now, as usual, one of the clogs was missing from the flat step where the baby had last left it.
"Perhaps it is under the plum tree, O Yuki San," said Umé, and ran to find it, but it was not there.
"What a pity that Saké makes us so much trouble!" she said to Tei. "It is plain to be seen that the good dog Shiro was no ancestor of his."
"What good dog Shiro?" asked Tei.
"The dog of the man who made the dead trees to blossom," answered Umé as she looked under the quince bushes; but the missing clog was not there. Several days later the gardener found it buried under the bush of snow blossoms; but Umé gave up looking for it when she did not find it in any of Saké's favorite places.
"It is such a long time since I heard the story of the good man who made trees blossom, that I have nearly forgotten it," said Tei; but Umé was talking to Yuki.
"Be happy, little treasure-flower," she said to the baby. "You shall have a new pair of clogs; and you may come with us now and help serve tea to the honorable dolls."
Baby Yuki forgot her clogs at once. She knelt upon the floor and held up her tiny hands for the tea-bowl.
"Oh, Umé! She is too little to whip the tea," said Tei when she saw that her cousin meant to give the baby a bowl of tea powder and a bamboo brush with which to whip it into foam.