"When his tree blossomed as the first had done, he was so pleased that he gave the old man many valuable gifts of silk and rice and sent him home, to be known as the 'old man who could make dead trees blossom.'"
When the story-teller finished, he disappeared behind a red curtain and there was nothing for Umé and Tei to do but go home.
"It is a good thing that the story was no longer," said Umé, "because Tara is going to help me build a toy garden for my dolls."
Tara helped to build the garden, to be sure, but the two little girls waited upon him and listened to him, and not once forgot that in Japan girls and women must follow their brothers. They must never try to lead them.
"Go and get the spade from the garden-house, Umé," Tara said to his sister. "Bring some small stones from the rockery," he told Tei, and both little girls obeyed without a word.
At the end of the third day of the Dolls' Festival there was a charming toy garden at one end of the veranda. In the garden there was a tiny lake bordered with flowering shrubs, a little hill with trees growing around it, a path leading to the lake beside which grew peach trees in full bloom, and there were even two tiny stone lanterns and a little temple on the hill.
It had been a wonderful holiday for the little girls and they were sorry that it was all over, but they cheerfully helped to pack the dolls and toys away in boxes and carry them back to the godown.