The long avenue leading up to the entrance of the park, which is on the brow of a high hill, was arched overhead with the blossoming branches of the cherry trees.
"The pink mist almost hides the blue sky," said Umé, "but the sunshine comes dancing through. See how gently it touches the pink petals with its rosy light!"
The little party rode through the park looking at the cherry trees and watching the crowds of people. Umé kept her poor grandmother's head bobbing to right and left as she spoke of one strange sight and then another.
First it was, "O Ba San, look at the Japanese baby in the American baby-carriage. It cannot be that he likes it as well as riding on his sister's back."
Next it was, "O Ba San, see the little foreign children playing with the cake-woman's stove."
Umé would have liked to stop the jinrikisha man and watch the white-faced children as they made little batter cakes and fried them over the charcoal.
"We must not stop now," said her grandmother. "Your honorable father will tell us when we may stop."
Umé came as near pouting as a Japanese maiden can. "I think I have heard that the foreign children tell their fathers when they wish to stop in the honorable ride," she murmured.
"They are all barbarians, those foreigners," said her grandmother. "You can see by the gardens of flowers that they wear upon their heads, that they know nothing of propriety."
Umé, who had never worn a hat in her life, could say nothing to that. Every little foreign girl she saw was wearing a hat on her head on which there were many flowers of half a dozen different colors and kinds. Although it was a sight to hurt her eyes, Umé would have been glad to leave the jinrikisha and study the dresses of the little foreigners. Most of all she wished to join them in their play of cake-making.