CHAPTER XI
A DAY IN SCHOOL
What country is it that starts its children off to school very early in the morning? Japan, of course, the island kingdom, "The Land of the Rising Sun,"--and that is as it should be.
It was early in the "hour of the hare," as time would have been reckoned in the days of old Japan; but the American clock in the kitchen said half-past six, when Umé finished dressing for school.
She wore a plum-colored plaited skirt, with a blue kimono tucked inside, and she said to her mother, "May I now go to the honorable lesson-learn school, O Haha San?"
There was plenty of time between half-past six and seven o'clock for her to reach the school building and be in line with the other children when they greeted the teacher.
But all the other little girls were bending up and down in their greeting to the teacher when Umé at last slipped into her place among them. She said her happy "Ohayo!" just after the other lips were all closed upon the "good-morning."
She whispered to Tei as they slipped into their seats, "We must eat our unworthy lunches together. I have brought a bad piece of pickled radish for you. It was because I ran back to the dirty house for it that I was honorably late."