The baby slipped quietly out of the house while her mother was having her honorable hair dressed. It takes a hair-dresser about two hours to dress a Japanese lady's honorable hair, but fortunately it has to be done only once in five or six days because the hair is never mussed at night.
The women in Japan keep their heads peacefully quiet all night, letting their necks only rest upon the thin cushion of their wooden pillow. In this way the soft rolls and puffs of their shining black hair are not disturbed, and even the big pins do not have to be removed.
Hair-dressers go from house to house as often as they are needed, and when Baby Yuki saw one come into the room and begin taking down her mother's hair, she began quietly taking her way along the stepping stones to the gate. Once outside the gate she trotted along toward the bridge over the moat.
This moat ran around the old feudal castle where a daimyo used to live, and Yuki-ko often went as far as the bridge with Umé or Tara when they started off for school. Sometimes all three of the children went there to look at the green lotus leaves or the beautiful lotus blossoms which cover the water in July and August.
But to-day Baby Yuki did not stop on the bridge. She crossed it and clattered down the street to a far corner where a street-peddler was selling toys.
Japanese peddlers are always very pleasant people, and this one danced and sang funny songs which the baby was only too glad to hear.
Up one street and down another the man took his way, stopping wherever he found a few little children to listen to him; and one or two children from every group followed along with Yuki San, making a pretty sight.
A foreign lady with a camera stopped her jinrikisha-man, saying, "That is the very smallest child I ever saw standing on its own two feet and walking with other children in the street. One of the older girls should carry the baby on her back."
Baby Yuki stood on the outside of the group, making a pretty picture all by herself. She was so clean and sweet that the lady determined to follow her and take several pictures. She dismissed her jinrikisha and became a child with the others, following where the peddler led.
At last they reached Asakusa street, which leads to Asakusa Temple. This street is lined with booths on each side, and in each booth there is a man selling toys, or candies, or paper parasols, or kites, or something to tempt the rin and sen out of a child's pocket.