Umé's father smiled at the look in his daughter's eyes, but he soon drew her away to a toy-shop out of sight of the little red shoes. There they bought a ball for Baby Yuki and gifts for the mother and grandmother, going home only when they could carry nothing more.
If ever there is a time and place when enticing red shoes can be forgotten, it is New Year's time among the shops in Japan. No one ever thinks of staying indoors then, else he would miss the gayest, liveliest, brightest time of the whole year.
The shop-keepers have to fill their shelves with great quantities of new things to match the New Year; there are new games, new kimonos, new clogs, new toys for sale everywhere, and even the story-tellers brighten up their old stories to make them seem like new.
That last day before the New Year was a very busy one in the Utsuki household. There were gifts to be put into dainty packages, the pine-tree arch to be decorated, the last stitches to be taken in the new kimonos, and the last bills to be paid--even the smallest one that might possibly have been overlooked.
There is a beautiful custom in Japan of beginning the year without a debt. Every bill is paid and no one owes a single sen when the old year dies and the new year dawns.
When at last Umé said her honorable good-night to her father and mother and went to her wooden pillow she was very tired.
As she crept under the warm coverlet she whispered drowsily, "May Benten Sama, or Kwannon, or one of the illustrious goddesses give me what I have prayed for so long." Then she fell fast asleep.