The children stood, the little ones in front and the taller ones behind, in a semicircle, and the many lights showed their bright faces and gorgeous costumes, for no one would be outdone by another in smartness—I fancy the poorer women had borrowed from richer neighbors—and the result was picturesque in the extreme. The older girls had their heads beautifully dressed, with flowers and pins and rolls of scarlet crape knotted in between the coils; their dresses were pale green or blue, with bright linings and stiff silk obis; but the little ones were a blaze of scarlet, green, geranium pink, and orange, their long sleeves sweeping the ground, and the huge flower patterns on their garments making them look like live flowers as they moved about on the dark velvet carpet. When they had gazed their fill, they were called up to me one by one, Ogita addressing them all as “San” (Miss or Mr.), even if they could only toddle, and I gave them their serious presents with their names, written in Japanese and English, tied on with red ribbon—an attention which, as I was afterwards told, they appreciated greatly. It seemed to me that they never would end; their size varied from a wee mite who could not carry its own toys to a tall, handsome student of sixteen, or a gorgeous young lady in green and mauve crape, and a head that must have taken the best part of the day to dress.
In one thing they were all alike; their manners were perfect. There was no pushing or grasping, no glances of envy at what other children received, no false shyness in their sweet, happy way of expressing their thanks. I was puzzled by one thing about the children: although we kept giving them sweets and oranges off the tree, every time I looked around the big circle all were empty-handed again, and it really seemed as if they must have swallowed the gifts, gold paper and ribbon and all. But at last I noticed that their square, hanging sleeves began to have a strange, lumpy appearance, like a conjurers waistcoat just before he produces twenty-four bowls of live goldfish from his internal economy; and then I understood that the plunder was at once dropped into these great sleeves, so as to leave hands free for anything else that Okusama might think good to bestow. One little lady, O’Haru San, aged three, got so overloaded with goodies and toys that they kept rolling out of her sleeves, to the great delight of the Brown Ambassador dachshund, Tip, who pounced on them like lightning, and was also convicted of nibbling at cakes on the lower branches of the tree.
The bigger children would not take second editions of presents, and answered, “Honorable thanks, I have!” if offered more than they thought their share; but babies are babies all the world over! When the distribution was finished at last, I got a Japanese gentleman to tell them the story of Christmas, the children’s feast; and then they came up one by one to say “Sayonara” (“Since it must be,” the Japanese farewell), and “Arigato gozaimasu” (“The honorable thanks”).
“Come back next year,” I said; and then the last presents were given out—beautiful lanterns, red, lighted, and hung on what Ogita calls bumboos, to light the guests home with. One tiny maiden refused to go, and flung herself on the floor in a passion of weeping, saying that Okusama’s house was too beautiful to leave, and she would stay with me always—yes, she would! Only the sight of the lighted lantern, bobbing on a stick twice as long as herself, persuaded her to return to her own home in the servants’ quarters. I stood on the step, the same step where I had set the fireflies free one warm night last summer, and watched the little people scatter over the lawns, and disappear into the dark shrubberies, their round, red lights dancing and shifting as they went, just as if my fireflies had come back, on red wings this time, to light my little friends to bed.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The British Legation compound is the enclosure in which the official representatives of the English government in any Japanese city live with their assistants, families, and servants.
From Far Away
From far away we come to you.
The snow in the street, and the wind on the door,