"Wine-flowers; what are they?"
If we open the boxes or paper bags sold by Umé, we see a pack of what seem to be tiny colored jackstraws or fine shavings. They are made by cutting out very thin slices of pith in the shape of men, women, birds, flowers, fishes, bats, tortoises, tools, and many other things. These are gummed, folded up, and pinched tightly, until each one looks like nothing but a shred of linen or a tiny chip of frayed wood. If you drop one of them into a bowl of hot water, it will open and unfold like a flower. They blossom slowly in cold water, but hot water makes them jump up and open at once.
Umé's blind grandfather and her mother made these wine-flowers for a living, and she went out daily and sat on the Asakusa street to sell them.
Sometimes they made "shell-surprises."
Out of a hard paste made from moss they cut the shapes of roses, camellias, lilies, daisies, etc., of real size, which they painted to a natural color. Then folding them in a ball, and squeezing them into a cockle-shell, they were ready for sale. They looked just like common white shells; but when dropped into hot water they opened at once, and the ball of gum inside, rising to the surface, blossomed into a flower of true size and tint.
"But why are they called wine-flowers?"
The reason is this. The Japanese drink their "wine" (saké or rice-beer) hot, and in tiny cups about the size of a small half orange. When one friend is about to offer the cup to another, he drops one of these pith chips on the surface of the wine. It blossoms instantly before their eyes, and is the "flower of friendship."
A GAME OF SURPRISES.
The artist Ozawa has sketched the inside of a home in Japan, where the children are merrily enjoying the game of surprises. A Japanese mother has bought a few boxes of the pith toys from Umé. They have a lacquered tub half full of warm water. Every few minutes the fat-cheeked servant-girl brings in a fresh steaming kettleful to keep it hot. They all kneel on the matting, and it being summer, they are in bare feet, which they like. The elder one of the two little girls, named O-Kin (Little Gold), has a box already half empty.