white, and a little apart from the others sat Ishi whirling her spinning wheel with a little tapping stick.
There was a rustle of welcome for me, for the servants all liked a visit from “Etsu-bo Sama,” as they called me. One hurried to bring me a cushion and another tossed a handful of dried chestnut hulls on the glowing fire. I loved the changing tints of chestnut hull embers, and stopped a moment to watch them.
“Come here, Etsu-bo Sama!” called a soft voice.
It was Ishi. She had moved over on to the mat, leaving her cushion for me. She knew I loved to turn the spinning wheel, so she pushed the cotton ball into my hand, holding her own safely over it. I can yet feel the soft pull of that thread slipping through my fingers as I whirled the big wheel. I am afraid that I spun a very uneven thread, and it was probably fortunate for her work that my attention was soon attracted by Jiya’s entrance. He pulled a mat over to the clay side of the room and in a moment was seated with his foot stretched out, holding between his toes one end of the rope he was twisting out of rice-straw.
“Jiya San,” called Ishi, “we have an honoured guest.”
Jiya looked up quickly, and with a funny, bobby bow above his stretched rope, he smilingly held up a pair of straw shoes dangling from a cord.
“Ah!” I cried, jumping up quickly and running across the clay floor to him, “are they my snow-shoes? Have you finished them?”
“Yes, Etsu-bo Sama,” he answered, putting in my hands a pair of small straw boots, “and I have finished them just in time. This is going to be the deepest snow we have had this year. When you go to school to-morrow you can take a short cut, straight over the brooks and fields, for there will be no roads anywhere.”
As usual Jiya’s prediction was right. Without our
