they should grow up and bloom. As we were finishing some visitors arrived, and if wicked pride had not impelled us to exhibit our neatly-planted pots before we gave them tea, it would have been all over with the gold-fish. The sweet, blue-eyed, fluffy-haired little angel was planting them! “An’ when dey drow up, I will have lots and lots of ’ittle fishes, mudder,” he shouted joyously. We were just in time to stop this scientific effort to grow a goldfish Vine.
It requires a liberal education to know what flowers, or combination of plants, to send as a gift in Japan. I found I had committed an enormity in selecting pink and white Lotuses for a christening, as they are associated with funerals and Buddhist shrines only. At New Year a gift of flowers should be a delightful arrangement of Pine (suggesting long life) and Plum blossoms (spiritual beauty); Bamboo may be added, as that also means long life and strength, as the Pine does, and uprightness as well. A tiny Orange tree laden with fruit, which indicates prosperity, is also a proper gift at that season. Various grasses are appropriate then too, as the poem at the beginning of this chapter indicates. On the Little Girls’ birthday—always on the fifth day of the fifth month—Peach blossom must adorn the niche, and with dolls may be sent as presents to the tiny lady. For weddings there are many beautiful and
