Boys wear them tied
around their heads, with the white scraped fragrant roots projecting like
two horns from their foreheads. So, and with the noise of bamboo horns,
they frighten away the ogre god. For he fears horned men, and he dares not
enter a house where so many swords hang from the eaves."
CHAPTER XII
A FARTHING'S WORTH OF FUN
How would you like to go to a fair with a farthing, a whole farthing, to
spend as you pleased? I think I can see some of you turning your noses up,
and looking very scornful. "A farthing, indeed!" you say. "Pray, of what
use is a farthing? I wouldn't mind going to a fair with a shilling, or even
sixpence, but what could anyone do with a farthing?" Well, in Japan you
could do a great deal. We must remember that Japan is a country of tiny
wages; many of its workers do not receive more than sixpence a day, and a
man who gets a shilling is well off. Tiny earnings mean tiny spendings, and
things are arranged on a scale to meet very slender purses.
We will now see what sort of time O Hara San, Miss Blossom, and her
brother, Taro San, Master Eldest Son, had at the fair one fine day in
Nagasaki. In the morning they sprang up from their quilts full of excited
pleasure, for they had been looking forward to this fair for some time. But
they did not romp and chatter and show their excitement as English children
would do. Their black eyes shone a little more brightly than usual, and
that was all.
When they had whipped their rice into their mouths with their little
chopsticks, they started for the fair, which was to be held in the grounds
of a great temple.
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