Then they went on again. Each bought one rin's
worth of sugared beans, a very favourite sweet-meat; and these they ate
while they waited for their father and grandmother to join them at the
door of a certain theatre where they had agreed to meet. Into this theatre
was pouring a stream of people, old and young, men, women, children, and
babies, for a great historical play was to be performed, and it would
shortly begin. Soon their elders turned up, and their father took their
last rin to make up the payment which would admit them.
In they went, and took possession of their place. The floor of the theatre
was divided by little partitions, about a foot or so high, into a vast
number of tiny squares, like open egg-boxes. In one of these little boxes
our friends squatted down on the floor, and the grandmother began to unpack
the bundle which she had been carrying. This bundle contained a number of
cooking-vessels and an ample supply of rice, for here they meant to stay
for some hours to see the play, to eat and drink, and enjoy themselves
generally.
The father filled his pipe, lighted it at the hibachi, and began to smoke,
as hundreds more were doing all round them. Each box contained a family,
and each family had brought its cooking-pots, its food, and its drink; and
hawkers of food, of pipes, of tobacco, of sake, and of a score of other
things, rambled up and down selling their wares.
When the play began every one paid close attention, for it was a great
historical play, and the Japanese go to the theatre and take their children
there in order to learn history.
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