rope, are yoked to the triumphal car, and the structure
moves slowly down the shouting street, how the boys crawl into every
joint and cranny of the _dashi_, how they hang from every beam, how they
yell from before and behind in sheer abandon of joy! And at last, when
the procession forms, and with fantastically garbed men marching in
front and wild-eyed singers yelling just behind them, with dancing-girls
on moving platforms and jugglers and tumblers on the _dashi_ themselves,
the twenty or more festal cars move, with frequent stops, down to the
temple, to escort the sacred symbols on their annual pilgrimage through
the parish, who so noisy or so ubiquitous as these same bullet-headed,
blue-gowned boys? They bob up at every turn, ooze out at every pore of
the procession, and enjoy, as only boys can enjoy, the noise and
confusion, the barbaric splendor, the dancing and tumbling, the mumming
and drumming, the excruciating howls of the singers, the jingling of the
marshals' iron-ringed staves, the clapping of the great wooden clappers
that time the movement and the stops of the pageant.

Better than all, perhaps, is the evening, when the streets, lighted by
many lanterns, are filled with throngs of holiday-makers,--now stopping
to stare in at some shop where the devout worshiper has established a
beautiful shrine, has set out _mochi_ and other offerings before some
image, or has arranged a landscape garden in a box, or constructed a
_matsuri_ procession just entering the court of a miniature temple; now
haggling with the ever-present booth-keepers for lanterns or cakes or
hairpins to take back to the friends left at home. Suddenly there is a
joyous, rhythmic shout of many excited boyish voices, there is a
gleaming of square red lanterns, a whirl and a rush through the crowd.
Now is the time to get out of the way, for the boys move quickly and are
too excited to turn aside for anything. On they come at a sharp trot,
each little round head bound about with a fillet of blue and white
toweling, each lithe, active body more or less covered by a blue and
white gown, all shouting in unison and bearing on their shoulders a
miniature _dashi_, made most often of a _sake_ tub mounted on a frame,
and decorated with lanterns and white paper. They charge through the
crowd, which makes way quickly at their approach, until the pace, the
weight of their burden, and the frantic shouting exhaust their breath.
Then they plunge down a side st