I have spoken, is remarkably full and
costly, for it has been making for hundreds of years in one of the
younger branches of a family which for two and a half centuries was
possessed of almost imperial power, and lived in more than imperial
luxury; but there are few households so poor that they do not from year
to year accumulate a little store of toys wherewith to celebrate the
feast, and, whether the toys are many or few, the feast is the event of
the year in the lives of the little girls of Japan.[*31]

Beside the regular feasts at stated seasons, our little girl has a great
variety of toys and games, some belonging to particular seasons, some
played at any time during the year. At the New Year the popular
out-of-door games are battledoor and shuttlecock, and ball. There is no
prettier sight, to my mind, than a group of little girls in their
many-colored wide-sleeved dresses playing with battledoor or ball. The
graceful, rhythmic motion of their bodies, the bright upturned eyes, the
laughing faces, are set off to perfection by the coloring of their
flowing drapery; and their agility on their high, lacquered clogs is a
constant source of wonder and admiration to any one who has ever made an
effort to walk upon the clumsy things. There are dolls, too, that are
not relegated to the storehouse when the Feast of Dolls is ended, but
who are the joy and comfort of their little mothers during the whole
year; and at every _kwan-ko-ba_, or bazaar, an endless variety of games,
puzzles, pictures to be cut out and glued together, and amusements of
all kinds, may be purchased at extremely low rates. There is no dearth
of games for our little girl, and many pleasant hours are spent in the
household sitting room with games, or conundrums, or stories, or the
simple girlish chatter that elicits constant laughter from sheer
youthful merriment.

As for fairy tales, so dear to the hearts of children in every country,
the Japanese child has her full share. Often she listens, half asleep,
while cuddling under the warm quilted cover of the _kotatsu_,[6] in the
cold winter evenings, to the drowsy voice of the old grandmother or
nurse, who carries her away on the wings of imagination to the wonderful
palace of the sea gods, or to the haunts of the terrible _oni_, monsters
with red, distorted faces and fearful horns. Momotaro, the Peach Boy,
with his wonderful feats in the conquest of the _oni_, is her hero,
until he is supplanted by the more