The Japanese Twins Part 10

"Oh, Taro, what are you going to make?" Take asked.

"If you and grannie will help me, I'll make some little wagons and we'll harness the beetles," Taro said.

"Won't it hurt them?" Take asked.

"Not a bit; we'll be so careful," Taro answered.

So Take ran for thread, and Taro got Grannie to help him. Grannie would do almost anything in the world for the Twins. And pretty soon there were two cunning little paper wagons with round paper wheels!

Taro tied some thread to the front of each little wagon. Then he opened the cage to take out the beetles.

One of the beetles didn't wait to be taken out. He flew out himself. He was big and black, and he flew straight at Take! He flew into her black hair!

Maybe he just wanted to hide. But he had big black nippers, and he took hold of Take's little fat neck with them.

Take rolled right over on the floor and screamed. Her Mother heard the scream. She came running in. The maids came running too to see what was the matter.

"Ow! Ow!! Ow!!!" squealed Take. She couldn't say a word. She just clawed at her neck and screamed.

Everybody tried to find out what was the matter.

"I know--I know!" shouted Taro.

He shook Take's hair. Out flew the beetle!

Taro caught him. "He isn't hurt a bit," he said.

"But I am," wailed Take.

Mother and Grannie bathed Take's neck, and comforted her; and soon she was happy again and ready to go on with the play.

She and Taro harnessed the beetles with threads to the little wagons. But Take let Taro do the harnessing.

"You can have that one, and I'll have this," Taro said; "and we'll have a race."

He set the beetles on the floor. They began to crawl along, pulling the little carriages after them.

Taro's beetle won the race.

They played with the beetles and wagons a long time until Grannie said, "Let them go now, children. Dinner will soon be ready."

The Twins were hungry. They unharnessed the beetles and carried them to the porch. They put them on the porch railing.

"Fly away home!" they said. Then they ran to the kitchen to see what there was for dinner. They sniffed good things cooking.

Take went to the stove and lifted the lid of a great kettle. It was such a queer stove!

Here is a picture of Take peeping into the kettle. It shows you just how queer that stove was.

"It's rice," Take said.

"Of course," said Taro. "We always have rice in that kettle.

What's in this one?"

He peeped into the next kettle. It was steaming hot. The steam flew out when Taro opened the lid, and almost burned his nose!

That kettle had fish in it. When it was ready, Grannie and Mother and the Twins had their dinner all together. Bot'Chan was asleep.

After dinner Grannie said, "I'm going for a little nap."

"We shall keep very quiet so as not to disturb you and Bot'Chan,"

Taro said.

When the little tables were taken away, the Mother said, "Come, my children, let us sit down beside the hibachi and get warm."

The "hibachi" is the only stove, except the cook-stove, that they have in j.a.panese houses. It is an open square box, made of metal, with a charcoal fire burning in it. In very cold weather each person has one to himself; but this day it was just cold enough so the Twins loved to cuddle close up to their Mother beside the big hibachi.

The Mother put on a square framework of iron over the fire-box.

Then she brought a comforter--she called it a "futon"--from the cupboard. She put it over the frame, like a tent. She placed one large cus.h.i.+on on the floor and on each side of the big cus.h.i.+on she put a little one.

She sat down on the big cus.h.i.+on. Taro sat on one side and Take sat on the other, on the little cus.h.i.+ons. They drew the comforter over their laps--and, oh, but they were cozy and warm!

"Tell us a story, honored Mother," begged Taro.

"Yes, please do!" said Take.

"Let me see. What shall I tell you about?" said the Mother. She put her finger on her brow and pretended to be thinking very hard.

"Tell us about 'The Wonderful Tea-Kettle,'" said Take.

"Tell us about 'The Four and Twenty Paragons,'" said Taro.

"What is a Paragon?" asked Take.

"A Paragon is some one who is very good, indeed,--better than anybody else," said the Mother.

"Are you a Paragon?" Take asked her Mother.

"Oh, no," cried the Mother. "I am a most unworthy creature as compared with a Paragon."

"Then there aren't any such things," said Take, "because n.o.body could be better than you!"

The Mother laughed. "Wait until I tell you about the Paragons.

Then you'll see how very, very good they were," she said.

"Once there was a Paragon. He was only a little boy, but he was so good to his parents! Oh, you can't think how good he was! He was only six years old. He was a beautiful child, with a tender, fine skin and bright eyes. He lived with his parents in a little town among the rice-fields. The fields were so wet in the spring that there were millions and millions of mosquitoes around their home. Everybody was nearly bitten to death by them. The little boy saw how miserable and unhappy his parents were from the mosquito-bites. He could not bear to see his dear parents suffer; so every night he lay naked on his mat so the mosquitoes would find his tender skin and bite him first, and spare his father and mother."

"Oh, my!" said Take. "How brave that was! I don't like mosquito-bites a bit!"