Page:Eminent Authors of Contemporary Japan.pdf/97



As is the case with most girls of fourteen or fifteen years old, Sode-ko, at that age, had become rather indifferent to her dolls.

Sode-ko had been a mere child in the way she fussed about the dresses and underwear for her dolls. How many little gowns and hoods she had made for them, and what enjoyment it had brought to her childhood! She had possessed various kinds of dolls; some of the cheaper ones had been bought at a toy-shop in the neighbourhood, and a few of these had lost their heads, and some had been thrown away, because of their smeared faces and broken noses. But in her collection was one particular doll which her father had bought her once when she visited Maruzen’s with him before the great earthquake disaster, and this one had the longest life of them all. This beautiful doll was a new arrival from Germany, and was dressed in real European style. It had cost little, but was strongly made. It was a boy doll, with brown clustering curls, and when it was laid on its back it closed its pretty round eyes, and when it was raised into a sitting position it opened them wide again.

This doll was kept upstairs in an honoured place amongst her very best toys. Sode-ko spoke to it and treated it as if it were a real boy. She adored it with such love that she often embraced and caressed it with