Page:Japanese Gardens (Taylor).djvu/255

Rh we were spending the summer, Young America, aged two and a half, whom nothing escaped, called my attention to a shop where an old man sold tiny porcelain images. I say sold, but, in the small boy’s case, it must have been rather given away, for the short supply of coppers he was possessed of could not possibly have been enough to buy all the temples, torii, junks, coolies, priests, Fuji-sans, and bridges the little rascal had in his possession. However, a Japanese gift is a gift, and may not be paid for, except by the presentation of another gift; so, in getting the matter properly arranged, we became great friends with the wrinkled old pair who kept the shop, and later, through them, with a young man, a son I think, who made Hachi Niwa. I do not remember that these were for sale; I imagine they cannot have been, for I never owned one, and the child’s was a present; but many a pleasant hour did we spend watching their manufacture, and marvelling at the silent youth’s delicacy and dexterity of hand.

A whole little set of tools he had, and models of many of them he gave the small boy with which to learn to make miniature gardens on his own account. The baby brooms (a few inches long they were), and a little trowel, also a toy, were the only things that lasted long, but the gardener himself had others—a squirting watering-pot for keeping damp the moss (which simulated