respectful distance with their sewing, if they have any. There may be
conversation, or the master may read aloud from a book of historical
romances or fairy stories; but the servants may laugh and chat as freely
over joke or story as anyone.

When bed-time arrives the quilts come out of the cupboards, and are spread
with due care that no one sleeps with the head to the north, for that is
the position in which the dead are laid out, and so is a very unlucky
one for the living. Then the little wooden neck-rests, which they use as
pillows, are set in their places, and every one goes to bed. The Japanese
day is over.




CHAPTER X

JAPANESE GAMES


The children of Japan have many games, and some of these games are shared
with them by their fathers and mothers--yes, and by their grandfathers and
grandmothers too, for an old man will fly a kite as eagerly as his tiny
grandson. The girls play battledore and shuttlecock and bounce balls, and
the boys spin tops and make them fight. A top-fight is arranged thus: One
boy takes his top, made of hard wood with an iron ring round it, winds it
up with string, and throws it on the ground; while it is spinning merrily,
another boy throws his top in such a way that it spins against the first
top and knocks it over. So cleverly are the attacking tops thrown that the
first top is often knocked to a distance of several feet. Other games are