You will wish to know what they eat in Japan.  The food is much the same as in China.  They eat a great deal of rice.  They have fish, and they drink tea.  They use chopsticks in eating, as the people in China do.

The people in Japan are very fond of flowers.  Every house has a garden around it.  The boys and girls walk and play in these gardens.

[Illustration:  Interior of a Japanese House.]

Boys and girls in Japan have many nice toys.  One of their toys is a little oven with real fire in it.  Peddlers go round with these ovens and with sweet dough to bake in them.  For five cents the boys and girls can get the use of an oven, and dough enough to bake little cakes.  They often make cakes shaped like animals.  The peddler makes the letters of the alphabet in dough.  Then he bakes them in the oven for the boys and girls.  With these cake letters they often learn their a, b, c.

The boys in Japan, like the boys in China, are very fond of kites.  But in Japan they have fighting kites.  They mix broken fine glass with glue, and rub it on their kite strings.  When the strings become dry they are hard and sharp.  Then the boys fly their kites.  One boy tries to cross and cut the string of another boy’s kite with the string of his own.  The boy who cuts down a kite gets it as his prize.

In Japan they have a day like our Flag Day.  On this day the boys have toy soldiers with swords and guns.  They form these soldiers into armies, and have battles.  Then the parents and teachers tell the boys about the great soldiers of their country, and the great battles they fought.

The girls have a day for themselves.  They call it the “Feast of Dolls.”  Every girl has a set of dolls.  On that day they take out their dolls and doll houses.  Then the girls play with them, and show them to one another.

[Illustration:  Japanese Girl and Doll.]

They have schools in Japan just as we have.  The boys and girls must go to school until they are ten years old.  Some of their lessons are very hard.  They have forty-seven letters in their alphabet, instead of only twenty-six, as we have.  Don’t you think it must be hard for the boys and girls to learn to read?

They go to school very early in the morning.  Before they enter the school they take off their shoes.  When the teacher comes, they bow down their heads nearly to the ground and draw in their breath.  This is their “good morning.”  The teacher also bows to the boys and girls.

Then the children sit on the floor.  They put their books on their knees and begin their lessons.  They have no pens or pencils.  They use little brushes instead.  They write in lines from the top to the bottom of the sheet of paper, instead of across from side to side as we do.  This is the way, you remember, they write in China.  The books in Japan are also like the books in China.  The last page in our books would be the first page in books in China and Japan.  So their books begin at what we would think the end.  How queer this seems to us!