On every side were set up images of the infant Buddha.  Around these, worshipers crowded that they might purchase some portion of the licorice tea poured over the image and supposed to guard against many evils.

Groups of white-garbed pilgrims from distant cities passed on to worship, their tinkling bells keeping time to the soft pad of their sandaled feet.  Under the overhanging boughs of the ancient trees were placed low platforms spread with bright red blankets, and thereon sat the family groups.  In these throngs very few were well off in worldly possessions.  For the masses this day meant curtailment of necessities for many other days.  It was a willing sacrifice, for, having done duty at the temple and cheerfully contributed their hard-earned “rin,” they yielded themselves up to the enjoyment of being set free, in a space where neither worry nor want were permitted to enter, where their poor lives touched something higher or less sordid than themselves.  The day was a gift of the gods and they would be merry, for to-morrow was toil and poverty.  It was neither satisfying nor permanent but all so simple and happy.  Only a heartless stickler for creed and dogma would have labeled it idolatry or banished from the garden of the temple the participants who were childlike in their enjoyment.

It took us some time to make our way to the building where Kishimoto guided us that he with his family might first offer their devotions.  Once there, the ceremony began.  I was not expected to participate and stood aside.  It was not without anxiety that I heard the grandfather give a stern command to Zura to approach and kneel with him before the great bronze image, and her equally rigid refusal to do so.

With difficulty the proud old Buddhist refrained from creating a scene before the other worshipers, but it was plain that he was stung to the quick for the honor of his religion.  From the look in his face he only bided his time.

The girl moved nearer to me and none too quietly mocked priest and worshiper gaily.  Both maid and man seemed determined once for all to settle the supremacy of will.  They were like two warriors measuring their strength before the final contest.  The slip of a dark-eyed girl seemed an adversary easily disposed of.  Though justly angered, her opponent had learned that if from him she had inherited tenacity of will, the legacy from her father had been an invincible belief in her individual right and courage to assert it.

After this clash we walked about till it was time for the evening meal.  It was served in an open tea-house.  Hospitable and kind to the last degree, both host and hostesses pressed upon me every dainty eatable, and tried by all they knew to dispel the gathering clouds.  I was touched by their efforts and did my best to smooth the way to peace, but my endeavors were vain.  It was a conflict of conditions in which were both wrong and right, but which not to the end of time would ever be reconciled.