The Japanese Twins | Page 5

tells all about it, just exactly as it was.
THE DAY THE BABY CAME
THE DAY THE BABY CAME
Taro and Take were standing right beside their Father early one
morning when the nurse came into the room with a bundle in her arms.
It was a queer-looking, knobby kind of a bundle, and there was
something in it that squirmed!
The nurse looked so happy and smiling that the twins knew at once
there must be something very nice in the bundle, but what it was they
could not guess. Taro thought, "Maybe it's a puppy." He had wanted a
puppy for a long time. And Take thought, "Perhaps it's a kitten! But it
looks pretty large for a kitten, and it doesn't mew. Kittens always
mew." And they both thought, "Anyway, it's alive."
The nurse carried the bundle across the room. She knelt down on the
floor before the Twins' Father and laid it at his feet.
The Twins' Father looked very much surprised, and as for Taro and
Take, they felt just exactly the way you feel when you look at your
stocking on Christmas morning.

They dropped down on their knees beside the bundle, one on each side
of their Father. They wanted dreadfully to open it. They wanted so
dreadfully to open it that they had to hold their hands hard to keep from
touching it, but they never even laid a finger on it, because the nurse
had given it to their Father!
Taro just said aloud: "Is it a puppy?"
At the very same moment Take said: "Is it a kitten?"
And then their Father said: "I haven't opened the bundle yet, so how
can I tell? We must ask the nurse. What is it, Natsu?"
And Natsu, the nurse, put her two hands together on the matting in
front of her, bobbed her head down nearly to the floor, and said: "It is a
little son, Master. Will you accept him?"
Then the Father sat right down on the floor, too, between Taro and
Take. He took the little squirming bundle in his arms, and turned back
the covers--and there was a beautiful baby boy, with long, narrow eyes
and a lock of hair that stood straight up on the top of his head!
"Oh! oh! Is he truly ours--a real live baby, for us to keep?" cried Take.
"Would you like to keep him?" her Father asked.
Take clapped her hands for joy. "Oh, yes, yes!" she said. "For then I
can have a little brother of my own to carry on my back, just the way O
Kiku San carries hers! I've never had a thing but borrowed babies
before! And O Kiku San is not polite about lending hers at all! Please,
please let me hold him!"
She held up her arms, and the Father laid the little baby in them very,
very gently.
Taro was so surprised to see a baby in the bundle that he had not said a
word. He just sat still and looked astonished.
"Well, Taro, how is it with you?" said his Father. "Would you like to

keep the Baby, too?"
"I'd even rather have him than a puppy!" said Taro very solemnly. And
that was a great deal for Taro to say, for he had wanted a puppy for
ever so many weeks.
"So would I rather have him than a puppy," the Father said; "ever so
much rather."
Just then the Baby puckered up his nose, and opened his little bit of a
mouth--and a great big squeal came out of it! You would never have
believed that such a big squeal could possibly come out of such a little
mouth. And he squirmed more than ever.
Then Natsu, the nurse, said, "There, there, little one! Come to your old
Natsu, and she will carry you to Mother again."
"Let me carry him," Take begged.
"No, let me," said Taro.
But Natsu said, "No, no, I will carry him myself. But you may come
with me, if you want to, and see your Mother."
So Taro and Take and their Father all tiptoed quietly into the Mother's
room, and sat down on the floor beside her bed.
They sat on the floor because everybody sits on the floor in Japan. The
bed was on the floor, too.
It was made of many thick quilts, and the pillow a little block of wood!
We should think it very uncomfortable, but the Twins' Mother did not
think so. She lay with the wooden pillow under her head in such a way
that her hair was not mussed by it-- instead, it looked just as neat as if
she were going to a party. And it was just as nice as a party, because
they all