THE RAIN. 229

“You'll see.”

Ralph now prepared himself for this “oven,” and taking a seat
on the frame, wrapped the quilt about him.

“There,” said the doctor, watching the gratified look on Ralph’s
face ; “‘isn’t that first-class ?”

“Oh it’s bamboo-nice. Get you a ko-stad-stool, Rick!”

Rick was speedily enjoying his turn, and as they were in
adjoining rooms, the paper-walls were slid back, and the boys could
talk with one another from their “ovens.” America. was now for-
gotten, and also old Concord, with its glorious associations. What
was it the boys heard —music ?

“ Hear that, Rick! The band is out.”

“Doctor Walton said our landlord’s girl was a musician, and I
guess she’s agoin’ it, Ralph.”

The landlord’s daughter was indeed “agoin’ it.” She was playing
ona Japanese instrument, the koto, her fingers thrumming the strings
of waxed silk stretched above a sounding-board of hard wood.

They were soon ready for supper, which they enjoyed thoroughly.

“T wish I could get used to Japanese chop-sticks, but I can’t,
doctor,” said Uncle Nat; “there’s nothing like home-tools after all,
so I have brought out knives and forks as usual, from my bag;
but it is encouraging’ to know that practice makes perfect. I read
of a man somewhere in the East who had broken a law, and this
was the penalty: to sit in a cask, fastened there, only his head and
hands sticking out. His wife had come up to feed him. On her
back was a fat little baby with a curious long top-knot. That wife
would run a pair of chop-sticks into a little bowl of rice, and then
run them into that rogue’s open mouth, with a good deal of
~ celerity.”

After supper, while seated around the brazier, the soft light of the