The place is very typical, with its clean-matted rooms and its tiny garden with miniature features of rock and water, its lanterns and stepping-stones, its gnarled trees and clumped bamboo. At the entrance to this tea-house we removed our shoes and passed over the soft mats into the simple, pretty rooms, open to the air and overlooking the lovely garden.
It took some time for the little entertainers to gather, for they are not used to haste. In the meantime we sat on mats while tea and _saké_ were served by the _naisan_, or maids, who shave off their eyebrows in order to make themselves plainer and so set off the beauty of the dancers. They came slipping in and falling upon their knees before us, bowing low and presenting the tiny cups for drinking--all a matter of much ceremony and etiquette when politely done.
[Illustration: GEISHA GIRLS AT THE ICHIRIKI TEA-HOUSE, KYOTO. (In the corner is inserted a geisha girl's visiting-card, _actual size_.)]
Finally some wee _maikos_ came shuffling in with their quaint dress and hair make-up, their whitened faces and painted lips, and knelt among us in picturesque attitudes. These _maikos_ are girls of from ten to thirteen years of age who are learning to be _geishas_. Following them came the _geishas_ themselves--the older dancers--and then the musicians began to tune and twang their instruments, and to chant the monotonous songs that tell the stories of the dancing.
Our eyes grew big with wonder and delight as the figures were taken up in turn, one after another--movements grotesque, but oh, so dainty and quaint! Such posturing in adorably awkward attitudes! Such sliding with tiny feet turned inward, heads and hands at all angles, eyes askew! To one to whom their dancing has become familiar, it is all so fascinating and fanciful, so full of delight and grace and meaning!
Tomiji and Kanoko, both _maikos_--dear tiny figures in gay garments and huge _obis_--danced the Story of the Stone Bridge. One of them was a peony, and the other was a lion! Then a _geisha_, Harikiku, or the Spring Chrysanthemum, danced the Story of the Spring Rain, which has a theme like that of Romeo and Juliet, as old as the hills--only now one of the lovers was a nightingale while the other was a plum.