I have even been told--though I don't know whether to think it's
true or not--that Japanese parents believe more in sugar-plums
than in punishments to make children good!

Anyway, the children there are very good indeed.

In a little town near a large city on one of the Happy Islands,
there is a garden. In the garden stands a house, and in that
House there live Taro, who is a boy, and Take (Pronounce Tah'-
kay), who is a girl.

They are twins. They are Japanese Twins and they are just five
years old, both of them.

Of course, Taro and Take do not live alone in the house in the
garden. Their Father and Mother live there too, and their
Grandmother, who is very old, and the Baby, who is very young.

Taro and Take cannot remember when Grandmother and Father and
Mother happened, because they were all there when the Twins
came; and the Twins could not possibly imagine the world without
Father and Mother and Grandmother.

But with the Baby it was different. One day there wasn't any
Baby at all, and the next day after that, there he was, looking
very new but quite at home already in the little house in the
garden, where Taro and Take lived.

"Taro" means eldest son, and the Baby might have been called
"Jiro," because "Jiro " means "second," and he was the second