that covers Japanese floors — around the outer edges of the box. That way, the sand that fell out was easy to get back into the box. The children would pick up one edge of the “ goza,” cascading the sand right up against the sand box. Then it was a simple matter to scoop it back up and into the box. To play there is fun, — but it is not very clean! Daddy called and the children came, just as Mother was making the gravy. They obediently ran in to wash their hands. The washing was ac companied by the usual childish badgering and bantering. “ Paul, give me the soap? Ma ma, Paul won’t give me the soap!” “ Ah-h-h! Hey, no fair! Janet splashed water on me, and I didn’t even splash her a little bit!” “ Janet, did you really wash these hands?” I heard Daddy ask. “ Sure, I did!” “ Then what’s all this back here? Look at this dirt on the back of your arm!” “ But I don’t WANT to see it!” Half of her mind knew it was there. She could have found it if she looked. In fact, she KNEW she’d find it if she looked! But she didn’t want to see it. “ The entrance of Thy words giveth light” (Psa. 119:130). And we can see the dirt. But if she saw the dirt, she would have no excuse for not washing it away. So she didn’t WANT to see it! It is so nice to be clean. She would rather, really, be clean than dirty. But the process o f washing is objectionable. My heart, too, would rather be clean than dirty. But dirty it gets. And sometimes, I, too, find my self cherishing the dirt though I would far rather be clean. If it only didn’t mean that I would have to get down to business and make thihgs right. Somehow, I seem to hope that if I ignore it, it will go away by itself. But it seems that only the cleanness will go away by itself; the dirt will remain just as long as I choose to close my eyes to it! QI] 17
by Jean Cerling Allen
D U a d d y , would you please bring the children in and get them cleaned up for supper?” It was a warm summer evening in Tokyo, and the children were playing out side in the sand. Not clean, yel low sand such as you find by the lakeside, but gritty, greyish stuff. When Paul had received a new magnet for his birthday, he went out to the sandbox to find iron filings to suck up with the new tool. He had found them, too — plenty of them, which he carefully put in an old envelope and tucked away in his drawer with his OCTOBER, 1967
neckties. They spilled, of course, and later Mother had to empty out the drawer, throw out the paper liner, and tap the bottom of the drawer over the waste basket. But they had spent many happy hours out there in the sand box Daddy had made for them out of pieces' from the crates that our beds had been shipped in. He had put it under a tall pine tree so that it would be somewhat shaded during the hottest part of the day. And he had put strips of “ goza” — the rice straw matting
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