Eighteen

In a quite unforeseen manner, the linnets that Suezō bought for Otama provided an opportunity for Otama and Okada to get on closer terms with one another. I recall how the weather was that year. My father, now no longer living, was busy growing autumn flowers in the garden of our Kitasenju house. One Saturday when I came home from my lodgings at the Kamijō, I found he had bought a lot of little bamboo poles and was using them to stake up his maidenflowers and boneset plants, as nihyaku-tōka, the 210th day after the start of spring, was approaching,