Chapter III: Part 3

As he stood in hesitation he heard a voice, a sharp, boy’s voice, of curiously staccato utterance. “Amm’ San!”[32] it said.

Minokichi cocked his head in the direction from which the sound came and answered “Hai!”

Then he heard the soft pat-pat of bare running feet. They sounded like a dog’s feet, he thought, as they came near him, and he was almost surprised when the boy’s voice close by said “Come,” and a small, firm hand took hold of his and began to lead him, not toward Koishikawa, nor yet toward his home, but northward across the rice-fields along the city’s edge. He walked for miles, clutched by the firm little hand. “The master is ill,” was all the answer that his guide gave to his inquiries. The sun had long been down; he could feel the chill of the autumn evening, and hear the shrill piping of the autumn insects, before they reached their destination.

“Careful! Amm’ San,” called the shrill staccato voice, and Minokichi reached with his stick to feel the stone threshold of a gateway. Then a muffled bell sounded, and he felt against his cheek the slight stirring of the air caused by the bell-rope in the hands of his guide.

“Is it a temple or a _yashiki_?”[33] asked Minokichi of himself, for he had long before ceased trying to get information from his taciturn young escort. “That bell and rope seem like the entrance to a temple. Perhaps it is a priest who is ill, and this is his acolyte.”

Then came the swift rattle of a sliding lattice, and as he bowed and entered the narrow doorway that he knew must be in front of him, he heard the soft, sibilant purr of sliding _shoji_, and the patter of _tabi_-shod feet upon matted floors.

“Good-evening,” he said, sucking in his breath and bending double as he stood at the entrance of the house.

The small, firm hand that had led him relaxed its grasp.

“Amm’ San,” came the sound of a woman’s voice, “you are welcome! Enter, if you please!”

Minokichi slipped from his clogs to the polished wooden step, then up to the floor above, and fell on his knees with his forehead to the mats, sucking in his breath, and murmuring in politest terms his desire to be of service to the master.

“Come quickly, please!” It was the woman’s voice again, so anxious, so hurried, with utterance so clipped and abrupt, that Minokichi could hardly understand her words. A soft hand slipped into his, and he was led by passageways with polished wooden floors and through spacious matted apartments, sweet-smelling with the odors of fresh straw and aromatic cedar.

“A great lord’s _yashiki_,” thought Minokichi, as he sniffed the air and felt the polished wood beneath his feet.

“This is the master’s room. Enter,” said the woman’s voice again, and a sound of sobbing followed.

Once more Minokichi fell on his face and with his forehead to the mats. The sobbing ceased, and in the silence he heard long, gasping breaths, as if some one lay dying close beside him.

“This is the master,” said the voice again. “Do what you can to make him easier.”

With deft and tender touch Minokichi placed his practiced fingers on the quivering body at his side. In spite of his awe and sympathy, a pleasant thought came to his mind. The master wore a wadded silk kimono, and visions of his former princely patron came before him to make him work with redoubled skill and patience. He felt the rigid muscles relax little by little under his hand, the convulsive quivering cease, the labored breathing grow soft and regular.

For hours he worked over the sufferer, and at last, as he stopped to wipe the streaming perspiration from his face, the woman’s voice, quieter and less anxious, said to him, “That is enough, Amm’ San. You are very skillful. The master is really resting now. Come with me and rest yourself awhile. You must be tired.”

Minokichi bowed, and murmured very softly his formula of self-depreciation. Then a soft hand took hold of his and led him from the room.

“Forgive our rudeness,” said the voice again, “in that we offered you no refreshment when you came. The master was suffering so that we were forgetful of all else. Kindly accept this tea, and smoke your pipe, and soon there will be some humble repast ready for you before you leave us.”

Minokichi was glad enough to sit in the quiet of the room to which he had been led, to smoke his tiny pipe and drink the tea set before him, and reflect on the events of the evening and the possibilities of his fee, while he rested from his protracted efforts. The time seemed very short to him before soft footsteps on the mats and the gentle shoving of trays toward him told that the promised refreshment had arrived.

“It is a poor meal,” said the woman’s voice once more. “Please pardon it, for we have been so troubled by the master’s illness.”

Minokichi had never tasted such food as the “poor meal” thus politely offered. Fit for the gods, it seemed to him. He ate sparingly, however, for he did not wish to seem a rude and churlish person, who knew no better than to eat up clean all that was set before him. When he had finished, he returned thanks to his unseen hostess, bowing low with face to the floor in the direction whence came the sound of quick breathing, so rapid that it seemed to him like the panting of a dog.

“Poor lady,” he thought, “she is still worried about the master.”

As he left the house, a heavy folded white paper was placed in his hand, and a wooden box, containing, as he knew, the remains of his feast, was given him. In an ecstasy of thanks and protestations he committed himself to the firm clutch of his first small guide, whose shrill voice uttered the single word, “Come.”

So fast the little feet at his side pattered along, that Minokichi was nearly out of breath when at last his companion relinquished his hold, and with a jerky “Say nar’”[34] left him standing alone, staff in hand. Just then a great bell began to toll, and he knew that he was near his own home, on the north edge of Ushigomé. Slowly, with leisurely waits between the strokes, the ringer beat out the hour. It took a long time to reach the tenth stroke, and Minokichi was sure then that it was through.

“Koto will be fast asleep, and I shall have to wake her,” he said, and started to feel his way home. “Eleven” boomed the bell, and Minokichi hurried faster. “Poor Koto! If she is not asleep, she will be anxious about me.” “Twelve,” and the whirring, buzzing reverberations seemed close to his ear, so near was he to the temple. With clattering clogs and tapping staff the blind man broke into a run, and in a few moments was standing by his own house.

“Koto,” he called very softly, so that the neighbors should not be disturbed. His quick ear caught the rustle within, and he knew that she was awake. He heard her scratch a match and speak a soothing word in response to the baby’s sleepy murmur, then the wooden shutter was pushed gently aside, just wide enough to admit the _amma’s_ slender body.

“It is very late,” he said softly, as he entered, “but I have had such an evening!” and he told her what had befallen him. “The fee should be a good one,” he said when he had finished his story, “for they were very grand people. A great house, and, oh, such a supper!”

As he spoke, he drew the folded paper from his bosom. “Let us see what it is,” he said. “It’s very heavy! Perhaps they paid it all in tempō sen!”[35]

He laid the bundle on the floor and opened it. O Koto’s eyes shone as she saw the yellow glint of the great gold pieces--five of them--antique oval ōban,[36] such as no one saw in these days, except in pictures, or in yellow tin counterfeits hung to the masts of the “ships of fortune.”

“Minokichi, it’s all in gold!” she said solemnly. “Surely it must have been a great prince who called you in. No one but a prince would give such a fee to an _amma_!”

“Surely, it was a prince,” said Minokichi joyfully. “I thought so from the house and the _go chiso_.[37] And now, let us look at the _go chiso_,” and he took up the wooden box that he had brought with him. “Open it, Koto. You never tasted such food in all your life.”

O Koto San opened it, and as she saw the contents, her face fell and a look of terror came into it.

“Taste it, Koto, and see if it’s not good,” insisted Minokichi, but Koto made no answer. “What is the matter, Koto? Why don’t you say something?” Her husband turned his blind face toward her expectantly.

“Minokichi,” she said, and her voice was strange and scared, “there is no food here, nothing but grass and leaves. You have been fooled, and may the gods protect us, for I believe that it was to the foxes you went to-night, and that you have been bewitched.”

“There is the money,” said Minokichi. “This box was packed with grass and leaves by mistake. The gold is here to prove that I was not bewitched,” and he clinked the gold coins together reassuringly.

But O Koto San, who was from the country, and who knew much more about the ways of foxes than did her city-bred husband, shook her head, and murmured something about “to-morrow.”

They did not sleep a great deal that night, Minokichi for thinking of his good luck, Koto in dread of some strange trick that the foxes might have in store for them all. When morning came, they were glad to rise early and go about their common, every-day tasks. Neither spoke of last night’s experience until the shutters had been opened, the beds folded and laid away in the closet, the floors swept, the _shoji_ dusted, and Minokichi seated at his breakfast, with Koto by the rice-bucket, waiting to refill his bowl. Then he spoke:--

“Koto, just get that paper that I brought home, and see if your eyes deceived you last night about the gold. If you are right, there will be nothing here this morning but grass, or at most, tempō sen.”

Koto fetched her little iron-bound cash-box, opened it with the key which she wore always hung about her neck, and drew out the white paper. Her face brightened when she heard its golden chink, while her husband laughed triumphantly. As she opened it the coins shone bright and yellow, no copper tempō sen, but gold ōban, without a doubt. She dropped them one by one upon the mat, counting as she did so. “One, two, three, four”--She shook the paper, felt in her belt, her sleeves, her bosom, searched the box, got up and shook herself. Where was the fifth? One green leaf lay on the floor and four gold pieces.

“How many did we count last night?” she asked of Minokichi.

“Five,” he answered.

“There!” she cried, “it was the foxes that bewitched you, and one of those pieces is a green leaf this morning!”

“Nonsense!” said Minokichi. “You must have made a mistake in your counting last night. You were sleepy, and probably you saw more than there were.”

He laughed affectionately. Koto was so clever and business-like that it was rather pleasant to catch her in a mistake once in a while. But Koto would not accept his theory. She was sure of her own, and worried lest all their gold should depart as had the fifth piece.

When Minokichi was ready for his afternoon start, Koto, her baby firmly tied to her back, slipped into her clogs and stood beside him. “If you go to your fox-place again, I am going with you,” she said decidedly. “I at least can see, and the foxes will not find me quite so easy to fool. O Kin San from next door will mind the shop, and I can walk as far and as fast as you.”

Minokichi demurred. It was not customary for an _amma_ to go about his work escorted by his wife and baby. His princely patron, if they should be lucky enough to find their way to him, might not be willing to employ a man so accompanied. But Koto was firm. She would not interfere with her husband’s business. She would follow him at a discreet distance, and pretend she had nothing to do with him. But go she would, and so they started, Minokichi tapping and whistling in front, Koto and the baby clattering along a few paces behind. As they passed the house of the newspaper-man, a servant who had been watching for the _amma_ called him in, and so it happened that the sun was low when the trio reached the spot where the day before Minokichi had been accosted by the shrill-voiced, barefooted messenger.

O Koto San, who, while her husband was rubbing the newspaper-man, had visited a neighboring temple and made an offering and a prayer to Kwannon, the Goddess of Mercy, felt fairly bold and cheerful by now. The chink of the gold was in her ears, its glitter dazzled her eyes. It was at her suggestion that Minokichi turned northward, and struck out by the dyked roadway in the same direction that he had taken the night before under guidance. They walked a long, long way. The sun went down and the moon came up over the rice-fields, the wind blew chill, the dead leaves rattled on the trees by the wayside.

Poor Koto shivered, and called out to her husband walking in front, “Let’s go home! There is no _yashiki_ here,--only rice-fields and a clump of trees ahead. Come home! Don’t you know by now that you were bewitched last night?”

“Just a little farther, Koto,” pleaded Minokichi. “I am sure we are almost there.”

They walked on, Minokichi feeling the way very carefully with his staff. When they reached the clump of trees, he turned aside, fumbling with his stick until it sounded on stone. “Here it is,” he said, and passed under a low, red _torii_[38] that stood hidden among the giant cedars.

O Koto followed, trembling. It was a little Inari[39] shrine, and before it sat two grinning stone foxes. Minokichi went swiftly forward on the stone-paved walk, sure of his way now, and passed between the guardian images. He lifted his hand and swung the cobwebbed, knotted rope that dangled before a gong above the entrance. A dull, metallic boom smote the silence, but there was no sound in answer to the summons. O Koto shuddered, and the baby struggled restlessly in its wrappings.

At last Minokichi turned sadly. “I am afraid the master is dead, for the house is closed. We will go home now.”

Just then Koto, whose fears had not dulled her wits, noticed a dark object lying close to the foundation of the temple. Her first thought was to seize Minokichi’s hand and run, her next, to find out now what this mystery might be. Controlling her desire to shriek, she went on, to take a nearer look at the crouching body, and by the moon’s bright light, shining through a gap in the trees, she saw that it was a great dead fox, with gray lips drawn back from his toothless jaws in a ghastly grin.

“Poor Minokichi,” she said, “here is your prince. The grandfather of all the foxes he must have been. Even your skill could not save him.”

Minokichi walked on in silence, nor did his wife lag far behind, for across the deserted rice-fields came to her ears a dismal yapping and wailing, the mourning of the foxes for “the master.”

To this day O Koto San does not know whether her husband believes in his own bewitchment. The four ōban remained as they were, and Minokichi, who is a rich man now, thanks to the gold and to O Koto’s clever management, dates all his good luck from that night when he was led out across the rice-fields to minister to the dying man. And when O Koto shakes her head and talks of “Kitsuné Yashiki,” he laughs, and warns her that fox-gold may turn to leaves over night.

FOOTNOTES:

[27] One of the great merchant firms of Japan.

[28] The principal business street of Tokyo.

[29] One of the districts of Tokyo.

[30] Rice-dumpling, a special festival dish.

[31] One of the districts of Tokyo.

[32] _Amma San_, “Mr. Amma.” The clipped utterance in this and in other speeches is quite un-Japanese, and must have sounded foreign to Minokichi.

[33] A great house, belonging to a noble or samurai of high rank.

[34] _Sayo nara_, “Good-by,” another example of the curious clipping of speech that characterizes foxes masquerading as human beings.

[35] A large oval copper coin, worth about eight mills.

[36] A large oval gold coin, worth about eighty dollars.

[37] Honorable feast, a term applied to any special delicacy served to guests.

[38] An erection in the form of a gateway that marks the approach to a temple or sacred place.

[39] The god of rice, whose messengers are foxes.

VI

CHOKICHI’S PILGRIMAGE

The whole year had gone wrong for Chokichi. When, at the close of the old year, his bills had come in and he had paid them off,--as every Japanese must if he would go on into the future at all,--he had not only been left without money, but had been forced to offer his stock in trade at absurdly low prices; and--for purchasers are few and sellers many at that season, and in a small village only as many _tabi_[40] can be absorbed at once as the population has feet to cover--he had, after all, been driven to carry a large part of his wardrobe to the _furugi-ya_[41] and sell it for what it would bring, in order to satisfy his creditors.

And then, after beginning the new year with narrowed resources, he had been further afflicted by the illness of his wife. Money spent on doctors and medicines was of no avail, and she had gone steadily from bad to worse, until at last she had died and left him with no one to attend to the house or the shop, just as things were looking up a little and custom coming in.

Then he had taken an apprentice,--Tōshi, the son of a neighbor who had more boys than he needed to carry on the hereditary business of tub-making, and who was glad to put into Chokichi’s care the most mischievous and good-for-nothing of his lithe, laughing, bullet-headed progeny. Tōshi, with his smooth brown face, his black slits of eyes, his short blue kimono folded neatly about his muscular young legs, would sit meekly on his heels by his master’s side, sewing at the _tabi_ that had been cut and put into his hands, a very model of all the virtues. But if Chokichi left the house for an hour or two in Tōshi’s care, trusting for the moment to the guileless expression and exemplary behavior of his apprentice, he was more than likely on his return to meet the miscreant in the street at the head of a procession of boys marching with flags and singing war-songs with brazen voices, while in the shop all would be disorder, the unfinished socks scattered about the floor, the cat curled up in the tumbled bolt of white cotton from which the _tabi_ were to be cut, or a live coal from the _hibachi_ burning a hole in the newly covered mats.

What was a poor _tabi_-maker to do? Chokichi spent much time in meditation upon this problem, and at last, when August came and pilgrim parties were starting from all the villages to make the tour of the sacred places, a thought came to him that soon urged him into action.

If everything went wrong, it must surely be that he had somehow failed in his duty toward the gods. He could not make a grand tour with the clubs that went out, after a year of saving and preparation, to be gone a month or more, and reap much spiritual benefit by propitiating as many of the gods as possible,--he fairly shuddered to think of what might happen to the shop and Tōshi in such an absence,--but why not take a day, close the shop, send Tōshi home to his mischievous brothers, and make a pilgrimage to the shrine on the top of Miyamoto Yama? He had heard his father tell of how once his grandfather had made pilgrimage thither, and of what wonderful good luck had come in answer to his prayers.

It took Chokichi some time to reason this all out while he sat over his work, cutting, basting, directing Tōshi, sewing on the cheap German hand-machine that he had bought one lucky year when he had found a pleasant little surplus in his till after all his debts were paid. But when he had thought it out, there was no delay about decision.

“Tōshi,” he said suddenly, “would you like a holiday?”

Tōshi’s black eyes gleamed, his ivory teeth shone, but he kept on demurely with his work.

“Yes, master,” he answered, “if your honor would condescend to give one to my unworthiness.”

“I shall close the shop to-morrow, for I must go away on business of importance. You may return to your father’s to-night, and come back to me early in the morning of the day after to-morrow, in time to open the shop.” Chokichi was very condescending and important in his manner. He wished Tōshi to understand that the holiday was no reward of virtue.

Very early the next morning, Chokichi, a box of luncheon tied up in a _furoshiki_,[42] dangling from one hand, a stout staff in the other, his kimono turned up above his knees and tucked into his belt, his bare feet shod with sandals tied tightly about his ankles by strings of twisted straw, walked quickly out of the village, taking the straight highroad that pointed toward the mountains. The mists lay in low, level bands against the sides of the great range, the sun was hardly above the horizon, but the peasants were already at work in the rice-fields, their broad hats showing like rows of giant mushrooms on the square green patches of growing rice.

Chokichi swung along jauntily, making good time in the morning coolness; for the red-faced sun behind him promised a hot day on the plain, and he was anxious to reach the shelter of the wooded gorges before the heat was full upon him. And thanks to his vigorous pace, it was not more than nine o’clock when he found himself traveling along the rugged mountain path, a precipice above him, a green ravine beneath, through which roared and tumbled a small river, swollen and white from the August rains. How delightfully cool and damp it was! He stopped beside a stream that leaped from the precipice in a sheet of foam into a basin cut for it beside the road, then gurgled and hissed under a culvert on its way to the river, below. He bathed his hands and arms and feet and legs in the clear, cool water.

“It was a great thing to do,” he said to himself. “Such a day for the walk! I almost wish I had brought Tōshi, though, for it is pretty lonely!”

He stopped and listened. All the cheerful valley sounds were gone,--the children shouting at their play, the women singing at their looms, the squawking and chatter of fowls, the peasants calling from field to field, the bump-bump of the great mill-wheel, the clatter of clogs and patter of bare feet. There was no sound except the gushing and rushing of water, the swish of green leaves over which the breeze was passing, the murmur of the pines as the wind came their way. As Chokichi listened he shivered a little, for he was used to the social village life, and he seemed so far from human companionship. But he cheered himself with the thought of his grandfather’s luck. There would be little merit to be gained if his day of pilgrimage were all pleasure. And the fact that he was alone would make his luck all the greater,--there would be no one to share it.

And so he trudged along,--one moment wishing for company, the next glad he had none,--until he had reached a goodly height. He stopped to breathe and wipe his face and arms with his blue-figured towel, and stood a moment to look at the square green rice-fields far below him, and the village from which he had come, with its huddled thatched roofs like haystacks on both sides of the narrow road. He was engaged in trying to pick out his own among the gray cottages, and heard no sound of approaching feet, so that a fresh young voice with a ripple of laughter in it startled him, though it uttered only a polite “Good day!”

He turned quickly and looked into a bright, roguish pair of eyes a little below the level of his own,--eyes that flashed from under a blue-and-white towel coquettishly tied about puffs of shining black hair.

“Good day!” he answered, looking with undisguised pleasure upon the picturesque maiden before him.

She seemed about sixteen years old, and was dressed in the simple country costume,--a dark blue kimono and a red-figured _obi_. Her skirt was turned up, and showed a bright red petticoat reaching a little below the knee. Her legs were bare, shapely, and white; she wore rough straw sandals on her feet, tied about her slender ankles. Her face was merry,--red-cheeked, with laughing lips which showed no trace of care or trouble or evil temper.

Chokichi ventured to remark that it was a warm day,--very warm for a young lady to choose for mountain-climbing.

“Truly, it is very warm,” answered the girl, “and I have lost my way. Can you tell me which path leads to the Miyamoto shrine?”

“Assuredly, honorable young lady. I am going there myself, and shall be only too glad if you will condescend to let me accompany you.”

The girl bowed low in thanks, and then the two walked on together, Chokichi ahead, the maiden modestly following. They scrambled a little way in silence up the steep path; then Chokichi, who thanked his lucky stars that he had not brought the mischievous Tōshi, stopped and seated himself upon a rock.

“Let us rest here a little,” he said. “The shrine is not far distant, but the road is steep, and we must get our breath before we begin the last pull.”

The girl sat down across the path from him, and her eyes danced as she looked at him, then she dropped them to the ground and sighed. Chokichi could not but think what an adornment so fair a maiden would be to his lonely house. He began tentatively,--

“And the young lady’s home--is it far from here?”

The girl looked up as she answered, “My humble home? Indeed, it is far away--beyond Futago Yama,” and she pointed to a great double peak that rose out of the north. “I have been walking since before light, and have seen no one since I started until I met you.”

“But why,--if you will permit me to ask so impolite a question,--why do you walk so far all alone to this lonely mountain shrine?”

The girl lifted her hand to her face so that her long sleeve hid her mouth, and her bright eyes softened a little.

“My mother is very ill,” she said gently, “and we are poor and have no money to buy medicine, so I am going to the shrine to ask the gods to give her health.” She hid her whole face behind her sleeve, and Chokichi where he sat could hear her sobbing softly.

“Do not be sad,” he entreated, rising and going to her. He laid one hand on her shoulder, patting her lightly. “The gods will surely grant the prayer of so sweet a pilgrim, and I have money enough to buy medicine for your mother when we come down.”

“Come! Let us go!” she said, rising briskly.

Chokichi was astonished at the sudden change. The roguish light came back into her eyes. She hurried on ahead, looking back at him over her shoulder from time to time. Chokichi was fairly infatuated.

“Wait! Wait a moment!” he called, for her shapely white legs were speeding so fast that he could hardly keep up with her. “Wait for me! I have something to tell you!”

The girl stopped, laughing gleefully. Chokichi, puffing from the chase, came up to her.

“Might it not be”--He stopped, embarrassed. When he had courted Kiku, all had been done through go-betweens. This was new work for him. He began again, “Might it not be that if you had a husband to take care of you, you would not need to take such long journeys all alone to strange shrines?”

Her roguish eyes went up at the corners until they were almost lost in her hair.

“Truly,” she answered, “it might be; but now I go to pray. When we return, we will talk of other things.”

The way wound dimly now through thick woods,--great cedars with trunks like temple pillars. Ahead of them, across the path, stood the heavy _torii_ that marked the beginning of the holy ground. Suddenly the girl stumbled, then gathered herself together with a groan.

“What is the matter? What have you done? Let me help you!” Chokichi cried, hurrying to her.

“I have hurt my ankle and twisted my knee,” she said faintly, leaning against a tree. “My sandal string is cutting me, and I cannot stoop to loosen it!”

“Let me fix it for you,” said Chokichi, squatting beside her and touching lightly the injured ankle.

As he touched it, suddenly it changed under his hand. It was no longer the shapely, slender foot of a young woman, but a great hairy, muscular paw like that of a bear. A yell of demon laughter was in the air. He looked up to see that his companion had grown to the height of a giant, and was staring at him with terrible eyes from a monkey face. Only the dress remained to show that this fearful monster was the charming maiden of the moment before.

Mad with fright, Chokichi fled through the _torii_ into the shrine itself that stood with mossy roof in the dark grove. An old man was sitting in the priest’s room adjoining the temple, and over a _hibachi_ by his side a tea-kettle was boiling merrily. The homely sight and sound were reassuring, and Chokichi felt a little better for the pleasant human companionship.

“Welcome! Welcome!” called the old man. “Come in and take a cup of tea and have a whiff of tobacco. The day is hot, and you must be tired with your long climb up the hill.”

So gentle, so polite, so smiling was his host, that Chokichi sat and talked with him, forgetting the prayers that he had come so far to offer. At last he told him all about his strange adventure on the hillside. The old man chuckled as he described the girl.

“Ay, truly!” he said, wagging his head knowingly.

Then Chokichi told of the great hairy foot.

“Was it like this?” shouted the old man, with a yell, rising suddenly, and Chokichi saw that same foot thrust out in front of him, while far above his head, with staring, terrible eyes and monkey face, was the monster from which he had fled. Around him echoed peals of derisive laughter.

This time it was rage rather than fright that moved Chokichi, and he sprang at his tormentor like a wounded tiger. Gripping the great hairy leg tightly with both hands, he held on until he lost consciousness.

A hunter, passing the shrine late in the day, found him lying on the ground just within the _torii_. He was bleeding from a cut on the head. In one hand he held a bunch of reddish hair. It took some time to bring him to his senses, and then he told his story.

“I’ve got something to show for it,” he said manfully. “I tore this out of the monster before he threw me down.”

The hunter looked at it curiously.

“That is fox-hair!” he exclaimed. “You were bewitched! I know those foxes, they come from the Inari shrine on the other side of Futago Yama!”

Slowly Chokichi toiled down the mountain-side through the darkness; sadly he let himself into his silent house.

When Tōshi returned to his work the next morning, he found his master with a bad cut on his forehead, but welcoming his apprentice with a joy that caused that mischievous youngster some surprise.

“And did the master’s business prosper yesterday?” he inquired humbly, but with a twinkle in his eye that showed he had his own suspicions.

“Tōshi,” answered Chokichi enigmatically, “if a man would see his business prosper, let him mind it himself, nor clamor to the gods for aid.”

FOOTNOTES:

[40] The mitten-shaped sock worn by Japanese.

[41] The old-clothes dealer.

[42] A square of cloth used for wrapping bundles.

VII

THE BUYER OF AMÉ

_Amé_, a sweetmeat made from wheat gluten, very
nourishing and wholesome for children.

Old man Genjiro was sitting over the last coals in his _hibachi_, warming his hands and blinking sleepily. The shutters of the little sweetmeat shop were closed for the night. The street outside was quiet. Even the footsteps of the few belated wayfarers who were still abroad were muffled by the soft, heavy snow that had wrapped the city as in a garment.

The old man nodded over the dying embers, jerking himself awake from time to time to poke the few coals together with the iron fire-sticks, or to rake and pick over the mound of ashes. His worn old face was seamed and crisscrossed with wrinkles, but they were the tracks of kindly emotions, not of the fiercer passions. His wadded blue cotton garments were wrapped tightly about his small, withered body, and his rough, red, bare feet were doubled up under him as he sat on the matted floor. He shivered a little as the red coals grew smaller and smaller.

“What a cold night it is!” he said to himself. “I am glad I do not have to be out pulling a jinrikisha;” and he laughed cheerfully, as he looked about with some pride on his little shop, and his stock in trade spread out in the front of it in small glass showcases.

Genjiro felt that he was living like a lord in his old age after his years of toil, first in the rice-fields, then in the shafts of a jinrikisha. He had lived honestly always, and had brought up three sons, who were now his pride and joy,--strong men all,--two, pullers of jinrikisha like their father before them, and one, the baby, serving his time in the army. When he grew old his sons had set him up in the little shop, and he managed to make a comfortable living off of the small coins that the children in the neighborhood paid him for his wares.

Genjiro’s old wife, Fusa, was pottering about the back room, making the bed for the night. He could hear her snort and snuffle about her work, for she was asthmatic, and the heavy winter comfortables that she was handling were almost too much for her strength.

“Put on all the comfortables that we have,” he called to her; “I am coming to bed in a minute. No one will come to buy _amé_ on such a night as this.”

Fusa grunted in response and went on with her work. Genjiro sat still over his fire, too sleepy and warm to leave it for the cold little back room, even with the prospect of all the comfortables in the house to lure him to his bed. He heard the great bell of the temple close by boom out the hour, but he was too sleepy to count the slow strokes.

It was Fusa’s voice from the next room that roused him with the words, “Some one is at the door!”

He jumped up with a start and heard a very thin, weak voice calling, “Excuse me,” just outside the shop. He pushed open the shutter in surprise that any one should come at that hour for _amé_. A woman stood in the street. He could not see her clearly in the darkness and amid the falling snow, which covered her dress and lay upon her disheveled hair and seemed to whiten even her face. She glided rather than stepped into the shop.

Genjiro hardly knew what to say, but he bowed politely, on all fours, lifting his head at intervals from between his hands to remark that it was a cold night, that it was the first time that he had had the pleasure of seeing his visitor, and that he hoped he might be able to serve her.

The woman’s face was very sweet and sad, as she bowed in response to Genjiro’s greetings. “I would like to buy a little of your _amé_,” she said, and she pointed to a long, bright-colored paper bag of the confection, such as is sold to mothers when they bring their babies to the temple for the _miya mairi_.[43] Genjiro handed it to her, and received in return a curiously blackened and mouldy coin. Then the customer glided out into the street, and the old man closed his shutter and retired to the back room.

“What was it?” said Fusa, for Genjiro was shaking all over.

“Only a woman who wanted to buy _amé_,” he said; but he shuddered as he crept into bed, and it was a long time before he was warm enough to sleep.

The next day the old man was pale and distraught. When the baby of the clog-seller across the street came toddling over, holding out a rin[44] piece with a square hole in the middle, he was so absorbed in thinking of his strange customer that he did not see her at all, and her dirty round mouth began to pucker, and her fat little bosom to heave up and down under its red wadded gown, before he turned his abstracted gaze upon her. To be sure, he comforted her with a beautiful long piece of _amé_ jelly and a little paper flag with a round red sun in the middle; but her faith in him was only partially restored, and she trotted home so depressed that she nearly ran under the wheels of a passing jinrikisha, and wailed loudly when the runner threw her aside as if she had been a pillow. And when the boys came home from school at noon, they were surprised to see that their friend Genjiro, instead of sitting in the front of the shop, bowing and smiling over his tempting wares, was hugging his _hibachi_, smoking gloomily, and staring into the street with vacant eyes. It took two shouts and much jingling of small coin to wake him from his reverie.

That night, Genjiro and his old wife went to bed early, and the shop was closely shuttered and quite dark when the temple bell sounded ten. Genjiro was not asleep, however, and he lay listening to the sounds in the street, with Fusa wheezing and snoring beside him. And then, again he heard the weak, pleading voice.

“Excuse me for troubling you,” it said.

Genjiro lay and shivered, but his kind heart at last got the better of his fears, and he rose and went into the shop. Softly he slid open the shutter, and his last night’s visitor stood before him.

“I am making you great trouble,” she said, “but I would like some more of your nice _amé_,” and she bowed, and pointed as before to a bright-colored paper bag.

Genjiro gave it to her, she slipped into his hand again a rusty coin, and glided away. Trembling, the old man closed the shutter, crept back to bed, and lay cowering with cold and fear.

Every night for five nights the same thing happened, and Genjiro, what with fear and bewilderment, was a changed man. His business suffered, for the boys now patronized the itinerant sweetmeat vender who came into the street every noon and stood close to Genjiro’s shop with his little cart of sweets, blowing a bubbly brass horn and dancing at intervals for the crowd of children that flocked about him. Genjiro was too forlorn to make an effort to hold his trade. He only sat in the back of the shop and watched the small coins that ought to be his drop into his supplanter’s money-box.

At last Genjiro forced himself up to a high resolve. He would follow the stranger and see what became of her. He never went to bed now until his weird customer had made her nightly purchase, but sat and shivered over his _hibachi_ until she came. Fusa was sure that the visitor was a fox-woman, and that her husband was bewitched; and when he told her that night that he was going to follow the stranger, the poor old woman groveled on the floor, entreating him not to be so rash.

“She will only lead you into some great danger. You will never come back if you follow that fox-woman,” she cried; but though Genjiro shuddered, he remained firm, and all day Fusa mourned him as one already dead.

When the woman came that night, she looked paler and sadder than ever, and she bowed very low and wept as she handed Genjiro the rusty rin in payment for her purchase. When the old man saw her distress, he was firmer than ever in his resolve to follow her and discover her home and her grief. He had put on a clean pair of jinrikisha-man’s shoes, so that there should be no sound from his footsteps. As he stepped down from the shop platform to draw the shutter, he closed himself out into the street, and glided along in his soft foot-gear almost as silently as the retreating figure that he followed. He had to run at a dog-trot to keep up with her, so quickly did she move. They passed the temple, the great curves of its roof throwing dark shadows in the moonlight, then on into the graveyard beyond.

There was a faint smell of incense in the air, and a few coals burned dimly on a tombstone. Genjiro hesitated,--a graveyard is not a pleasant place to enter so late at night,--but his strange guide seemed to feel his hesitation, and turning, looked at him sadly and beckoned to him. Genjiro followed manfully. “Poor thing! She wants something of me!” he said to himself. They came to a great tree girdled with a straw rope, under which was a grave, and there the woman disappeared.

So he had been selling _amé_ every night to a ghost! Surely Genjiro’s fears were justified! He was weak and trembling when he reached home, and it was only after several cups of saké, which Fusa brought him when she saw his condition, that he could speak connectedly enough to tell his story.

Far into the night they talked the matter over, but they could not tell what to do next. At last Fusa said, “You must go to the priest to-morrow, and he will know who is buried in that grave. Then, perhaps, we can find out what the ghost wants.”

Very early the next morning Genjiro and Fusa went to the temple, taking with them the six rusty coins that their ghostly visitor had paid. They found the place alive with worshipers, for it was a feast day. The priests were almost too busy to attend to the humble pair, but at last a gentle old ecclesiastic took pity on their evident distress, called them to the priests’ house close by the shrine, and asked them kindly what their trouble was. They told the story, passing it from one to the other in their excitement over its details, and handed over to the priest the coins, neatly folded in a piece of white paper.

The holy man looked grave. “Where is the tomb?” he said. “Can you show it to me now?”

“Surely, your reverence,” answered Genjiro eagerly; “it is just under the sacred cedar tree,--the great tree with a rope around it.”

“Show it to me,” said the priest, and together they went to the graveyard. The grave was a new one; only a wooden post bearing the posthumous name of the deceased marked the spot.

“This is the grave of Kiku,” said the good man, and tears of pity stood in his eyes. “She was the wife of Chokichi Sato, and she died less than ten days ago. I myself performed the ceremony when we laid her and her unborn child here under the sacred cedar. Without doubt the gods have sent her to you with a message.”

Then Genjiro and Fusa stood, awestruck, before the grave, while the priest returned to the temple to tell what had come to pass. And when the priests and the people heard the story of the woman ghost that had come nightly to Genjiro’s shop to buy _amé_, they came in a great crowd and stood about the grave.

And one who heard the story went to Chokichi, the husband of Kiku, and told him, and he hastened to the place just as he was, in his white-lettered carpenter’s blouse and blue tights. And when he saw the priests and the people standing, he said, “Will you permit that we open the grave, and learn whether there is any reason why my wife has visited the _améya_[45] every night for a week?”

And the priests answered, “We will permit it, and we will, ourselves, watch the opening and say prayers for the repose of O Kiku San’s spirit.”

Then picks and hoes were brought, and the earth, wet and heavy with melted snow, was moved from the grave, until at last they came to the great cask in which the dead had been placed for burial.

And Chokichi said, “If it please your reverences, I will open the coffin, that I alone may be polluted by the touch of the dead.” And he opened the coffin, the priests chanting a mass for the repose of the young wife’s soul.

And when the cover was removed, a little gurgle came from within the coffin, and all the people saw the dead mother sitting within, and at her feet a tiny living baby, smiling and gurgling, and sucking a piece of _amé_. And Chokichi lifted out the baby, all naked as it was, and folded it from the winter air in his bosom. “My little son!” he said, and he wept.

Then said the old priest to all the people as they stood amazed, “Now ye can see how great is mother love, that will, even from the grave, watch over and feed its offspring. Behold how for her baby’s sake this poor mother hath given to the _améya_ the six rin[46] which she needed to keep her from entering naked into the spirit world,” and he placed reverently in the coffin the paper containing the six rusty coins that Genjiro had given to him.

Then he turned to Genjiro, and said, “The kindness of this man, opening his door night after night to the mother’s ghost, has given back to Chokichi his son.” And Genjiro and Chokichi returned to their homes, each followed by a wondering crowd.

From that time on everything that Genjiro did prospered. From all the city people came to buy _amé_ of him, and to hear his story. Mothers sent their children to spend their stray coins at his shop, for they said, “He is a kind man, and will always give you good _amé_.” And the rival _améya_ with his bubbly trumpet came no more into the neighborhood, but danced and played in the next ward, where there was no Genjiro to hold the trade of all the street.

FOOTNOTES:

[43] The presentation of a baby at the parish temple, a ceremony that takes place when the child is about a month old.

[44] A coin something like the Chinese “cash,” worth about half a mill.

[45] One who sells _amé_.

[46] On the banks of the River of Death an old hag waits to strip the souls of their clothing as they pass by. Therefore with the dead must always be buried six rin, with which to propitiate the old woman.

VIII

THE PEONY LANTERN

Old Hanzo stood at the front door bowing double and sucking in his breath as his master stepped into the jinrikisha and stood for a moment to be firmly wrapped about by the dust-robe that the kurumaya held in his hands.

“Good-by, Hanzo,” called the young man gayly as he whirled away. “Do not expect me back until late to-night, and mind that you have something good to eat ready for me when I return.”

The old servant bowed, and clattered off on his clogs to discuss with his wife the carrying out of the master’s order.

Tēichi Ogiwara was a gay young fellow, who, with more wealth than was quite good for him, was living carelessly and idly in his pleasant little house in the Negishi suburb of Tokyo. Of samurai descent, brought up in the stern traditions of his ancestors, he had come to Tokyo a few years before from the castle town of Wakamatsu, an earnest youth, on fire with zeal to so educate himself as to be of use to his beloved country. While his parents lived, their delight in his progress through the University, their joy in the letters in which he breathed forth his high resolves, had kept him steadily at his work and away from the temptations that are set for the feet of unwary students in the capital.

But things had changed greatly for him within a year. His parents had died, leaving to him a substantial little income; and after the first grief was over, the young fellow, looking about him for companionship, had made friends with one of his classmates in the medical school,--a brilliant scholar and amusing talker, popular with classmates and instructors alike, and always ready to engage in any enterprise that promised either pleasure or profit to himself. Tēichi, by nature silent and reserved, was attracted by the gayety and energy of Komura, and Komura, himself of low birth and small financial resources, was only too delighted to be taken up by a young fellow of independent means, and of a social position far higher than his own. And so the friendship grew apace, Komura gaining daily greater influence over Tēichi, until, at the expiration of a few months, he had subtly sapped the high ideals and brought the younger and more innocent man as nearly as possible to his own level.

“You have brains enough and money enough. Why do you dig so at your studies? If I had your chances, wouldn’t I have a good time? Leave the hard work and plain living to us of the heimin. We have to do it because we have neither money nor place. I’d show you how to use your money so as to get some good out of it, if you’d let me!”

This was the general trend of Komura’s influence, and to Tēichi the temptations of a luxury and dissipation that he had always been taught to shun grew irresistible. It seemed as if the asceticism of his early life, the plain living and high thinking that are a part of the samurai creed, had been the mere restraining shell of his pupa state, from which he emerged suddenly as a full-grown butterfly, seeking pleasure wherever it was to be found.