Tales of a Korean Grandmother (10 page)

THE ANT
THAT
LAUGHED
TOO
MUCH

O
K CHA
and Halmoni were laughing. All the others, grownups and children, were laughing, too. Their olive-skinned faces were crinkled with smiles, and their narrow, almond-shaped eyes twinkled with fun. The Inner Court rang with the sound of their merriment.

The cause of it all was Yong Tu. He was trying to stand on his head as he had seen the funny acrobats do at the fair in the city the day before. It had been a splendid fair, with clowns and ropedancers, and tumblers who could do many more tricks than turning themselves thus upside down. Yong Tu could imitate the antics of the clowns, but he had no strong straw track, high up in the air, on which to try the ropedancing. It was perhaps a good thing, for he was having enough difficulty on the ground, pretending to be a traveling tumbler.

The boy's long braid of black hair kept getting in his way, until Halmoni loaned him a woman's hairpin to fasten the braid up on the crown of his head. This made his sister Ok Cha laugh louder than ever. She laughed and laughed, until her very sides ached.

"Take care, Jade Child," her grandmother warned her. "Take care, or like the ant that laughed too much, you will meet with disaster."

"What happened to the ant, Halmoni?" the little girl asked, with one eye still on Yong Tu. He had tired of trying to get his feet up into the air and was now rolling about on the ground, playing with Dog.

"You shall hear, blessed girl," the old grandmother said, hoping to calm the giggling child. "This ant was a wise old ant and greatly respected in the garden where she lived. Everyone came to her for advice, and so it was not at all strange that the earthworm should choose her to act as a go-between and find him a wife.

"'I badly want a good wife, Omoni,' the earthworm said to the ant. Someone who will take care of my clothes and prepare my rice and
kimchee.
Find me a young wife, a healthy and strong one. I know you will choose wisely.'

"The ant agreed, and she was thinking over the problem one sunny afternoon, when she met a strong, healthy centipede.

"'How would you like to become a bride?' the ant asked the young centipede.

"'Well enough! Well enough!' was the centipede's reply. 'But you must tell me first about the bridegroom.'

"'The bridegroom is industrious. He is calm. He is patient,' the ant replied with enthusiasm.

It was a splendid fair, with clowns and dancers who ran along straw ropes high up in the air.

"'Does he live in this garden?' the centipede asked.

"'Yé,
he lives in this garden, though often he is out of sight of those who walk on its paths.'

"'That is true of all garden creatures.' the centipede said. 'Tell me more about the bridegroom.'

"'Well, he is many times longer than you, and he moves about well, although he has no legs.'

"'That would be a fine centipede,' the prospective bride said with scorn. 'What kind of husband for me would be one without any legs?'

"'He is an honorable earthworm,' the ant then confessed.

"'Ai,
a damp, clammy earthworm!' The centipede shook her head. 'An earthworm would never do. His body reaches too far. I should never have patience enough to make a coat for such a long creature.'

"The ant thought this very funny. She laughed and she laughed as she scurried down the garden path to tell the bad news to the waiting bridegroom.

"'Ai,
Earthworm,' she said between her fits of laughter. 'I found a young bride, a beautiful centipede, healthy and strong, but she will have none of you. She says she will never have a husband without any legs. She says you are too long. She would never have patience enough to sew up your clothes.' And the ant went off into fits of laughter again.

"'I do not find this joke funny,' the earthworm said indignantly. 'Why should a centipede laugh at a fine earthworm like me? I would not have her either. With all those legs of hers! No! Again, no! How should I ever get enough straw to make shoes for so many feet? The bargain is off.'

"Well, the ant thought this even funnier than the remarks of the centipede. She laughed and she laughed until her sides ached. She feared she would burst. So she took a straw rope and tied herself tightly together about her middle.

"Only when she had forgotten about her adventures as go-between for the earthworm and the centipede, did the ant untie the rope. And what do you think had happened, Ok Cha?" The grandmother paused for a moment, enjoying the little girl's eager, questioning face.

"That ant had laughed too much. Her waist was so firmly pinched in by the straw rope that it never grew iarge again. Remember this story, Ok Cha, the next time you meet an ant on the path in our Garden of Green Gems. Then you will understand why that ant's waist is so small."

RICE
FROM
A
CAT'S
FUR

A
LMOST
every day beggars knocked at the bamboo gate A of the wealthy Kim family. When Dog's barking brought Old Pak, the gatekeeper, out to greet them, they pleaded, "Will the Gentleman of this House spare us a few grains of rice from his great store? Our rice bowls are empty. We have tasted nothing but grass roots and the bark off the trees for many days."

Yong Tu's curiosity took him into the entrance court almost every time Dog gave warning of such visitors.

"Their clothes are in rags. Halmoni," he would report. "Their hair is uncombed. Their faces are thin. They look very hungry. The children are crying."

Ok Cha would then gaze eagerly up at their grandmother. She knew well the tender-hearted woman would give her usual order that rice be provided for these poor hungry people.

"Why are there so many more beggars now than at any other time of the year, Halmoni?" Ok Cha asked one afternoon when Yong Tu had returned from taking some rice out to the bamboo gate.

"It's the time of the 'Spring Suffering,' precious Jade Child," was the old woman's answer. "At this season few in our land have much rice left in their storerooms. Under many a grass roof hunger comes each year with the Spring. The grain stored for the Winter then is all eaten. The new rice or millet plants are only just starting to shoot their green spears up through the earth. There is nothing yet in the gardens. Many families have not enough cash in their money chests with which to buy rice. They never taste meat or fish. They can't even afford to buy an old dog from the dog-meat shop."

"What do those poor people do, Halmoni?" Ok Cha asked, her narrow, dark eyes filling with tears.

"Why, they eat grass roots and bark, my child, just as those beggars said yesterday. And perhaps luckier people help them as we do. Or else some good spirit rides on the wind to their aid." The grandmother noticed the distress in the child's eyes, and she wanted to comfort her. "Perhaps they find a magic cat like the one whose fur dripped rice in the old story."

"That would be good, Halmoni," Ok Cha said eagerly. "Did that truly happen?"

"Ai,
child, what does it matter whether it really happened? Who can say it did not? I like to think that it did, for the people in this story were good people. They did not deserve to be hungry.

"Many hundreds of years ago, perhaps even a thousand, there lived in our country a good scholar named Yo. What his other names were I have forgotten, but they were not important. So wise a scholar was this Yo that his fame spread over the land, even to the ears of the King himself.

"'Send for that Scholar Yo,' the King commanded. 'He shall give us his wise counsel. He shall have a post at our court. He shall have the right to wear the precious peacock feather in his hat.'

"Now Yo was a kind man as well as a man of great learning. While the other ministers grew rich in their office, Yo seemed to grow poor. So busy was he in his great position at Court that he gave no thought to his own affairs. His three daughters, who looked after his house, often found no rice in the storeroom. Their father had thoughtlessly given it all to the beggars who came to his gate.

"That was in a time when our Little Kingdom badly needed the help of its elder brother, China. Who could better be sent to persuade the Emperor on that Dragon Throne than wise Minister Yo? The journey was long. The men who would carry Yo's traveling chair could go no faster then than such men go today. Full three years would pass before Yo could return from his mission to China.

"'Ai-go! Ai-go!
What shall we do?' Yo's daughters wept when their father announced his departure. 'We have but one dress apiece, Abuji. Two of us must wash the dress of the other. She must remain hidden under the coverlids until we have brought it out from under the ironing sticks. We manage badly. There is but one jar of rice left in our storeroom. How shall we eat when you are gone and there is no one to put more cash in our money box?'

"Now in this household the favorite pet of the Master was a clever black cat. Not wild like the cats we know, Ok Cha, but gentle and loving! When Yo bent over his books in his Hall of Perfect Learning, the cat lay in his lap. It purred and it purred while the man rubbed the soft fur just under its chin. One strange thing about this cat was that it never closed its eyes. No one had ever caught it asleep. It just lay still, purred and purred, and watched over the household.

"'Of course you will eat, my daughters,' Yo said, as he climbed into his traveling chair. 'Heaven will care for you while I am gone. And if your rice should give out, and there should be no other way, turn to my black cat. Rub his fur carefully in this fashion.' The man ran his slim fingers through the soft fur of the cat, which had jumped into his lap. He began at its tail, and he stroked its fur towards its head. Then he gently handed the black cat down into the arms of one of his daughters.

"The girls did not love the black cat so dearly as did their father, and I am afraid they forgot these parting words. As long as the rice in their storeroom held out, they managed to live. But they ate only nine times in a month, and always they were hungry. Now, even the largest jar becomes empty at last, my children, and the day came when there was no rice at all in their kitchen.

"'We must sell our belongings,' the sisters cried sadly. Fine chests bound with brass, handsome embroidered silks, even their treasured hairpins of silver and coral, had to be sold to give them money for rice. But that too was eaten. Soon their house was as empty as the rice jars in the storeroom.

"'What was it our father said about the black cat?' one sister then asked the others.

The Emperor gave Yo a post at his court and the right to wear the precious peacock feather in his hat.

"'Perhaps he spoke a riddle which will help us get food,' another sister suggested.

"'If only we could remember what he said about the black cat!' the third one cried.

"That evening, as they sat hungry in their Inner Chamber, the black cat jumped into the lap of the youngest girl 'It was this way we should rub his fur. Now I remember!' she cried suddenly, and she began to run her fingers gently along the cat's soft furry back from his tail to his head. Some call this rubbing a cat's fur the wrong way, but for them it proved to be the right way.

"'Hé! Hai! Hai!'
they all cried. 'Rice drips from the cat's fur!'

"It was true! Before their very eyes a steady stream of rice grains dripped from the fur of their father's black cat. Fine, whole grains they were, white as the snow of winter, clean and smooth enough for the cooking pot. The more the girl rubbed the cat's fur, the more rice showered from it. It made a great mound upon the clean floor.

"Laughter and rejoicing filled Yo's house that evening. Once more his daughters' stomachs were full, and the days ahead seemed as rosy and fair as the rising sun. Never would they be hungry again, no matter how long their father tarried.

"The sisters took turns in rubbing the black cat's soft fur. When they had more rice than they needed to fill their own rice jars, they sold it for much money. Now they could buy back their fine brassbound chests, their handsome embroideries, and their precious hairpins of coral and silver. Now they could buy cloth for new dresses, and even black oil to make their hair neat and shining. If they had wished, they could have had an Ancestors' Feast every day of the year.

"At the end of three years Yo returned from the court of the Chinese Emperor with his mission accomplished. As soon as he had greeted his daughters, he called for his black cat. When he heard how the magic rice had dripped out of its fur to save them from starving, he said, 'Now I am home again. I have secured for the King the aid our land needs from China. My reward will be great. Our cash chest will overflow. Never will our food jars be empty again. Nevermore shall we need to rub rice from our cat's fur.'

"And never again did it happen, my dear ones. Secretly the youngest girl tried rubbing the cat's fur from its tail to its head. But the cat only purred and purred and watched over the household through his wide-open eyes."