The Boy Who Drew Cats and Other Japanese Fairy Tales (3 page)

Then the
Oni
suddenly snuffed the air two or three times in a suspicious way, and cried out: “
Jiz
San, Jiz
San!
I smell a smell of mankind somewhere—don't you?”

“Oh!” said
Jiz
,
“perhaps you are mistaken.”

“No, no!” said the
Oni
after snuffing the air again, “I smell a smell of mankind.”

Then the old woman could not help laughing—“
Te-he-he!
”—and the
Oni
immediately reached down his big hairy hand behind
Jiz
's
sleeve, and pulled her out, still laughing, “
Te-he-he!
”

“Ah! ha!” cried the
Oni.

The Oni
reached down his big hairy hand and pulled
the old woman out, still laughing,
“Te-he-he!”

Then
Jiz
said:

“What are you going to do with that good old woman? You must not hurt her.”

“I won't,” said the
Oni.
“But I will take her home with me to cook for us.”

“Te-he-he!”
laughed the old woman.

“Very well,” said
Jiz
;
“but you must really be kind to her. If you are not, I shall be very angry.”

“I won't hurt her at all,” promised the
Oni;
“and she will only have to do a little work for us every day. Good-by,
Jiz
San.”

Then the Oni took the old woman far down the road, till they came to a wide deep river, where there was a boat. He put her into the boat, and took her across the river to his house. It was a very large house. He led her at once into the kitchen, and told her to cook some dinner for himself and the other
Oni
who lived with him. And he gave her a small wooden rice-paddle, and said:

“You must always put only one grain of rice into the pot, and when you stir that one grain of rice in the water with this paddle, the grain will multiply until the pot is full.”

Every time she moved the paddle the rice increased in quantity;
and in a few minutes the great pot was full.

So the old woman put just one rice-grain into the pot, as the
Oni
told her, and began to stir it with the paddle; and, as she stirred, the one grain became two,—then four,—then eight,—then sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four, and so on. Every time she moved the paddle the rice increased in quantity; and in a few minutes the great pot was full.

After that, the funny old woman stayed a long time in the house of the
Oni,
and every day cooked food for him and for all his friends. The
Oni
never hurt or frightened her, and her work was made quite easy by the magic paddle—although she had to cook a very, very great quantity of rice, because an
Oni
eats much more than any human being eats.

But she felt lonely, and always wished very much to go back to her own little house, and make her dumplings. And one day, when the
Oni
were all out somewhere, she thought she would try to run away.

She first took the magic paddle, and slipped it under her girdle; and then she went down to the river. No one saw her; and the boat was there. She got into it, and pushed off; and as she could row very well, she was soon far away from the shore.

But the river was very wide; and she had not rowed more than one-fourth of the way across, when the
Oni,
all of them, came back to the house.

They found that their cook was gone, and the magic paddle, too. They ran down to the river at once, and saw the old woman rowing away very fast.

Perhaps they could not swim: at all events they had no boat; and they thought the only way they could catch the funny old woman would be to drink up all the water of the river before she got to the other bank. So they knelt down, and began to drink so fast that before the old woman had got half way over, the water had become quite low.

But the old woman kept on rowing until the water had got so shallow that the
Oni
stopped drinking, and began to wade across. Then she dropped her oar, took the magic paddle from her girdle, and shook it at the
Oni,
and made such funny faces that the
Oni
all burst out laughing.

She sold her dumplings to her neighbors and passengers,
and soon became rich.