Japanese Fairy Tales
happiness seemed full. There could not be found in the whole of the
Island Empire a happier little family.
One day there was much excitement in the home, for the father had been
suddenly summoned to the capital on business. In these days of railways
and jinrickshas and other rapid modes of traveling, it is difficult to
realize what such a journey as that from Matsuyama to Kyoto meant. The
roads were rough and bad, and ordinary people had to walk every step of
the way, whether the distance were one hundred or several hundred
miles. Indeed, in those days it was as great an undertaking to go up to
the capital as it is for a Japanese to make a voyage to Europe now.
So the wife was very anxious while she helped her husband get ready for
the long journey, knowing what an arduous task lay before him. Vainly
she wished that she could accompany him, but the distance was too great
for the mother and child to go, and besides that, it was the wife’s
duty to take care of the home.
All was ready at last, and the husband stood in the porch with his
little family round him.
“Do not be anxious, I will come back soon,” said the man. “While I am
away take care of everything, and especially of our little daughter.”
“Yes, we shall be all right—but you—you must take care of yourself and
delay not a day in coming back to us,” said the wife, while the tears
fell like rain from her eyes.
The little girl was the only one to smile, for she was ignorant of the
sorrow of parting, and did not know that going to the capital was at
all different from walking to the next village, which her father did
very often. She ran to his side, and caught hold of his long sleeve to
keep him a moment.
“Father, I will be very good while I am waiting for you to come back,
so please bring me a present.”
As the father turned to take a last look at his weeping wife and
smiling, eager child, he felt as if some one were pulling him back by
the hair, so hard was it for him to leave them behind, for they had
never been separated before. But he knew that he must go, for the call
was imperative. With a great effort he ceased to think, and resolutely
turning away he went quickly down the little garden and out through the
gate. His wife, catching up the child in her arms, ran as far as the
gate, and watched him as he went down the road between the pines till
he was lost in the haze of the distance and all she could see was his
quaint peaked hat, and at last that vanished too.
“Now father has gone, you and I must take care of everything till he
comes back,” said the mother, as she made her way back to the house.
“Yes, I will be very good,” said the child, nodding her head, “and when
father comes home please tell him how good I have been, and then
perhaps he will give me a present.”
“Father is sure to bring you something that you want very much. I know,
for I asked him to bring you a doll. You must think of father every
day, and pray for a safe journey till he comes back.”
“O, yes, when he comes home again how happy I shall be,” said the
child, clapping her hands, and her face growing bright with joy at the
glad thought. It seemed to the mother as she looked at the child’s face
that her love for her grew deeper and deeper.
Then she set to work to make the winter clothes for the three of them.
She set up her simple wooden spinning-wheel and spun the thread before
she began to weave the stuffs. In the intervals of her work she
directed the little girl’s games and taught her to read the old stories
of her country. Thus did the wife find consolation in work during the
lonely days of her husband’s absence. While the time was thus slipping
quickly by in the quiet home, the husband finished his business and
returned.
It would have been difficult for any one who did not know the man well
to recognize him. He had traveled day after day, exposed to all
weathers, for about a month altogether, and was sunburnt to bronze, but
his fond wife and child knew him at a glance, and flew to meet him from
either side, each catching hold of one of his sleeves in their eager
greeting. Both the man and his wife rejoiced to find each other well.
It seemed a very long time to all till—the mother and child helping—his
straw sandals were untied, his large umbrella hat taken off, and he was
again in their midst in the old familiar sitting-room that had been so
empty while he was away.
As soon as they had sat down on the white mats, the father opened a
bamboo basket that he had brought in with him, and took out a beautiful
doll and a lacquer box full of cakes.
“Here,” he said to the little girl, “is a present for you. It is a
prize for taking care of mother and the house so well while I was
away.”
“Thank you,” said the child, as she bowed her head to the ground, and
then put out her hand just like a little maple leaf with its eager
wide-spread fingers to take the doll and the box, both of which, coming
from the capital, were prettier than anything she had ever seen. No
words can tell how delighted the little girl was—her face seemed as if
it would melt with joy, and she had no eyes and no thought for anything
else.
Again the husband dived into the basket, and brought out this time a
square wooden box, carefully tied up with red and white string, and
handing it to his wife, said:
“And this is for you.”
The wife took the box, and opening it carefully took out a metal disk
with a handle attached. One side was bright and shining like a crystal,
and the other was covered with raised figures of pine-trees and storks,
which had been carved out of its smooth surface in lifelike reality.
Never had she seen such a thing in her life, for she had been born and
bred in the rural province of Echigo. She gazed into the shining disk,
and looking up with surprise and wonder pictured on her face, she said:
“I see somebody looking at me in this round thing! What is it that you
have given me?”
The husband laughed and said:
“Why, it is your own face that you see. What I have brought you is
called a mirror, and whoever looks into its clear surface can see their
own form reflected there. Although there are none to be found in this
out of the way place, yet they have been in use in the capital from the
most ancient times. There the mirror is considered a very necessary
requisite for a woman to possess. There is an old proverb that ‘As the
sword is the soul of a samurai, so is the mirror the soul of a woman,’
and according to popular tradition, a woman’s mirror is an index to her
own heart—if she keeps it bright and clear, so is her heart pure and
good. It is also one of the treasures that form the insignia of the
Emperor. So you must lay great store by your mirror, and use it
carefully.”
The wife listened to all her husband told her, and was pleased at
learning so much that was new to her. She was still more pleased at the
precious gift—his token of remembrance while he had been away.
“If the mirror represents my soul, I shall certainly treasure it as a
valuable possession, and never will I use it carelessly.” Saying so,
she lifted it as high as her forehead, in grateful acknowledgment of
the gift, and then shut it up in its box and put it away.
The wife saw that her husband was very tired, and set about serving the
evening meal and making everything as comfortable as she could for him.
It seemed to the little family as if they had not known what true
happiness was before, so glad were they to be together again, and this
evening the father had much to tell of his journey and of all he had
seen at the great capital.
Time passed away in the peaceful home, and the parents saw their
fondest hopes realized as their daughter grew from childhood into a
beautiful girl of sixteen. As a gem of priceless value is held in its
proud owner’s hand, so had they reared her with unceasing love and
care: and now their pains were more than doubly rewarded. What a
comfort she was to her mother as she went about the house taking her
part in the housekeeping, and how proud her father was of her, for she
daily reminded him of her mother when he had first married her.
But, alas! in this world nothing lasts forever. Even the moon is not
always perfect in shape, but loses its roundness with time, and flowers
bloom and then fade. So at last the happiness of this family was broken
up by a great sorrow. The good and gentle wife and mother was one day
taken ill.
In the first days of her illness the father and daughter thought that
it was only a cold, and were not particularly anxious. But the days
went by and still the mother did not get better; she only grew worse,
and the doctor was puzzled, for in spite of all he did the poor woman
grew weaker day by day. The father and daughter were stricken with
grief, and day or night the girl never left her mother’s side. But in
spite of all their efforts the woman’s life was not to be saved.
One day as the girl sat near her mother’s bed, trying to hide with a
cheery smile the gnawing trouble at her heart, the mother roused
herself and taking her daughter’s hand, gazed earnestly and lovingly
into her eyes. Her breath was labored and she spoke with difficulty:
“My daughter. I am sure that nothing can save me now. When I am dead,
promise me to take care of your dear father and to try to be a good and
dutiful woman.”
“Oh, mother,” said the girl as the tears rushed to her eyes, “you must
not say such things. All you have to do is to make haste and get
well—that will bring the greatest happiness to father and myself.”
“Yes, I know, and it is a comfort to me in my last days to know how
greatly you long for me to get better, but it is not to be. Do not look
so sorrowful, for it was so ordained in my previous state of existence
that I should die in this life just at this time; knowing this, I am
quite resigned to my fate. And now I have something to give you whereby
to remember me when I am gone.”
Putting her hand out, she took from the side of the pillow a square
wooden box tied up with a silken cord and tassels. Undoing this very
carefully, she took out of the box the mirror that her husband had
given her years ago.
“When you were still a little child your father went up to the capital
and brought me back as a present this treasure; it is called a mirror.
This I give you before I die. If, after I have ceased to be in this
life, you are lonely and long to see me sometimes, then take out this
mirror and in the clear and shining surface you will always see me—so
will you be able to meet with me often and tell me all your heart; and
though I shall not be able to speak, I shall understand and sympathize
with you, whatever may happen to you in the future.” With these words
the dying woman handed the mirror to her daughter.
The mind of the good mother seemed to be now at rest, and sinking back
without another word her spirit passed quietly away that day.
The bereaved father and daughter were wild with grief, and they
abandoned themselves to their bitter sorrow. They felt it to be
impossible to take leave of the loved woman who till now had filled
their whole lives and to commit her body to the earth. But this frantic
burst of grief passed, and then they took possession of their own
hearts again, crushed though they were in resignation. In spite of this
the daughter’s life seemed to her desolate. Her love for her dead
mother did not grow less with time, and so keen was her remembrance,
that everything in daily life, even the falling of the rain and the
blowing of the wind, reminded her of her mother’s death and of all that
they had loved and shared together. One day when her father was out,
and she was fulfilling her household duties alone, her loneliness and
sorrow seemed more than she could bear. She threw herself down in her