“Far waters are bitter, near waters are sweet—
Leave the bitter, come to the sweet.”
She sang the words three times, whereupon, strange to say, the peach rolled over and over in the water till it came to the shore in front of her.
“How delighted my old man will be!” she thought as she picked it up.
Then she packed the clothes she had been washing into the basket and hurried home. Soon she saw her husband returning from the mountain where he had been cutting grass. She ran to meet him and showed him the peach.
“Dear me!” the old man said, “it is wonderful. Where did you buy it?”
“Buy it? I did not buy it,” she replied. Then she told him how she got it from the river.
“I feel hungry,” the old man affirmed. “Let us eat the peach at once.”
They went to the house and got a knife. But just as the old man was about to cut the peach he heard a child’s clear voice say, “Good sir, wait!”
Instantly the peach split in two halves, and out danced a little boy less than six inches high. This was so unexpected that the man and woman nearly fainted with astonishment and fright.
“Do not be afraid,” the boy said. “You have often lamented that you have no child, and I have been sent to be your son.”