Umé San in Japan

by Etta Blaisdell McDonald; Julia Dalrymple

"One very hot day the old man wandered farther than usual, looking for wood, and he suddenly came to a little spring which he had never seen before. The water was clear and cool and he was very thirsty, so he knelt down and took a long drink. It was so good that he was about to take another--when he caught sight of his own face in the water.

"It was not his own old face. It was the face of a young man with black hair, smooth skin and bright eyes. He jumped up, and discovered that he no longer felt old. His arms were strong, his feet were nimble and he could run like a boy. He had found the Fountain of Youth and had been made young again.

"First he leaped up and shouted for joy; then he ran home faster than he had ever run before in his life. His wife did not know him and was frightened to see a stranger come running into the house. When he told her the wonder she could not at first believe him, but after a long time he convinced her that the young man she now saw standing before her was really her old husband.

"Of course she wished to go at once to the spring of youth and become as young as her husband, so he told her where to find it in the forest and she set out, leaving him at home to wait for her return.

"She found the spring and knelt down to drink. The water was so cool and sweet that she drank and drank, and then drank again.

"The husband waited a long time at home for his wife to come back, changed into a pretty, slender girl. But she did not come back at all, and at last he became so anxious that he went into the forest to find her.

"He went as far as the spring, but she was nowhere to be seen. Just as he was about to go back home again he heard a little cry in the grass near the spring. Looking down he saw his wife's kimono and a baby,--a very small baby, not more than six months old.

"The old woman had drunk so much of the water that she had been carried back beyond the time of youth to that of infancy. The wood-cutter picked the baby up in his arms, and it looked up at him with a tiny smile. He carried it home, murmuring to it and thinking sad thoughts."

The story was finished and the jinrikishas were ready to take them on to Kamakura.

"I have heard so much about the wonderful Buddha that I do not wish to see anything else in Kamakura," said Umé, as they walked through the grounds of the long-vanished temple.