At this the child looked around, and, for the first time becoming aware of the boy’s presence, turned shy and sat down. Looking gently in her face, her mother then asked her what she had been doing. Afraid of the stranger, she whispered in her mother’s ear: “I have been playing oni[[6]] with Sadakichi in the garden. But I don’t like Sadakichi. When he was the oni he just caught me at once.”
[6]. A play similar to tag or prisoner’s base.
“But that often happens in playing oni,” said the mother, with a smile.
“Yes, but he does it too much; he has no right to catch people in the way he does, and I don’t wish to play with him any more.”
“Well, if that is so, how would you like to play with Bunkichi here instead?”
Accepting it as one of the duties that might fall to him, to act as the child’s companion and caretaker, Bunkichi, rather pleased than otherwise, offered to go out and try to amuse her. The little girl looked into her mother’s face, and then at Bunkichi. “Mama, how long has he been here?” she asked in a low voice.
“He only came to-day, but he’s a fine boy, and I hope you’ll be a good little girl and show him the garden.”
But the child’s thoughts seemed suddenly to take a new turn, and, sidling up to her mother, she begged to be given a cake. The mother opened the little drawer of the hibachi,[[7]] and, taking out two or three sugar-plums, put them into her hand. The child then, with barely a glance at Bunkichi, ran through the shoji out of doors.
[7]. Pronounced he-bah’chee. A wooden fire-box where a charcoal fire is kept for warming the hands.
“Take care and don’t stumble,” her mother called out. “Do you mind just seeing after her?” she said to Bunkichi, who at once got up and went out on the veranda.