“Not without a little present,” says the sparrow.
“Ah, sparrow dear,” says the old man, “I’d sooner have yourself than any present.”
But the sparrow shook his head.
Presently they brought in two wicker baskets.
“One of them is heavy,” says the sparrow, “and the other is light. Say, master, will you take the heavy basket or the light?”
“I’m not so young as I once was,” says the good old man. “Thanking you kindly, I’d sooner have the light basket; it will suit me better to carry—that is, if it’s the same to you,” he says.
So he went home with the light basket. When he opened it, wonderful to tell, it was full of gold and silver and tortoise-shell and coral and jade and fine rolls of silk. So the good old man was rich for life.
Now, when the bad old woman heard tell of all this, she tied on her sandals and kilted her skirts and took a stout stick in her hand. Over hill and over dale she went, and took the straight road to the sparrow’s house. There was the sparrow, and there were his brothers and sisters and children and his wife and his mother and his mother-in-law and his grandmother. They were not too pleased to see the bad old woman, but they couldn’t do less than ask her in as she’d come so far. They gave her red rice and white rice and daikon and fish, and who knows what besides, and she gobbled it up in a twinkling, and drank a good cup of saké. Then up she got. “I can’t waste any more time here,” she says, “so you’d best bring out your presents.”
They brought in two wicker baskets.
“One of them is heavy,” says the sparrow, “and the other is light. Say, mistress, will you take the heavy basket or the light?”