THE TRAVELS OF TWO FROGS
Once upon a time there lived two frogs—one in a well in Kyoto, the other in a lotus pond in Osaka, forty miles away. Now in the Land of the Gods they have a proverb, "The frog in the well knows not the great ocean," and the Kyoto frog had so often heard this sneer from the maids who came to draw water with their long bamboo-handled buckets that he resolved to travel and see the "great ocean."
Mr. Frog informed the family of his intentions. Mrs. Frog wept a great deal, but finally drying her eyes with her paper handkerchief she declared that she would count the hours on her fingers until he came back. She tied up a little lacquered box full of boiled rice and snails for his journey, wrapped it round with a silk napkin, and putting his extra clothes in a bundle, swung it on his back. Tying it over his neck, he seized his staff and was ready to go.
"Sayonara!" cried he, as with a tear in his eye he walked away—for that is the Japanese for "good-bye."
"Sayonara!" croaked Mrs. Frog and the whole family of young frogs in a chorus.
Mr. Frog, being now on land and out of his well, noticed that men did not leap, but walked upright on their hind legs, and not wishing to be eccentric he began walking the same way.
Now about the same time, an old Osaka frog had become restless and dissatisfied with life on the edge of a lotus pond. Close by the side of his pond was a monastery full of Buddhist monks who every day studied their sacred rolls and droned over the books of the sage, to learn them by heart. Now the monks often came down to the edge of the pond to look at the pink and white lotus flowers. One summer day, as a little frog, hardly out of his tadpole state, with a fragment of tail still left, sat basking on a huge round leaf, one monk said to another, "Of what does that remind you?" "That the babies of frogs will become but frogs!" answered one shaven-pate, laughing; "What think you?" "The white lotus springs out of the black mud," said the other solemnly, and they both walked away.
The old frog, sitting near-by, overheard them and began to philosophize: "Humph! the babies of frogs will become but frogs, hey? If the lotus springs from mud, why shouldn't a frog become a man? If my pet son should travel abroad and see the world—go to Kyoto, for instance—why shouldn't he be as wise as those shining-headed men, I wonder? I shall try it, anyhow. I'll send my son on a journey to Kyoto—I'll cast the lion's cub into the valley!"
Now it so happened that the old frog from Kyoto and the "lion's cub" from Osaka started each from his home at the same time. Nothing of importance occurred to either of them until they met on a hill near Hashimoto, which is half-way between the two cities. Both were footsore and websore, and very, very tired.