Once upon a time a long, long time ago there was a boy who was clever and polite and kind, and it would seem as if he was a very fine boy indeed. But he had one fault. He would draw pictures of cats.
Now that does not appear to be a very bad fault, but the trouble was that Kihachi would not do anything else. He drew cats at school when he should have been studying his lessons. He drew them when all the other children were at play and when it would have been far better for him to have been running and jumping.
When his brothers and sisters were sleeping peacefully at night upon their wooden pillows, Kihachi would arise from his sleeping mat and, stealing to the paper partitions of the little room into which streamed the moonlight, he would draw cats. In the early morning when the sun gleamed over the tiny garden and the dew lay like jewels upon the rice fields, still Kihachi could be found drawing cats.
He drew large cats and small cats, mother cats and kittens. He drew them even upon his clothes, and this caused his mother much annoyance, though she was very patient. When, however, it came to pass that she found a whole family of kittens playing their pranks, in pencil, upon her own best obi,[20] she felt that something must be done.
“My lord,” she said to her husband, “this boy and his cats make me too much trouble. I have done everything to cause him to stop, but to no avail. I have even burned him with the moxa[21] but still he does not cease. He says he can not. Our other sons are able to help you in the field and our daughter is a great assistance to me in the household. But Kihachi does not work, and his schoolmaster says he will not study. He will do nothing but draw cats. What shall we do with him?”
“It may be that so strange a boy will grow up to be something quite different from us,” said his father. “He is always agreeable. Every morning he says most politely, ‘O hayo, O tat’ San, O hayo, O oka San.’[22] It seems to me Bot chan[23] is not bad. Perhaps he would make a good priest. Let us take him to the temple and see if he will not there forget his cats.”
So they took him to the temple and the priest received them with courtesy. “Enter, honorably enter!” he said, and they entered saying, “We have brought to you our youngest boy in the hope that you will graciously permit him to become your acolyte.”
The priest asked Kihachi many questions, very difficult ones, and these he answered so cleverly that the old man said to the parents, “This child is destined to be great. He is very clever. Leave him with me and I will teach him all he needs to become a priest.”
So Kihachi stayed in the temple and he studied very hard. He liked to get up early as the mists were breaking over Fuji San and the temple bells were ringing in the dawn. He loved to sit in the twilight when the flowers of the yamabuki are mirrored in the still marsh waters. He loved to pluck the primrose, flower of happiness, and to twine it with the nanten[24] into wreaths for the shrine of Buddha. He liked to read and to study the sacred books and he learned many prayers, but still he liked to draw, and still he drew cats.
He drew them on the margins of the books, on the prayer rolls, on the very kakemonos[25] of the temple, and this much displeased the good old priest.