“No,” he said to himself at last, “I can not kill him! I will but work the harder that I may earn money to buy my parents some meat!”
Now the badger seemed to understand and approve of this resolve on the part of the young woodcutter. He opened one eye and then the other. Then he blinked saucily at the woodcutter.
“Thank you,” he said. “That was a wise conclusion.”
The young man dropped his axe and jumped high into the air, so great was his astonishment at hearing a badger talk.
“You couldn’t kill me if you tried,” said the badger. “Besides, I am far more useful to you alive than dead. And now, because you have proved yourself of a kind heart, I will show you kindness. Bring me the flat, white stone which lies beneath yonder pine tree.”
The woodcutter turned to obey, and suddenly stopped in wonder. Spread upon the stone was the finest feast he had ever seen. There were rice and saké, fish and dango,[29] and other good things. He sighed as he looked, for he wished he could take the food home to his parents.
“Sit and eat,” said the badger who answered his thoughts as if they had been spoken. “Your father and mother shall eat the same.”
The woodcutter obeyed, but when he tried to thank his little friend, he saw that the badger was gone and that, just where he had sat, there was a sparkling, tinkling waterfall. It rippled over stones and crags and sang a sweet little song, and as the woodcutter stooped to drink of it lo! the waterfall flowed with saké! It was the richest he had ever tasted and he filled his gourd with it and hurried home to share it with his parents.
When he arrived there and had told his story, his mother smiled and said, “Thou art a good son.”
“We have fared as well,” his father said, “for we found spread for us just such a feast as yours, though we knew not at all whence it came.”