VI
In the Tojin-san’s absence several aggravating accidents had happened in his house. While little Taro, the cook’s youngest child, was sitting on the doorstep in the sun, nibbling on a sammari sembei (thunder cake), suddenly from behind an adjacent pine-tree the fox-woman had appeared, and before the frightened child could open its mouth to scream she had pounced upon him, nipped the cake cleanly from his hand and was off.
The child’s nurse (who was none other than the fat wench of the morning), who adored her charge, and had already herself suffered at the hands of the mountain witch, rushed out valiantly at the child’s loud cry of alarm. Her fury getting the better of her fear, she started in pursuit of their tormentor.
The latter she discovered serenely seated upon the topmost bough of a bamboo-tree, where she was demolishing the rice cracknel at her leisure. From this perch she threw white pebbles, with which her sleeves seemed loaded, down upon the head of the irate Obun, and while the latter was execrating her and calling upon Ema (the Lord of Hell) to come to her assistance the fox-woman slid down the bamboo trunk so swiftly and so silently she was beside the terrified serving-maid before the latter knew. She felt her arms caught in a sudden squeezing grip. Sharp fingers sank into her thick, fat flesh, crept up along her arms to her shoulders, nipped at her breast, her neck, her cheeks, her great muscular legs, and with a last vicious tweak at her nose, the fox-woman had again vanished.
The kitchen was in an uproar, the cook’s wife in hysterics, and Obun herself reduced to such a state of stunned terror it was impossible to get her to stir from a corner of the kitchen whither she had fled like a whipped dog for refuge.
The Tojin-san, as master of the house, was besought to lend his honorable assistance and advice. He ordered that Obun be brought before him.
After some delay there was a sound as of scuffling and shoving in the hall, and presently the perspiring face of the cook was seen through the parted screens. He was pushing something which looked like a great soft ball along before him, and, in turn, ordering and pleading with the object in question to stand upon its feet and help itself. He was assisted in his pushing endeavors by a small army of lesser menials of the kitchen, who took turns in pushing and shoving the unwilling Obun into the presence of her dread master, the Tojin-san. Presently she was at his feet, her face hidden on the floor.
“Come, come!” said he, suppressing his inclination to laugh. “Stand up, my good girl.”
This was translated in sharp peremptory tones by his interpreter: