II
It was the season of Seed Rain. The country was green and fragrant and the crops thirstily absorbed the rain. The villagers sat at their thresholds, some of them even indolently lounging in the open, unmindful or perhaps enjoying the seething rain, an antidote for the heat, which was somewhat sweltering for the season.
Children were playing in the street, nimbly jumping over the puddle ponds, or climbing, with the agility of monkeys, the trees that lined the streets, and about whose boughs they hung in various attitudes of daring delight.
One small boy had climbed to the very tip of a bamboo, and there he clung by his feet, swaying with the shakings of the slender tree, and the motion of those below him—far below him.
It was not often that the son of Madame Aoi was permitted such absolute freedom. Indeed, it was only upon those occasions when Komazawa, momentarily blind to the reproach of his mother’s sad eyes, literally thrust away the bonds which seemed to hold and chain him to their quiet household and burst out and beyond their reach. Surely, at the tip of this long, perilous bamboo he was quite beyond the reach of little Madame Aoi and her old servant, Mumè. But even in his present lofty position Komazawa had kept his eyes from the possible glimpse of his mother. His feet clung to the tree only because his hands were engaged in covering his ears.
Yet, even in the open, Komazawa was alone. The neighbors’ children played in little bodies and groups together, and Komazawa from his perch watched them with the same ardent wistfulness with which he was wont to regard them from the door of his little isolated home.
Old Mumè was angry. Her voice had become hoarse, and she was tired of her position in the rain, for the bamboo gave but scant shelter. She shook the tree angrily.
“Do not so,” entreated the gentle Aoi. “See how the tree bends. Take care lest it become angry with us and vent its vengeance upon my son. But, pray you, good Mumè, return to the home and give food and succor to our honorable guest.”