Kichi worked on our little farm, and I usually found him cleaning his implements after the day’s work. We were great friends, and he used to present me with toys of his own making, which were very simple but indeed a marvel to me. Once he picked up a piece of bamboo and made a chip of it about a twelfth of an inch thick, a third of an inch wide, and three inches and a half long. Then he sliced obliquely one-half of one side and the other half of the same side in the opposite direction, so that the edges might be made thin. He also bored a small hole in the middle and put in a stick about twice as thick as a hairpin and about four inches long, the sliced side being down. He then cut off the projecting end of the stick, when it was tight in the chip. The dragon-fly was now ready to take flight. He took the stick between his palms and gave a twist, when lo! it flew away up in the air.
I was delighted with the toy, and tried several times to make it fly. But when I used all my force and gave it a good long twist, why, it took such a successful flight that it hit the edge of the comb of our straw roof and stuck there, never to come down. I was very sorry at that, but Kichi laughed at the feat the dragon-fly had performed, and said that the maker was so skilful that the toy turned out to be a real living thing! It was perched there for the night. Well, I admired his skill very much, but did not want to lose my toy in that way. So I made him promise me to make another the next day, reminding him not to put too much skill in it.
It was summer, the season of watermelons. We had a small melon patch and an ample supply of the fruit. Here was a chance for Kichi to try his skill again. One evening he took a pretty round melon and scooped the inside out so as to put in a lighted candle. So far this was very ordinary. He scraped the inner part until the rind was fairly transparent, and then cut a mouth, a nose, and eyes with eyebrows sticking out like pins. He then painted them so that when the candle was lighted a monster of a melon was produced. How triumphant a boy would feel in possessing such a thing! I hung it on the veranda that evening when the room was weirdly lighted by one or two greenish paper lanterns, and watched it with my folks. I expressed my admiration for Kichi’s skill, and with boyish fondness for exaggeration mentioned the fact that a toy dragon-fly of his making had really turned out to be a living thing. All laughed, but of course I made an effort to be serious. But no sooner were we silent than, without the slightest hint, the melon angrily dropped down with a crash. I screamed, but, being assured of its safety, I approached it and found the skull of the monster was badly fractured, in fact, one piece of it flying some twenty feet out in the garden. The next morning I took the first opportunity to tell Kichi that his toy was so skilfully made that it sought death of its own accord.
Well, I started to tell what I did evenings, but when it was wet I had a very tedious time. Nothing is more dismal to a boy than a rainy day. To lie down was to become a cow. So one rainy evening I opened the screen, and, standing, looked out at the rain. But this was no fun. The only alternative was to go to one of the rooms. Now there is no chair in a Japanese house, and to sit over one’s heels is too ceremonial, not to say a bit trying, even for a Japanese child. So my legs unconsciously collapsed, and there I was lying on my back, singing aloud some songs I had learned. Presently I began to look at the unpainted ceiling, and traced the grain. And is it not wonderful that out of knots and veins of wood you can make figures of some living things? Yes, I traced a man’s face, one eye much larger than the other. Then, I had a cat. Now I began to trace a big one with a V-shaped face. A cow! The idea ran through me with the swiftness of lightning, and the next moment I sprang to my feet and shook myself to see if I had undergone any transformation. Luckily, I was all right. But to make the thing sure, I felt of my forehead carefully to see if anything hard was coming out of it.
The room now lost its attraction. And I ran away to the room where my grandmother was. Opening the screen, I said:
“Grandma!”
“May I come in? I want you to tell me the story of a badger, grandma.”
I was never tired of hearing the same stories over and over again from my grandmother. There was at some distance a tall tree, shooting up like an arrow to the sky, which was visible from a window of her room. It was there that the badger of her story liked to climb. One early evening he was there with the cover of an iron pot, which he made with his magic power appear like a misty moon. Now a farmer, who was still working in the field, chanced to see it, and was surprised to find that it was already so late. He could tell the hour from the position of the moon, you know. So he made haste to finish his work, and was going home, when another moon, the real one this time, peeped out of the wood near by. The badger, however, had too much faith in his art to withdraw his mock moon, and held it there to rival the newly risen one. The farmer was astonished to find two moons at the same time, but he was not slow to see which was real. He smiled at the trick of the badger, and now wanted to outwit him. He approached the tree stealthily and shook it with all his might. The badger was not prepared for this. Losing his balance, he dropped down to the ground, moon and all, and had to run for his life, for the farmer was right after him with his hoe.
I laughed and grandma laughed, too, over her own story, when the paper screen was suddenly brightened.