The Wonderful Mallet
Once upon a time there were two brothers. The elder was an honest and good man, but he was very poor, while the younger, who was dishonest and stingy, had managed to pile up a large fortune. The name of the elder was Kané, and that of the younger was Chô.
Now, one day Kané went to Chô’s house, and begged for the loan of some seed-rice and some silkworms’ eggs, for last season had been unfortunate, and he was in want of both.
Chô had plenty of good rice and excellent silkworms’ eggs, but he was such a miser that he did not want to lend them. At the same time, he felt ashamed to refuse his brother’s request, so he gave him some worm-eaten musty rice and some dead eggs, which he felt sure would never hatch.
Kané, never suspecting that his brother would play him such a shabby trick, put plenty of mulberry leaves with the eggs, to be food for the silkworms when they should appear. Appear they did, and throve and grew wonderfully, much better than those of the stingy brother, who was angry and jealous when he heard of it.
Going to Kané’s house one day, and finding his brother was out, Chô took a knife and killed all the silkworms, cutting each poor little creature in two; then he went home without having been seen by anybody.
When Kané came home he was dismayed to find his silkworms in this state, but he did not suspect who had done him this bad trick, and tried to feed them with mulberry leaves as before. The silkworms came to life again, and doubled the number, for now each half was a living worm. They grew and throve, and the silk they spun was twice as much as Kané had expected. So now he began to prosper.
The envious Chô, seeing this, cut all his own silkworms in half, but, alas! they did not come to life again, so he lost a great deal of money, and became more jealous than ever.
Kané also planted the rice-seed which he had borrowed from his brother, and it sprang up, and grew and flourished far better than Chô’s had done.
The rice ripened well, and he was just intending to cut and harvest it when a flight of thousands upon thousands of swallows came and began to devour it. Kané was much astonished, and shouted and made as much noise as he could in order to drive them away. They flew away, indeed, but came back immediately, so that he kept driving them away, and they kept flying back again.