She fell quite a distance, but was not a bit hurt; and when she got up on her feet again, she saw that she was standing on a road just like the road before her house. It was quite light down there; and she could see plenty of rice-fields, but no one in them. How all this happened I cannot tell you, but it seems that the old woman had fallen into another country.
The road she had fallen upon sloped very much; so, after having looked for her dumpling in vain, she thought that it must have rolled farther away down the hill. She ran down the road to look, crying: “My dumpling! my dumpling! Where is that dumpling of mine?”
After a little while she saw a stone image standing by the roadside, and she said, calling it by its name:
“O Jizō San, did you see my dumpling?”
Jizō answered:
“Yes, I saw your dumpling rolling by me down the road. But you had better not go any farther, because there is a wicked oni living down there who eats people.”
But the old woman only laughed, and ran on farther down the road, crying: “My dumpling! my dumpling! Where is that dumpling of mine?” And she came to another statue of Jizō, and asked it:
“O kind Jizō, did you see my dumpling?”
And Jizō said:
“Yes, I saw your dumpling go by a little while ago. But you must not run any farther, because there is a wicked oni down there who eats people.”