"It is exactly as you say!" answered Taro; "when the neighbours bring me food, I eat it; but when I get nothing I lie in this shed night and day just like this, sometimes for three and four and five days without eating!"
"I am very sorry for you," said the Governor. "Now if I give you a piece of ground, will you till it and grow your own rice and vegetables? What you do not want you might sell to the neighbours and so make a little money."
"You are very kind," answered Taro, "and I thank you; but it is too much trouble to till the ground to get my own rice. Why should I when I can get people to give me just enough to live upon? No, thank you, I beg to be excused."
"Well," said the Governor, "if you don't like the idea of tilling the ground, I will give you some money to start in business. What do you say to that?"
"That would be too much trouble too, so I will remain as I am," said Taro.
The kind-hearted Governor could not but be astonished at the good-for-nothing boy's answer, but he was a man of great patience, and he felt sorry for Monogusa Taro.
"You are," he said, "as everyone says, the laziest man in the whole of Japan. In all my experience of all sorts and conditions of men, never have I come across such a don't-care, happy-go-lucky creature as yourself—but as it is your nature, I suppose there is no help for it. Your condition is a pitiful one. I can't let you starve in my district —which you certainly will do if you go on like this."
Then the kind-hearted Governor took out a piece of paper from his sleeve, and on this paper with brush and Indian ink he wrote an order to the effect that the people of his dominion of Shinano were to provide Monogusa Taro twice daily with three go of rice and a little saké once a day to cheer his spirits. Whoever disobeyed the order must quit the district at once. This order the Governor had published and made known throughout the whole province.
To the people of the province it seemed a strange command, and they were lost in amazement; but however strange they thought it, they had to obey the Governor's order. So from that day on Taro was taken care of and fed by his neighbours with rice and saké daily.
Time slipped slowly by in the rustic place, and for three years Taro lived in ease and plenty, as free from care as the birds of the air. To all appearance he was perfectly satisfied with himself and his useless life, and he seemed to desire nothing better.