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For the Children's Hour |
by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey |
A choice collection of stories for the preschool child, carefully selected, adapted, and arranged by two veteran kindergarten teachers. Includes nature stories, holiday stories, fairy tales and fables, as well as stories of home life. Emphasis is placed on fanciful tales for their value in the training of the imagination and on cumulative tales for developing a child's sense of humor and appealing to his instinctive love of rhyme and jingle. Ages 4-7 | 464 pages |
$15.95 |
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THE TONGUE-CUT SPARROW
C. S. B. Adapted from the Japanese.
ONCE upon a time, in the Land of the Lotus, there lived
two children—little Taro and little O-Kaku. Now,
little Taro was a good boy. He never caught
butterflies, he never teased the lady-bugs, and he
never
[174] followed Kami-Kudzu, the rag man, or called
him names. But little O-Kaku, who was as pretty as the
pink chrysanthemums for which she was named, was a
naughty little girl. She would not beat millet, she
would not watch the melon patch, she would not carry
father his saké. Her mother often said to her:
"We keep a dog to guard the house,
A cow is useful, too;
We keep a cat to spy a mouse,
But what can mother do
With a naughty girl like you?"
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One day there came hopping along to the house a poor,
stray sparrow. Mother opened the screen, and let hm
in; Taro took him to the fire to dry off his feathers.
They gave him rice to eat, and the sparrow decided to
live in that house. He grew to be a useful sparrow,
for he sang all day long and helped the housework
along. Each morning he watched for the pink light on
the mountain, and called:
"The day has come,
I hear the cock.
Now rise and dress,
'Tis six o'clock."
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But O-Kaku did not love the sparrow in the least.
Perhaps it was because he was so good and industrious a
little bird. One day, when mother had made her starch
the cotton clothes, the sparrow came and perched
himself on the ironing-board. He began to sing a sweet
little song; but, all in a minute, O-Kaku seized him by
the wings; she cut his poor little tongue.
[175] Oh,
it was a cruel thing to do, for the little sparrow
could never sing again. So out of the window flew the
poor little tongue-cut sparrow, and down the street,
and over the meadows—far, far away.
Taro was very angry with O-Kaku when he found what she
had done. He cried, too, for he felt so sorry for the
poor little bird, out in the world, and not able to
sing a note. One morning when no one was looking he
tied some red bean cakes in a bit of his mother's obi,
and away he started in search of the tongue-cut
sparrow.
He traveled far and wide, over the rice fields, and up
the hill sides. When it came night he slept under a
pine tree, and when the morning dawned he ate one of
his cakes and started on again. Wherever he went and
whatever creature he met—the wild hare, the badger, or
the field mouse—he asked: "Have you seen a tongue-cut
sparrow, a poor little tongue-cut sparrow?"
At last one day he came upon a large black cricket who
sat at the top of a hemp stalk sunning herself.
"Oh, cricket," cried Taro, "have you seen a tongue-cut
sparrow?"
The black cricket said not a word, but stretched her
legs a little. Taro was about to go on again, when the
cricket came slowly down the stalk and started up the
mountain in the path just ahead of Taro.
"I may as well follow her," thought Taro to himself.
Up and up, and still higher went the cricket, until she
came to the tip-top of the mountain. Then she stopped
and began dining off a bit of millet by the side of the
road; but, what do you suppose Taro saw?
On the top of the mountain lay a beautiful garden, with
a pond in the center full of lotus blossoms, and
[176] all about the pond were trees—peach trees, cherry
trees, plum trees—all in blossom and the air fragrant
with perfume. In a nice little thatched house in the
pinkest of the peach trees was the little tongue-cut
sparrow and all his family.
He was not sorrowful, but very happy and overjoyed to
see little Taro again. He invited Taro up into his
nest, and they all dined off sugar cakes and saké.
When the feast was over, the sparrow brought out two
baskets—one quite large, and the other small.
"I want to make you a present, Taro," said the sparrow.
"Which of these baskets should you like?"
Taro was a polite little boy, so he chose the smaller
of the two baskets, and, thanking the sparrow for his
pleasant call, started home down the mountain side
again. The basket grew heavier and heavier all the
way. When at last Taro reached home and peeped under
the cover, it was like the feast of lanterns to see
what was inside. There were toys, red kites, and
singing tops, and gay balls, and rice monkeys; there
were rolls of bright silk and bags of gold. Was there
ever so marvelous a basket? and all for Taro!
Little O-Kaku grew very curious.
"Where does the sparrow live, Taro?" she asked. "I am
sorry I cut his tongue."
So Taro told her the way to go; and she, too, started
up the mountain; nor did she stop until she came to the
garden and the house of the tongue-cut sparrow. The
sparrow invited O-Kaku to dine, also, and when she had
finished he offered her two baskets, as well. Of
course little O-Kaku chose the heavy one, and
forgetting to say "thank you" even, she started home
again.
But, oh, when she came to the house and opened her
[177] basket!—it was not full of toys. Ah, no; but
out jumped a swarm of little black elves, and they
pulled O-Kaku's hair, and scratched her, and screamed
in her ears, and at last they picked her up and flew
off with her through the window.
No one knew where the little back elves took O-Kaku.
After a while they brought her home to her mother and
Taro again, but that was after she had learned to be
good and kind to every one—even a little sparrow.
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