Japanese Fairy Tales | Page 8

this that the sparrow was a truthful bird, and the old woman ought to have
been willing to forgive her at once when she asked her pardon so nicely. But not so.
The old woman had never loved the sparrow, and had often quarreled with her husband
for keeping what she called a dirty bird about the house, saying that it only made extra
work for her. Now she was only too delighted to have some cause of complaint against
the pet. She scolded and even cursed the poor little bird for her bad behavior, and not
content with using these harsh, unfeeling words, in a fit of rage she seized the
sparrow--who all this time had spread out her wings and bowed her head before the old
woman, to show how sorry she was--and fetched the scissors and cut off the poor little
bird's tongue.
"I suppose you took my starch with that tongue! Now you may see what it is like to go
without it! "And with these dreadful words she drove the bird away, not caring in the
least what might happen to it and without the smallest pity for its suffering, so unkind
was she!
The old woman, after she had driven the sparrow away, made some more rice-paste,
grumbling all the time at the trouble, and after starching all her clothes, spread the things
on boards to dry in the sun, instead of ironing them as they do in England.
In the evening the old man came home. As usual, on the way back he looked forward to
the time when he should reach his gate and see his pet come flying and chirping to meet
him, ruffling out her feathers to show her joy, and at last coming to rest on his shoulder.
But to- night the old man was very disappointed, for not even the shadow of his dear
sparrow was to be seen.
He quickened his steps, hastily drew off his straw sandals, and stepped on to the veranda.
Still no sparrow was to be seen. He now felt sure that his wife, in one of her cross
tempers, had shut the sparrow up in its cage. So he called her and said anxiously:
"Where is Suzume San (Miss Sparrow) today?"
The old woman pretended not to know at first, and answered:

"Your sparrow? I am sure I don't know. Now I come to think of it, I haven't seen her all
the afternoon. I shouldn't wonder if the un- grateful bird had flown away and left you
after all your petting!"
But at last, when the old man gave her no peace, but asked her again and again, insisting
that she must know what had happened to his pet, she confessed all. She told him crossly
how the sparrow had eaten the rice-paste she had specially made for starching her clothes,
and how when the sparrow had confessed to what she had done, in great anger she had
taken her scissors and cut out her tongue, and how finally she had driven the bird away
and forbidden her to return to the house again.
Then the old woman showed her husband the sparrow's tongue, saying:
"Here is the tongue I cut off! Horrid little bird, why did it eat all my starch?"
"How could you be so cruel? Oh! how could you so cruel?" was all that the old man
could answer. He was too kind-hearted to punish his be shrew of a wife, but he was
terribly distressed at what had happened to his poor little sparrow.
"What a dreadful misfortune for my poor Suzume San to lose her tongue!" he said to
himself. "She won't be able to chirp any more, and surely the pain of the cutting of it out
in that rough way must have made her ill! Is there nothing to be done?"
The old man shed many tears after his cross wife had gone to sleep. While he wiped away
the tears with the sleeve of his cotton robe, a bright thought comforted him: he would go
and look for the sparrow on the morrow. Having decided this he was able to go to sleep at
last.
The next morning he rose early, as soon as ever the day broke, and snatching a hasty
breakfast, started out over the hills and through the woods, stopping at every clump of
bamboos to cry:
"Where, oh where does my tongue-cut sparrow stay? Where, oh where, does my
tongue-cut sparrow stay!"
He never stopped to rest for his noonday meal, and it was far on in the afternoon when he
found himself near a large bamboo wood. Bamboo groves are the favorite haunts of
sparrows, and there sure enough at the edge of the wood he saw his own