Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

The early spring sunlight was shining all over the fields on the hill.
The hill was surrounded by fields, an oak forest, and the Kinu River embankment, while its other side sloped down to the highway connecting village to village.
The rice fields stretched narrowly along the hill.
Beyond the rice fields, the village grove interspersed with bamboo thickets stretched along the paddies.
Through the bamboo thickets, grass-thatched houses were sporadically visible.
Zelkova trees, their branches splayed out like broom grass cut halfway through, stood straight and tall here and there.
In the rice paddies, drying rice sheaves had become scarce, yet the bamboo "oda" frames where rice had been hung still stood unremoved.
The oda frames likely saw nothing more than a snipe alighting at dusk—they looked utterly forlorn.
The Kinu River embankment was so densely overgrown with bamboo grass that the nearby water remained hidden beneath its shade.
The ascending white sails were only half visible through the tips of the bamboo grass, yet they appeared large.
The area where the water surfaces glimmered here and there beyond the bamboo grass on the embankment was already far upstream.
Therefore, by the time the entire form of the high-prowed boat became visible beyond the tips of the bamboo grass, the white sails had already shrunk to a far smaller size.
Above the bamboo grass on the embankment, the pine grove on the opposite bank stretched continuously into view.
Above them all, Mount Tsukuba spread one foothill while stretching its other leg upstream, towering over the land.
In early spring, Mount Tsukuba appeared scorched a reddish-brown everywhere except where evergreen trees grew.
On its reddish summit, the observatory building stood out as a tiny white speck, as if a dot had been painted there.
The slightly opaque air made that white speck stand out even more sharply to the eye, as if pricked by the tip of a needle.
The oak forest connected the narrow stretch of rice fields and the Kinu River, continuing horizontally between them.
The distant reaches of the rice fields too were hidden by the oak forest, and the upstream stretch of the Kinu River had long since vanished from view among those same trees.

The oak trees were densely packed with reddish leaves that clung tightly.
Because the hill's fields sloped somewhat toward the front, standing at their center revealed the oak forest half-hidden like a low embankment stretching onward.
Above the forest, the Ryomo mountains stood crowned with snow, their whiteness appearing faint and hazy.
Surrounded thus, the hill's fields lay bathed in bright sunlight.
The parched soil bore wheat shoots two or three inches tall that coated the entire hill like a thin wash of pale green.
Here and there moved small figures of farmers.
Some tended the wheat, but most were potato diggers.
At the edge of a field where four or five hands dug potatoes stood horses tethered to tea bushes amid scattered straw bags.
These bags alone marked them as potato diggers from afar.
The horses occasionally nipped at tea bushes to relieve boredom.
Whenever this happened, someone would dash over, clamp the bit with a metallic clank, scold it sharply—whereupon the horse would grow docile again and idly swish its tail.
All hands stayed busy at their tasks.
Yet across the hill lingered unbroken tranquility.
The sun dipped slightly.
Suddenly a dazzling light came glittering down from Mount Tsukuba's summit.
Each day at this hour this light would blaze intensely upon these fields.
Some farmers muttered things like "Must be a fire up on Tsukuba," and such.
But it was merely sunlight reflecting off the observatory's glass window.
Had any change touched these fields over hours past—this alone counted.
Soon enough,the glass reflection vanished completely.

The potato diggers, of course, were unaware of this light.
On days when the Ryomo mountains lay hazy, the west wind did not blow, making it unseasonably warm.
A warm day provided ideal weather for soil-tending potato digging.
Kenji and Osuga were also digging potatoes in a small field at the highway entrance slope.
The leaves from the neighboring mulberry field had mostly fallen and were scattered into Kenji's potato field as well.
Pale, delicate green wheat had sprouted.
The wheat had been sown in two rows each between the potatoes.
The potato stems lay limp as if boiled.
When one considered it, potatoes were remarkably stubborn things.
The autumn wind, day and night without cease, kept earnestly pressing its suit, but no matter what, they stubbornly refused, shaking their heads side to side all the while.
Even when the autumn wind grew furious and tore at their broad leaves, they stubbornly refused to heed its words.
At autumn’s end, when a pure white frost descended quietly from heaven one night, they wilted completely without any reason.
Osuga cut the potato stems at their base with a kitchen knife and moved forward.
The term 'vegetable knife' refers to a kitchen knife.
From behind, Kenji dug up the potato plants with the tip of his hoe.
When he thrust the glistening tip of his hoe diagonally into a potato plant and heaved it upward, a large clod of earth floated up lightly.
He gently pulled out the hoe and moved to the next plant.
He dug with utmost care to avoid harming the wheat, steadily moving onward.
Osuga finished cutting the stems, returned to the already dug area, lifted a large clod of earth about two shaku high with both hands, and dropped it with a thud.
The fine soil crumbled away, and from the clustered mass of baby potatoes, roots resembling white hair spread out all at once.

Then she separated the potatoes from each other vigorously with both palms and soon stood up a straw bag to pack them in.
Then she smoothed the soil in the hole with her fingertips and loosened the next clod.
In the dry field, wet round holes multiplied one after another.
The sunlight steadily dried the soil behind them grain by grain.
When Kenji finished digging up the potato plants, he scraped the soil from his hoe against his straw sandal soles and sat on a tea bush stump.
He removed his headband and wiped his forehead.
The early spring warmth made sweat ooze from every pore in a prickling, almost painful itchiness.
Osuga came to Kenji's side.
Perhaps from bending over, her face too was flushed.
A village youth arrived with a horse laden with radishes.
Holding the reins taut, the young man staggered after the horse as it clip-clopped away with lively hoofbeats.

“What’s wrong—did they get stuck?”

When the young man saw Kenji, he threw out a dismissive remark and tried to leave.
Kenji paid no heed to it and

“Leave one radish here.”

He stood up and shouted.

The young man,
“Oh sure, sure, here you go,”
halted the horse by its mouth and pulled out one from the tightly bound load ropes.
“Here, you two eat this together!”

and threw it toward Kenji.
The radish clattered against the tea bush.
Kenji peeled the radish with a kitchen knife and began chewing.
The radish had a certain spiciness to it, but to Kenji’s parched throat, it was still tasty.
To that spot came another person shouldering a hoe up from the rice paddy.

When he saw Kenji,

“What the hell’s with those guys? Ahahaha!”

He suddenly started hurling insults.

“Enough! Stop being jealous!”

Kenji immediately retaliated.

“You fools! What are you picking a fight with us for, when you’ll never become proper married couples no matter how long you wait? If the old man won’t listen, I’ll just grab him by the throat and strangle him. You good-for-nothing thug!”

Given that they normally traded insults, they didn’t hold back now, hurling spiteful remarks before leaving.
When they arrived, Osuga immediately stood up and, remaining bent over, loosened the clods of earth just as before, vigorously detaching the potatoes.
Kenji also didn’t seem particularly bothered and began detaching potatoes from a different ridge from Osuga, putting them into straw bags.

Two

The relationship between Kenji and Osuga was one of long standing.
And so now it had taken on the form of an unwanted thing cast into the shadows.

Children born among farmers received quite rough treatment.
If their mothers were working in the fields, they would tuck them into straw hats and leave them abandoned beneath an uzura tree at the field’s edge.
Even when they cried and cried as if aflame with tears, they were rarely attended to at all; so perhaps from malnutrition, there were many children with poor growth until six or seven years old. Yet once their limbs developed, they would be worked without mercy—and whether because of this, by seventeen or eighteen they would come to possess physiques so splendid as to astonish.
At the same time, a girl or two would be molded.
Even if such arrangements didn’t exist, they would inevitably go out night-crawling with someone their own age.
When those urges steadily mounted, they would end up roaming idly all over the village, from one corner to another, peeking into the baths of houses where even a young girl lived.
When Kenji came of age, he naturally took to night-crawling.
In such cases, as for what the parents did—since they themselves had similar experiences in the past, they didn’t particularly think it was a bad thing, nor were they entirely unperturbed, but rather considered it somewhat unavoidable.
Therefore, it was common for them not to utter a single stinging reprimand about injuries, as long as their work wasn’t hindered—whether twisting out an extra strand of rope or cutting an additional basket of morning grass.
Around the time Kenji took to night-crawling, there was a somewhat comfortably-off strict householder couple living in the same village, though at a distance from Kenji’s house.
For generations, the family had been called Sennemon, which became corrupted in dialect to “Sennemodon.”
Before anyone knew when or who had instigated them, the so-called “young fellows”—Kenji and his companions—began playing pranks on their house.
Around the time when frost had fallen two or three times, there were skewered dried persimmons—made from a persimmon tree that had become part of the residential plot—hanging on the south-facing wall.
The skewered persimmons would fall off unnoticed if sesame husks were burned beneath them, so one night they stealthily took down those skewered persimmons, thoroughly smoked them, and quietly hung them back up.
As expected, the persimmons began to fall one by two, and before anyone could say what had happened to this year’s batch, not a single one remained sufficiently dried.
Of course, they had no way of knowing they’d been pranked.
As a prank, it was an unqualified success.
The pranksters grew bolder.
One evening, they hauled over the firewood, brushwood, and tree roots—which had been painstakingly dug up with daily sweat and stacked high against the wall—and piled them up against the entrance door until it was completely blocked.
The next morning, when the wife tried to go fetch water, she discovered it and caused an uproar.

The couple blazed like fire.
Without exchanging a word, they spent half a day piling everything back against the original wall.
Though it was clearly the young men’s prank, there remained no way to retaliate.
They seethed with resentment yet had no choice but to endure.
Osuga’s house stood behind Sennemon’s residence, connected to the estate.
In that area, it ranked as the wealthiest household, complete with a storehouse.
All the neighbors came to bathe at Osuga’s house.
One evening when Sennemon’s wife went to take her bath, she spotted young men loitering nearby.
She promptly tattled to Osuga’s brother.
As her brother stepped out the back door growling “Who’s there?,” the clatter of five or six fleeing figures echoed.
Yet being chased at this bathhouse happened so often that pursuers never gave lengthy chase.
This stemmed from parents fearing mishaps involving their daughters—if a girl sat sewing with her face flushed post-bath, they felt reassured.
The fleeing youths would hide beneath zelkova trees only to creep back out later.
That evening, Sennemon’s wife lingered over tea snacks, munching noisily on sweet pickles and chattering until she became last in line for the bath.
Still naked, she flung open the back door and bolted toward the bathhouse.
“Oh, it’s freezing!” she exclaimed while yanking off the bath lid and thrusting her towel-clutching hand inside.
Then she shrieked “What the—?!” in alarm.
The bathwater had vanished entirely, sparking uproar.
Just as the cold pierced her bones and made her tremble, someone leaped from behind the stable and lobbed a mud-caked radish at her shoulder before fleeing.
Enraged, she gave chase into the darkness—still utterly naked.

And then she tripped over something and went sprawling with a terrible thud.
In an instant, three or four voices shouted "Waaah!" and ran off.
Having heard from a servant that it was Sennemon’s wife who had earlier tattled to Osuga’s brother, the youths removed the bath plug, loaded up with radishes, and when she came chasing after them, yanked taut the rope held by two waiting accomplices to trip her up.
The wife was so mortified that she couldn’t get out of bed the next day.
However, after this incident, the pranks completely ceased.
This was because mediators intervened and appealed through two or three elders for the young fellows to stop their mischief.
Kenji had been part of these pranks but eventually grew close with a servant at Osuga’s house.
At times he would burrow into the servant’s embrace to stay overnight.
What he had once done with boisterous crowds became his new routine—standing alone near Osuga’s house wrapped in a heavy coat.
When Osuga entered the bath, he would go stand beside it.
Osuga began taking prolonged silent baths while snapping her towel.
Sometimes when Osuga did laundry at the washing area, he would signal her with a bamboo rod from the window.
The two finally exchanged koshihimo waist cords and heko obi sashes in formal union.
When young women are persistently courted by men, they naturally deepen their bond like petals carried by flowing water.
Under their vow never to part, they exchanged bodily-worn tokens.
Even if weariness comes, conflict subsides while these tokens remain.
When relatives pressure a woman to marry elsewhere, her lover may lure her away.
When both families clash in tangled disputes, she ultimately marries calmly elsewhere.
The matter settles through severance payments from the wealthier party.
Depending on the payment’s size, two or three nights pass in commotion.

Even so, through ancient custom, this anomalous power of gold could resolve most disputes.
Thus, between Kenji and Osuga was formed a bond so strong that it could not be severed as easily as splitting a pumpkin with a kitchen knife.
However, at this time, aside from the servant at Osuga’s house, no one else knew of the relationship between the two.
In a short time, this knowledge spread among the young men, and those who had been pursuing Osuga vanished.
Soon, it spread throughout the entire village like a wave.
Even so, unless a special incident was provoked, such matters generally remained beneath notice.

Several days passed in this manner.

It was one early morning.
The season still clung stubbornly to winter's chill.
Kenji arrived at the home of a man locally known as Yotsumata, his face etched with worry.
Yotsumata made his living brokering pigs—a shrewd operator whose profits from livestock were legendary.
People said his fortunes might've grown even greater had he not squandered earnings at gambling dens.
This Yotsumata shared an uncommon bond with Kenji's father.

“Kenji-boy,” Yotsumata asked, “what brings ya here at this hour?”

“Need to ask ya somethin’...” Kenji swallowed hard. “Our old man’s got a mean streak—reckon he might beat me dead.”

“Why’d you go and get yourself into another situation where you’re gonna get beaten to death?”

“Last night I went out playin’ and lost my padded robe.
“Left it in Osuga’s storehouse but this mornin’ it got stolen or somethin’.”
“Now I can’t go back home.”

“What, that’s all? I’ll square the apologizin’, so wait here.”

Yotsumata went to Kenji’s house.
Mother was burning leaves in the hearth.
The kettle was now hissing vigorously.
Yotsumata immediately headed to the stable.
And then,

“Pa,”
“I don’t care ’bout anythin’ else—just gotta get ya to hear me out.”

Yotsumata blurted out suddenly.
“Pa” was how children addressed their fathers, but given Yotsumata’s special closeness to Kenji’s father despite their age gap, this sometimes happened.
Partly owing to his jesting nature, Yotsumata always addressed Kenji’s father in this way.

“What the hell ya comin’ around first thing in the mornin’?”

The old man looked suspicious but half-smiled as if expecting his usual banter and said,

“I was worried you might beat ’im dead, Pa—that’s why I came apologizin’.”
“Ya gotta hear me out on every last thing.”

“Don’t understand a damn word yer spoutin’.”

“Naw—even if ya don’t get it, this ain’t doin’ your rep no favors.”
“Truth is, ’bout Kenji comin’ to our place…”

“That bastard’s done nothin’ but carouse all damn night...”

“So Pa, there’s no use gettin’ angry,”
“He says his padded robe got stolen last night.”
“Sneakin’ into folks’ houses and all that—ain’t a tale worth spreadin’. Best not raise too much ruckus ’bout it.”
“No call to fuss over one measly robe. Nothin’ like this ever happened before—just hear him out, why don’tcha?”

“Then leave it to me,”
“Bring Kenji here.”

With this, the matter of the padded robe was settled.
The padded robe was later returned to Kenji’s hands because the thief had discarded it back where it originally was.
Kenji put it on and continued visiting Osuga as before.

III

The heat had finally settled in, and until tea-picking season—the farmers’ busiest period—no rumors surfaced.
When spring reached its eighty-eighth night and tender green foliage began dressing every direction, even the neglected tea bushes at the field’s edge suddenly buzzed with life as women in red sashes laughed and bantered around them.
Just as they were about to apply paste to the drying furnace, commotion arose over tea leaves growing too long.
At Kenji’s house too, the tea leaves had become overgrown—leaving them another day would make proper harvesting impossible—so they arranged an “Ihidori” labor exchange with neighbors to strip every leaf within a single day.
Father had been tending the drying furnace since dawn.
“Ihidori” meant exchanging labor days—if their side worked here one day, ours would work there another.
Around that time, the grandmother at Kenji’s house had long been bedridden with chronic illness.
On that very day, with medicine depleted despite their busyness, they needed to cross the Kinu River and travel about one ri to reach the doctor.
Father’s body had grown weary from daily work before the sweltering furnace.
He’d thought to entrust the furnace to Kenji while taking a brief restful outing—but Kenji abruptly—

“Pa, I’ll go get the medicine.”

Because Kenji had said that, even so, since he couldn't bring himself to say he would go instead, he reluctantly sent Kenji out.

The main road went over the hill.
In the fields, wheat ears were fully out and swaying vigorously.
Rape flowers had broken free from the wheat fields here and there, blooming defiantly.
Along the tea ridges at the field borders, white sedge hats lined up like seabirds, bobbing gently above the wheat.
Faint singing voices drifted through the soft down at the tips of the wheat ears.
From both sky and earth rose a thick warmth—no, a sweltering heat—steaming upward until distant fields blurred into hazy mirages.
The young people’s hearts grew restless and unsettled.
Kenji hurried off and returned.
Yet on his way back, he found himself unable to simply pass through this hillside field.
Osuga was there tea-picking with five or six others, and he got caught up among them.
The women faced each other across rows of tea bushes, fingers flying as they plucked leaves.
The crisp snip-snip of their harvesting filled the air.
Teased mercilessly yet joining in himself, Kenji picked leaves with growing fervor until his antics stirred up a commotion.

“Ken-boy, quit hogging Osuga-san—why not come over here too once in a while?”

The one who spoke was the woman across from Osuga.

"That's right, Oito-san—how ridiculous is that?"

A voice called from slightly farther away.

"Then I'll come over."

Kenji pushed through the tea bushes toward Oito-san.

"Oh no! Ken-boy—don't go trampling through here getting everything muddy!"

The one who cried out was the smallest child picking lower branches beside Oito.
Kenji stepped into the child's basket with his dirt-covered feet.

“It’s no use—it’s the high spirits, see? Someone’s gone clean out their head, Oito-san.”

Again, a voice called out from a slightly distant direction.
This was Oasu, a woman of some maturity.

“Why not come help me finish up too, Ken-boy? If you don’t pick some, I won’t chat with ya, see?”

Oasu teased again.
Kenji headed toward Oasu.

“Oh my, Ken-boy! If you trample all over the wheat like this, you’ll get scolded for sure!”

Oito, this time, brought out a complaint.
Next to the tea bushes lay a wheat field.
Peas intercropped with wheat were climbing up the wheat stalks as they rose, their stems thickly covered in lavish flowers.

“If you’re just gonna pick all the easy spots, then I don’t want your help, Ken-boy—didn’t ask for it anyway!”

Oasu continued to bring up complaints.
Kenji tapped Oasu on the shoulder.
“Oh my! You near knocked me flyin’! Must be someone who didn’t get hit!”

“Must be! Ahahaha!”

Everyone burst out laughing at once.
Osuga alone remained silent.
Because of all this, Kenji was thoroughly reprimanded.
In the sky, larks soared and crisscrossed as they sang.
The father scolded, while the larks cried as if screaming "Hurry! Hurry!" with such force their throats might tear.
Even so, Kenji kept picking tea heedlessly until his fingertips turned blue.
When he finally noticed, he kept running at full speed all the way home.
No matter how much he ran, he couldn’t make up for the lost time.
When Kenji came into view, the old man—

“What took you so long? I’ll beat you dead!”

He shouted, grabbed a stick, and rushed out.
Kenji turned pale and fled.
Being young, he was swift-footed.
By the time the old man reached the gate, Kenji had already vanished into the oak grove ahead.
The old man couldn’t keep chasing him indefinitely because the tea on the roasting pan was burning.
After Kenji had gone out to get medicine, someone had been messing with the leftover tea leaves, but the toughened leaves would not easily adhere no matter how much they were pressed and kneaded on the rough straw mat.
He turned up the heat of the roasting furnace and dried the coarse tea leaves.
Fatigue spurred his irritation, and on top of that, the sweltering heat of the roasting furnace churned the old man’s stomach even more.
Two or three neighbors came out and finally found Kenji.
And then, as usual, they asked Yotsumata to mediate.
Yotsumata strolled in casually.

“Father, it must be tough doing this all alone.”

“Tough my ass!”

“Course there’s gonna be shit when you hatch such half-baked ideas.”

“What’re you yammerin’ about now with that crap?”

“What’s all this ruckus ’bout killin’ Kenji?”

“In this busy season, that brat’s lazin’ around stirrin’ up petty trouble!”

“Even if he’s lazin’, Father wouldn’t know squat ’bout it.”
“Says he waited ’cause the teacher wasn’t there. Even if you went, Father, no use if the teacher’s gone.”
“And without hearin’ his side, you’re ragin’ ’bout killin’ him—that ain’t how decent folks act!”

Kenji’s mother had been simmering beans in oil miso for lunch but put them on a plate and brought them out to Yotsumata.
And then,
“It’s true—our Tsuaa really is so short-tempered, you see.”

She said as if to herself.

“Enough! You don’t know a damn thing about it!”

The old man snapped again and scolded his wife.

“That’s exactly why it don’t work!”
“Look at Granny here! I’m feeling poorly, so I took it out on Ken and got angry.”
“And now I’m even sayin’ it’d be better if I died!”
“So just leave it to me!”
“Wouldn’t even the neighbors’ time-wasting be a damn nuisance?”

Yotsumata was a shell bamboo splitter.
The only one in the village who could scold, coax, or talk down the short-tempered old man was this Yotsumata alone.

“Alright then, leave it to me.”

Thus it was decided.

“So quit bein’ so damn stubborn an’ listen to what I tell ya every time, ya hear?”

“You’re hopeless, heh heh heh…”

When this laughter subsided, Yotsumata brought Kenji.
When that happened, the old man—

“Knead these leaves, Ken.”

In this manner, his face now seemed entirely different from before.

IV

After that, there were no disturbances, but Kenji still stole away to Osuga’s side. Under such circumstances, one would expect Osuga’s family not to let things be, but her mother was a stubborn yet good-natured woman who harbored not a shred of intention to tear her beloved daughter apart from Kenji. Rather, true to the village’s reputation, she even assisted Kenji himself. Osuga’s father would always end up dead drunk by nightfall and collapse without a care for his surroundings. Her older brother went up to the rear second floor with his young bride and slept. Moreover, since it was settled that the servant wouldn’t interfere with Kenji, there were no reports of any commotion like abductions or chases. However, as village rumors intensified, relatives—those privy to snippets of gossip—found the situation intolerable and held discussions. They concluded that if Kenji’s family, though poor, were to take Osuga in marriage, they might as well hand her over properly. If they refused to accept her as a bride, they resolved to sever ties and negotiate to keep Kenji away. Osuga had an uncle named Isaku, a horse trader. This man was also close with Kenji’s father. The old man was such a fervent horse lover that when spring warmth caused their coats to shed—old hairs clinging loosely—he couldn’t resist leading them out to the road to stroke them endlessly. Thus Isaku the horse trader naturally grew close to him. Therefore, in the village, apart from Yotsumata, Isaku alone could handle intricate negotiations. Isaku conducted the negotiation over one night as the clan representative. Yet it proved futile. Isaku couldn’t approach matters as Yotsumata could, and with the incident now gravely serious, the old man’s reply was absolute: he declared he’d sooner lose his head than accept her as a bride. Once he spoke, he never relented—such was this man’s nature. No, this family inevitably bred such stubbornness; it ran in their blood. Isaku smoked endlessly from his old leather tobacco pouch, but no solutions emerged. Having lost face yet avoiding a fight, he withdrew.

The relatives became enraged at this stubbornness.
Things had reached a state where a minor disturbance was inevitable.
In such times, the only recourse for lovers—one that had been taken by countless men and women since antiquity and endured still—was this.
To take each other by the hand and flee together—that was it.
The somewhat obstinate mother, wishing desperately to unite Kenji and Osuga, resolved to use her own cunning to help them escape.
One evening, Kenji stealthily carried out a bundle wrapped in furoshiki cloth.
Two or three days later, rumors spread that Kenji had vanished.
At that time, Kenji was said to have hidden on the second floor of Osuga’s family storehouse, surviving on rice balls brought by his mother.
After three days passed and dusk fell, the two went to a village across the Kinu River where his mother’s ancestral home stood.
When an elopement became public knowledge, it was customary for someone to mediate between both parties—and as always,Yotsumata was entrusted with this task.
This was during the rainy season when even two farmers’ bodies would not have sufficed.
Yotsumata,a pig trader who rarely farmed himself, proved formidable in such mediations.

Since entering the rainy season, it was a rare day that dawned glittering clear from morning, pleasantly warm. Yotsumata strolled over. Father had just returned from preparing the paddy fields. The horse—its belly and all four legs caked in mud—remained tethered to the stable pillar. Evidently irritated, it occasionally shook itself violently to dislodge clumps while nudging the armful of fresh grass with its nose and chewing listlessly. Greenish liquid oozed from its mouth. To the stable pillar was lashed a cedar pole bent as a balance beam, bound so tightly it seemed to groan under the strain. Father’s work pants, tied with straw, were mud-caked from the crotch down, splattered dirt dried on his face and clothes. Behind the house beside the stable stood five or six hollyhocks in bloom. These hollyhocks always flowered here come summer; if the back door stayed open, they caught the eye even from the thoroughfare. People passing by would note that Tamaya’s hollyhocks had bloomed. The flowers remained this house’s prime decoration through all seasons. Beside them, seizing this rare sunny spell, Mother had stolen a moment to wash work clothes and hang them on the drying pole. “Tamaya” served as this household’s nickname—someone generations back had traded eggs, they said—and still the village called them Tamaya.

“Did you finish preparing the fields?”

Yotsumata went to the stable and asked.
Father would go to the stable like this whenever he had time to watch how the horse was eating.

“I just finished now.”

Father simply said this and went to the wellside.
He roughly washed the mud from his work pants and entered the house.
He sat down on the raised floor frame with Yotsumata.

“What’s the matter—without Ken here, the work ain’t spreadin’ out right?”

“But even so—somehow or other—got them fields done.”

“Sorry ’bout botherin’ ya durin’ busy season, but I come ’cause they asked me. Don’t take it personal—just layin’ it plain.”
“Here’s how ’tis—Isaku done declared they can’t take Osuga ’cause Kenji’s legs ain’t his own to stop movin’, but that’s rough talk, eh?”
“And anyways—no way youse can sever what binds ’em tight. Right proper mess.”
“Even if ya split up search parties—course they’ll find wherever them runaways hid—draggin’ ’em back means squat if you ain’t settled proper-like. Girl ends up laughin’-stock? Y’all couldn’t show faces at shrine fest no more.”
“Why not quit bein’ mule-stubborn and just take Osuga?”

“Even though we’ve had relatives try to arrange things before, I turned ’em down ’cause of that blasted conscription exam—so makin’ a fuss now ain’t gonna change nothin’.”

“Even if we talk conscription exams—thirty, forty days more’ll settle it anyway. And even if he does end up a soldier, no harm in both sides agreein’ for now.”
“Don’t go spoutin’ such highfalutin logic now.”

“I’m a fool regardless, so I don’t care—no matter what you say, I ain’t gonna agree.”

“That’s a mighty ridiculous thing to say—you got somethin’ else you ain’t carin’ about besides this?”

“Even if I don’t care, I think you’re makin’ a fool of me too damn much.”
“Even if that brat sweet-talks her, there ain’t no need for my old lady to go meddlin’ in another family’s heir business.”
“I’m a fool anyway—don’t understand your fancy logic—ain’t that right?”
“Other night when Ken was leavin’, I noticed later—two folks lurkin’ round the back fence. Had ’em pegged clear enough.”
“Then ain’t even I better’n that?”
“Ain’t like we’d miss that bastard stayin’ or goin’. If he don’t listen up, I’ll just boot him out.”
“Even if my body’s gone weak some—ain’t lettin’ no snot-nosed brat walk over me, that’s final.”

“Even if ya don’t go ragin’ ’n’ makin’ a scene—if ya’d just take Osuga proper-like, there wouldn’t be no grudges or hard feelin’s.”
“Since even that mother over there holds Osuga dear ’n’ Kenji dear too—if you folks here could just grasp how things stand proper-like—wouldn’t ya all live together peaceful?”

“Ain’t no way this gets settled ’til that conscription exam’s cleared—no matter what ya do.”

Yotsumata had figured it was hopeless from the start but resolved to say his piece anyway—yet faced with this stonewall stubbornness, even if spears came rainin’ down, there was no gettin’ through.
Yotsumata knew that full well.

In the garden of Kenji’s house stood a large chestnut tree by the fence.
Because it grew between pine trees, its branches extended and drooped only toward the garden side.
Long clusters resembling tassels bloomed profusely in white.
A large caterpillar covered in white hairs ate the leaves and clung to the tip of a branch.
If left unchecked, chestnut caterpillars would strip all leaves down to their veins.
Kenji’s elder brother Taichi used a long bamboo pole daily to knock down those caterpillars.
The caterpillars clung tenaciously and refused to let go easily, so Taichi patiently knocked them down and crushed them underfoot.
Taichi had recently adopted this task as his duty and performed it tirelessly.
Kenji had three brothers.
One had drowned in the Kinu River before reaching ten years of age.
The next was this Taichi.
He too developed epilepsy around age ten.
After his seizures began occurring frequently, he grew listless.
When longer intervals passed between episodes, he would sometimes dig up tree roots or spend a whole day pounding a mortar’s worth of rice—but since no one knew where he might collapse next, Mother’s worries never ceased.
He would grin slyly whenever he saw someone.
Though disabled, upon reaching adolescence he began occasionally making playful remarks to grass-cutting girls.
The girls treated Taichi as their amusement during their comings and goings, teasing him.
It was Mother who wept upon seeing this, lamenting how painful it was.
Through these misfortunes, Kenji became the sole remaining heir to their household.
That their precious Kenji had grown so flighty could only be called a devastating blow.

That Osuga’s mother had been lurking around the fence with a carpenter’s square the other evening—Father was beside himself with indignation, convinced she had brought along that woman named Oasu.
Taichi had suffered a seizure at the neighboring Goemon bathhouse five or six days prior, where he missed the footboard and got a burn blister the size of a fifty-sen silver coin on his sole. Walking oddly as a result, he now stood in the garden—strewn with fallen blossoms and caterpillar droppings—knocking down chestnut caterpillars.
He soon propped the bamboo pole against the entrance eaves and stood vacantly, listening to the latter half of this dispute.
And then, when Yotsumata was at a loss and both parties fell silent for a moment,

“Eheheheh! Go on and get Miss Bride for him!”

With that, he turned aside and grinned slyly.
Mother, who had been boiling tea with a worried look in front of the hearth, poured the boiling water into the teapot and brought it to the entrance step.
And then, facing Yotsumata with an awkward look,

“Taichi, you hush now!”

she scolded him harshly.

“Heheh, Ma.”

Taichi grinned slyly again.
Father’s face flushed crimson from the middle of the conversation, his eyeballs turning red.
After a while passed, Yotsumata once again—

“So you absolutely won’t take her now, huh?”
he said.

“I absolutely won’t have it.”

The reply came without hesitation.

“Once the conscription examination’s cleared, you won’t get mad even if someone arranges a bride for him, right?”

He pressed for confirmation.

“Won’t get mad.”

It was simple.

“Alright, you’ve made your position clear. Come that time, I might not even be around to handle Osuga’s affairs anymore.”

Yotsumata withdrew from the situation over this.

About ten days after this public dispute had occurred, Kenji was working at his own home together with his father.
The Egg Seller was a man of fearsome stubbornness and strong will when dealing with others, but when it came to Kenji, he tended to forget most things.
Yotsumata, having grasped the unspoken dynamics of the situation, found the task of putting things back into their original sheath to be an easy one for him alone.

5

At Osuga’s house, the village relatives gathered once again and racked their brains.
By all means, their sole purpose now was to separate the two.
To achieve this, one of the village relatives took charge based on Isaku the horse trader’s idea that Osuga must be hidden.
Even with mere nighttime strolls being paraded around the entire village, Kenji could sniff out Osuga faster than a male dog searching for a female.
Osuga was then placed under the pretext of apprentice service at a wealthy household in the neighboring village.
However, Kenji had sneaked into the mansion of that wealthy household on the very evening Osuga went there.
That evening, Kenji met with a terrible ordeal.
The servants had known in advance that Kenji would come and secretly informed their master.
The strict master ordered the servants to chase him into a corner of the garden and capture him.
Kenji put his hands on the ground and apologized.
He was driven out through the gate and returned in a disheveled state.
There’s an old proverb that’s been passed down in the village since ancient times: “The young men of the village have claim to the girls and the leafy greens.”
It is said that until the Meiji Restoration, if men from other villages dared pass through, it would constitute trespassing on the territorial claim of that village’s young men, who would then beat them mercilessly and further compel them to buy reconciliation sake.
Such extreme measures are no longer taken, but even now it’s still common for them to chase people around—partly out of jealousy and partly in mischievous play.
Kenji met with a terrible ordeal because the servants had such feelings.
Osuga was also dismissed the next day.
She returned home in a fluster, trembling as she clutched her furoshiki bundle.
Regarding the situation between the two of them, every possible measure had been exhausted.
They finally decided to take the matter to the village master.
The village master was from a family lineage that, by virtue of their ancestors’ blessings, held the status to refer to the farmers by their bare names.

When most matters became hopelessly unresolved, it had become customary for them to petition the village master for judgment.
Regarding Kenji’s situation, even the village master stroked his beard and pondered, but he too was at a loss.
The Egg Seller’s stubbornness was understood without even trying to beat it out.
First, deciding to hear the parties’ opinions, he initially called Osuga.
Osuga was already beyond any resolution.
Not wanting to part was mountains, but if told to part, she would obediently comply.
Admittedly, being summoned to the village master’s house for a talk was something she had never experienced in her life, and she was simply too terrified to say anything coherent—though in truth, she harbored no resolve so desperate as life or death.
Osuga was still only seventeen.
Next, he called Kenji.
Due to concerns that the Egg Seller might come up with another strange idea, through the mistress’s maneuvering, Oasu was utilized to bring him into the backyard one day during the lunch break from work.
Oasu was a woman who had harvested tea with Osuga and caused a disturbance with Kenji.
The mistress earnestly explained the reasoning and asked, “Do you have the resolve to completely sever ties here?”

“I just can’t bring myself to let go.”

he declared resolutely.
The Mistress found herself troubled by his persistence.

“If you’re that set on it through hell or high water,I’ll stand by you proper-like.But your old man won’t budge an inch ’fore your army stint’s done.Fact is,your conscription’s settled now—supply transport soldier they’ve got you down for—so there’s light at tunnel’s end.”
“Once mustering-out day comes ’round,there’ll be time enough for marriage talk.But keeping lids on till then—that’s where your grit gets tested.”
“Seems long now,but under twelve moons it’ll pass.”
“What say we grease this smooth-like—no waves made,nobody riled?”

Kenji also yielded a little on this point.

“In that case, I’ll endure and work as planned.”

“If you do that, it’ll let the mediator save face and soften your father’s heart.”
“Once this is settled, I’ll tell both sides you’ve given up on the surface to temporarily reassure them—but for that, I’ll first arrange a meeting between you and Osuga where you must promise never to actually change your hearts.”
“If you endure a little longer, your military service will be done, and once that’s over, we’ll all worry together and make sure to get you two together. But if Osuga can’t endure through this time, then she’s not a woman worth relying on even if you do marry her. So when that time comes, there should be no regrets—right, Kenji? Isn’t that how it is?”

“That’s how it is.”
“Well, if she’s a woman who can’t endure, then I’ll just beat the hell out of her!”

“In that case, I’ll have Oasu arrange to summon Osuga. When that happens, follow the plan we just discussed.”
“In return, you absolutely must endure.”

“On the day you told me to endure, I’ll sure as hell show you I can endure too.”

Kenji was energetically doing housework.
It was just after the start of midsummer, but the soybean pods in the fields were already swelling rapidly.
The heat seeped all the way to the roots of the lush green rice straw, to the point where loaches were said to die, and the farmers worked shirtless in straw hats during the day.
It was the time when people would lie naked under mosquito nets at night.
That day was precisely the day of the Gion Festival.
Everywhere on the ground, heavy and deep greens spread their hands as far as they could to block the intense sunlight, thriving in profusion.
Even so, the dry-field rice in the sun-baked fields, parched from days without rain, could not endure the daytime heat, their leaf tips wilting away.
When the troublesome sun sank into the western woods, the plants that had finally fulfilled their day’s duty of blocking sunlight began to rustle briskly with apparent delight.
Then, several dozen minutes later, the farmers’ free time finally arrived.
However, precisely because today was a festival day, those who had set aside a section of work the day before were playing from morning on.
The full moon rose through the intensely blue, smooth night sky, illuminating Osuga’s garden from the treetop of the zelkova tree.
The persimmon tree in the garden had leaves bathed in moonlight, glistening as if wet.
The sky looked cool at a glance, but the lingering heat from the sun that had beaten down all day still sweltered so intensely that no shade could offer respite.
At times like these, every house was left wide open.
Osuga’s house was filled with smoke, which drifted along the eaves and wandered off into the quiet night.
Four or five village relatives who had been summoned since daytime were sitting in this suffocating smoke, drinking sake.
The household members were busily working.
They were in the middle of making udon noodles for the festival.
The men were naked.
The women were also clad in nothing but their undergarments.

At the hearth, Osuga was boiling udon.
When the pot suddenly foamed and began to overflow, she hurriedly poured a full bucket of water into it.
The foam instantly subsided.
She lifted the boiled udon with both hands, put them into a bucket, took them to the wellside, rinsed them in cold water, and placed them onto the shōgi.
A shōgi was an extremely shallow large basket.
Rather than a basket, it resembled a large shallow sieve.
When the man cutting udon at the wellside paused briefly, he barked about work piling up.
With all this, Osuga found not a moment’s respite.
The hearth’s smoke filled the entire house.

It was at this moment that Oasu came bringing Kenji to summon Osuga.
Kenji was hidden in the shade of the bamboo grove while Oasu went under pretense of business, but found no opening.
Kenji should have stayed put quietly, but mosquitoes bit him.
His legs grew numb.
Frustration mounting, he finally began prowling about.
Someone from the house glimpsed his figure.
The relatives—munching roasted beans and slurping udon while dismissing Kenji’s antics as harmless—now tipsy from earlier sake, even clattered out in geta.
Despite Oasu’s anxious efforts, she failed utterly that night.
When the Mistress proposed hosting them at her house instead, within days rumors already spread of Kenji being caught at Osuga’s home.
The Mistress’s careful plans lay shattered—the affair had circled back to its start.

“What a bunch of damn fools!”

Oasu grumbled irritably.
The other people were less angry than too dumbfounded to speak.

Before long, a ridiculous incident occurred.
It was about ten days after Gion had passed.

One morning, Kenji’s father

“Ken, get ready now. I can’t stand havin’ things I don’t wanna see ’round our house no more, so we gotta move you out somewhere—come with me.”

With that, Kenji’s father took Kenji and left.
Kenji’s mother later cried alone at the overwhelming suddenness of it all.
As noon approached, Kenji unexpectedly returned.
When she asked what had happened—after being taken along the Sakai Highway for two or three ri—

“My business ended right here.
“If he wants to go to the border, this way’s straight.”

and with that, he was given some pocket money and let go.
So when Father’s figure disappeared around the corner of the woods, I detoured along the woods and got ahead of him, he said.

The mother, seeing no other way, told him to stay with relatives for a while and emptied her own purse to send Kenji off.
Father returned after noon had passed.
Mother said,
“I ended up crying later because I loved Kenji so much,”
her voice thick with emotion.
The reason this mother had never stirred up any trouble within the household until now was that she had endured quietly; she had never once said anything resentful in the past.

Six

Not long after this incident, Osuga too vanished from the village.
Kenji had spirited her away.
Upon closer inquiry, it emerged that even the travel expenses had been provided solely by Osuga’s mother.
They made their way to the countryside of Tochigi where Kenji’s uncle had married into a family as a live-in son-in-law.
The uncle sent a letter to his hometown.
The reply was brutally simple—just let them be.
Yet leaving matters at that proved impossible, so the uncle journeyed all the way back to negotiate.
But due to how things had unfolded earlier with the egg seller, he was now untouchable.
Next they approached Isaku the horse trader—an acquaintance from their village days—but at Osuga’s house too, her relatives and brother objected, declaring that those who eloped so shamelessly could never be welcomed back.
Seeing no alternative, the uncle resolved to shelter them himself for the time being. He met with Yotsumata—who had bent over backward for Kenji—entrusted him with all future concerns, took three days’ leave, and returned home.
Under the uncle’s roof, the two passed idyllic days.
Having borrowed a mixed forest plot where they uprooted tree stumps to grow upland rice, Tochigi’s rice tasted divine to mouths accustomed to such fare.
Though Osuga’s family home boasted even a storehouse, their daily meals still consisted of rice mixed with stone-ground wheat.
One might say farmers’ greatest aspiration in life rarely exceeds eating pure rice with salted salmon as relish.
The uncle’s household lived comfortably enough to gratify their every craving.
At least for Kenji—with his flesh-and-blood uncle nearby and Osuga by his side—hardships ceased entirely.
Osuga felt some social awkwardness about clinging to Kenji, but physical suffering she knew none.
They labored tirelessly.
The uncle, though busy, secretly rejoiced at gaining unexpected hands during peak season and let them stay.

Autumn deepened.
And then the rice harvesting season arrived.
In their hometown, there were paddies so deep that they couldn’t harvest without wearing "Nanba"—footwear resembling cutting boards with thongs attached—but here, they could reap rice wearing just straw sandals.
In the rice fields, they threshed rice.
Every task was a joy.
Snow piled up on Mount Akagi, and winter came.
At that time, a restlessness arose between them—a worry they could no longer suppress.
This worry was nothing new, but by now it had become unmanageable.
Osuga had been with child since before their elopement.
She had endured at first, but lately her body had grown increasingly burdensome.
The uncle had known this from the start, but since farmers commonly worked barefoot until the very night before childbirth, he saw no hardship there. Moreover, returning them now when her belly had swelled would make both families object to taking them back. Thus he kept Osuga there, assigning only light tasks.
When winter’s chill arrived and hazel trees in the paddies began drooping with buds readying for spring, the uncle decided it was time and sent them back.
He attached a letter for Isaku the horse trader and wrote meticulously to Yotsumata within his writing ability.
He explained that while he ought to come himself, bringing such outcasts back to the village in detail would be terribly awkward—hence sending only the pair. He asked them not to take offense and to care for the couple however possible, adding that he would handle any stubborn complaints from the egg seller later.
He wrote that if they required his immediate presence, a postcard would bring him flying over.
With nowhere else to turn, they ended up at Yotsumata’s house.
Yotsumata was perplexed but saw no alternative.
First he consulted Isaku, but Osuga couldn’t return unconditionally.
After deliberation, he asked Sennemon before Osuga’s house to take her in temporarily.
One reason was Sennemon’s spacious house relative to its few occupants; another was that placing her right across from her home meant her brother—seeing her daily—might soften his harsh objections over time, while her mother’s stubbornness would deter criticism of this strict arrangement—or so their calculation went.

After settling Osuga’s situation, Yotsumata turned his attention to the egg seller.
Yotsumata had taken on a rather troublesome role in this affair, but being told by the village that no one but him could handle it was something he secretly prided himself on.
One late evening, he went to the egg seller’s place.
Around this time, every day, the thud-thud sounds of box sieves could be heard filtering through the bamboo grove from somewhere in the village.
As the rural New Year approached, they ground buckwheat, wheat, and sorghum into flour for the preparations.
At the egg seller’s household too, they were grinding buckwheat flour this evening.
The mother, from her face to her clothes, was covered in powder like dust as she worked the box sieve atop the straw mat.
Father was grinding the second grindings of grain residue with Taichi, who had epilepsy.
Yotsumata slid open the lattice door and entered, then immediately lent a hand to the stone mill.
The stone mill turned round and round with a light rhythm.

“Endured this cold just to come help with yer milling—ain’t that somethin’, huh?”

Yotsumata said with a laugh.

“Work I never counted on comin’ my way—ain’t this just grand for me.”

The egg seller nodded in agreement and turned the stone mill vigorously yet rhythmically in unison.
After a while, all the buckwheat residue had been swept into the hole.
They gave the stone mill a few more rumbling turns as it was, then stopped milling the buckwheat.
The mother ceased sifting with the box sieve, snapped pieces of kindling, and lit them in the ice-cold hearth by the entrance step.
When smoke had thinly filled the cramped house, embers glowed in the hearth while the soot-blackened iron kettle began chirring.

“Don’t mind me—just keep on sifting there.”
Yotsumata spoke to the mother again.
“No need to sift tonight—tomorrow’ll do just fine.”
Then the mother moved the flour from the mill platform into a bucket and covered it with a straw mat.

Father warmed himself in the bath at the back door.

“What a damnably cold evening, I tell you.”

Yotsumata held his hands over the hearth.

“It’s snowing in flurries—no wonder it’s cold.”

The egg seller got out of the bath and said while tightening his loincloth in the dirt-floored area,

“Instead o’ tea, how ’bout makin’ some buckwheat porridge? For warmin’ yer belly, porridge’s better’n tea.”

“Buckwheat porridge’s good,” Yotsumata chimed in. “But them bonito flakes—they Tosa flakes?”

“Quit yer nonsense. Where’d ya hear that?”

“What’re ya on about? I ain’t never eaten nothin’ but Tosa flakes!”

In a farming household, there was naturally no call for bonito flakes to begin with.

Yotsumata used such matters to smoothly start things off with a jest.
As the water in the iron kettle had boiled, the mother scooped buckwheat flour from the box sieve into two bowls with a wooden scoop.
She poured the hot water from the iron kettle into them and stirred with chopsticks.
The mother then drizzled soy sauce onto a small dish and served it.

“Hey, this ain’t udon flour! It’s way too white!”

“Yotsumata, you’ve gotten sharp-eyed.”
“This here’s first-grade flour—no bran mixed in.”
“Sweet, ain’t it?”

“Yeah, been kinda risin’ up straight from my throat like this.”

Pouring hot water into the bowl of buckwheat porridge, Yotsumata blew on it repeatedly as he drank, and finally brought up the matter.

“You’re already sick of hearing what I have to say—hell, I’m fed up too.”
“But no matter how ya slice it, if ya don’t hear me out, there ain’t no path forward.”

“Kenji’s business again? If that’s your tune, I ain’t listenin’.”

“That’s exactly why I’m tellin’ ya to hear me through.”
“Osuga’s belly’s turned critical—she’s come back now right on miscarriage’s edge, but this time it’s different; they can’t just cast it aside, so even her kin are stumped.”
“Osuga’s been pissin’ near every five minutes these five-six days—tonight could turn deadly.”
“Since she can’t be took into our house, there ain’t nowhere fit for birthin’ that child now.”
“So what’re we s’posed to do ’bout this fix here?”

“What’re ya askin’ me for? I ain’t doin’ nothin’.”

“Just think it through proper, won’t ya? Your own son dragged off another family’s precious daughter, made a right spectacle for the whole world, got her with child in the end—and now our side can’t even take her as a bride. You’re sayin’ it’s fine however that poor kid with no claim ends up? Put yourself in their place—ain’t that downright cruel?”

“I ain’t payin’ even a single Bunkyū coin for their claims.”
“If they want him so bad, I don’t give a damn if they take that Kenji bastard.”
“I’ve been thinkin’ that for an heir, it’s just fine to adopt one from outside.”
“Even if the master tells me, I ain’t listenin’, so it’s no good.”
“Even if I get chewed out by the master and can’t stay in the village anymore, I ain’t budgin’.”

“You’re bein’ downright impossible, y’know.”

Even Yotsumata finally grew frustrated and spoke thus.

The egg seller’s eyes had turned as red as fire, even the whites.

“That’s my fault, I s’pose.
Since you’re accusin’ me like I’m the villain here, please just spare me that talk.”

While saying this, he rolled over to the other side of the hearth and gave no response whatsoever.
His heart pounded violently in his chest.
The dim light of the bean lamp illuminated his burning face.
Yotsumata fidgeted restlessly but soon went out through the back door to relieve himself.

The snow had turned the ground completely white before anyone noticed, and the outside had grown dimmer.
Beside the stable, fallen leaves were piled high, and upon them, snow was piling up white with a faint rustling sound.
The horse, noticing someone approaching, trampled the thickly spread fallen leaves with a rustling sound while nostalgically snorting, stuck its head out from the hitching post, and nudged the hanging feed bucket with its muzzle, making it rattle.
The mother came out after Yotsumata.

“Please don’t take it badly.”
“Really, he’s always like that—it’s so trying.”

“Not thinkin’ about it won’t change a thing—it’s his nature through and through.”

“That’s just how it must be, I suppose.”

Having said that, the mother hesitated slightly.

“So that Kenji hasn’t shown any signs of trouble, has he?”

“Nothin’ to fret about—he’s truly plumped up proper, so ain’t no trouble at all.”

“I’m just... worried all by myself. Day after day, I can’t sleep a wink even when I try.”
“Even when I sleep, I can’t sleep—it’s been like this day after day.”

“It’s a real mess, I tell ya.”

Yotsumata returned to the front of the hearth.
And then,

“Ahem!”

he declared in a loud voice,

“I’ve been wantin’ to go check out Miharu myself, but next time I head there, why don’t we go together? With pigs already costin’ us a fortune in soybean lees, havin’ market prices at forty or fifty percent just ain’t worth it.”

When he said this, the egg seller sat up abruptly.

“So you’re actually plannin’ to go?”

“It’s true, I tell ya. If you take a horse and just feed it grass or straw while workin’ it hard, it’ll be worn out in two or three years.”

“Even Yotsumata’d get his eyes wanderin’ and start buyin’ if he goes to Miharu.”

“If you’re callin’ this a joke, I ain’t holdin’ no grudge over such things—me, I’m tellin’ ya.”

“Damn dangerous—look sharp ’fore the pigs get their hooves in it!”

The conversation grew lively until the earlier displeasure vanished entirely.

“So you’re hell-bent on shippin’ Kenji out after all.”
“I meant to drag a ‘yes’ outta you tonight come hell or high water—but missed my shot.”
“Snow’s made walkin’ a misery—I’m headin’ back. You’re sendin’ the boy off, eh?”

“If Kenji slinks back alone—I’ll settle it here ’n now.”

“Got’cha.”

With this they managed to obscure the situation for now, but Yotsumata too was at a loss regarding how to handle Osuga’s position.
He consulted with Isaku the horse trader as well.
At any rate, they were pressed to adopt some stopgap measure—there was no alternative.

Around that time, there stood a house across the road from Sennemon that went by the nickname Matsuyama. Having decided to relocate their family elsewhere due to certain circumstances, they sold both their house and land to Osuga’s brother and vacated the premises. Thinking it an ingenious plan to have her give birth in that empty house, they approached her brother. Yet he would not easily consent. After much wrangling, they finally convinced him by insisting he at least lend them the house temporarily, thereby managing to move Osuga into Matsuyama’s residence. Sennemon too had been grudgingly sheltering Osuga out of neighborly duty, so he felt as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Yotsumata likewise breathed a sigh of relief now that his stopgap scheme had worked—whatever followed could be handled later.

Seven

Osuga gave birth to a girl.
With no one else available to tend to her, the mother stayed by her side openly from dawn till dusk.
Since her sister-in-law also went to cook gruel for her, her brother ultimately found himself unable to keep watching.
Yotsumata’s scheme had succeeded perfectly.
Before long, Kenji too moved in with Osuga.
They even came to work just enough to sustain themselves after being granted use of the field bought from Matsuyama.
The baby began to laugh.
The mother—already prone to doting—grew so attached she couldn’t bear to let go, so whenever the two went out to work the fields, she stayed behind minding the child.
When the baby cried, she carried it to the fields to nurse.
Osuga’s brother too began summoning Kenji during busy seasons to make him work.
Without reason or logic, harmony settled between both households.

Thus, time passed.
However, even now in the village, those with sharp tongues—

“Her brother doesn’t make too much of a fuss, so there’s nothin’ to be done.”
“Keepin’ Kenji over there’s like tramplin’ the egg seller’s pride into the mud.”
“That bein’ the case, no matter how many mediators you send, the story won’t get through—no wonder it didn’t work out.”

There were times when they would engage in gossip.
The master’s wife also once addressed Yotsumata and

“Now about this Kenji matter...”
“Under your group’s direction, they were moved into Matsuyama’s house—but it seems that egg seller finds it quite unexpected.”
“This seems an ill-suited arrangement even for your lot—just what exactly led to this?”

“Well, when you put it like that, it makes us out to be proper villains—but back then, we were dead certain things wouldn’t last the night if we didn’t act, so we had no choice but to settle for that arrangement for the time being.”
“The egg seller dotes on Kenji so much he’d swallow stones for him, but if he listens to what we say, it’d mean losin’ to Osuga and her people—that’s how his stubborn pride works, so there ain’t no helpin’ it.”
“He says with that stubborn pride of his that he’d rather die than lose, you see.”
“If he loves his son that much, you’d think he’d give in, but he’s torn between loving the boy and resenting the situation—try reasoning with him and he just flops down to sleep, so I’ve been at my wit’s end.”
“At first, we’d settled on the idea that there’d be no complaints if we arranged a bride once he finished his military service, but now he’s so worn out he can’t even bring it up.”

Yotsumata said this while scratching his head.
This, too, was a perfectly reasonable rationale.
When one examined Osuga’s mother’s reasoning, it was straightforward.

“Since we’ll be relying on Yotsumata, please do something about it—it’s truly troubling, I tell you.”

It was nothing more than such matters.

“Is the baby still healthy despite everything?”

To this,

“Why, she’s the spittin’ image of Kenji, ain’t she?”

She replied calmly.
When she told Osuga’s father about this,

“If society kicks up a fuss, nothin’ll go right, I tell you.
“We both gotta smooth things over round-like, or there’ll be trouble.”

If matters could settle like this, there’d be no call for everyone to fret.

Then, to Osuga’s brother—

“That whole situation was such a headache.”

To this,

“It was quite a headache.”

To this,

“If you keep holdin’ onto both of ’em like this, there’ll be no end to it. So why don’t you go ahead and cast Osuga aside, then take her back from someone else? That way we might finally hash out a settlement—what d’you think?”

When he said this,

“I said I’d never let ’em near my house.”
“Truth be told, I used t’go stay nights at Matsuyama’s place, but since I couldn’t go every evenin’, sometimes Ma an’ the others’d go stay there instead.”
“So with Ma bein’ like that, Osuga ended up sneakin’ in like some scrawny field mouse.”
“Even so, at first she’d run off whenever she saw me.”
“When I caught Kenji red-handed, he swore up an’ down in writin’ he’d never set foot here again.”
“Still got that paper proper kept, y’know.”
“That’s why I shipped ’em off, see.”

“But even if you sent ’em away, ain’t it no good you’re still usin’ those two for work at your place?”

“When it’s busy season, there ain’t hands comin’ from elsewhere, you see.”

No matter which point they pressed, they couldn’t get anywhere.

Osuga was with the man she loved and at her mother’s knee, so she had not a single worry in her heart.
Kenji, too, should have no hardships since he was living with the woman he loved and receiving her family’s support; his only concern was whether his father might lose his temper upon encountering them.
That anxiety could now be put to rest.

It was a certain day.
In the rice fields, he suddenly came face to face with Father.
Father was wearing a neat handwoven cotton happi coat and had a furoshiki-wrapped bundle tied around his neck.
Kenji flinched.
Even so, from his side,

“Pa, where you headed?”

When he called out, Father smiled and

“Yeah, goin’ for silk dyein’.”

With that, he strode off briskly. Amidst all this, it was Kenji’s mother who constantly fretted alone.
Because Father was quick to lose his temper, she endured without saying a word.
The only ones to keep her company were the disabled person with epilepsy.
Even the grandchild she longed to see was one she couldn’t openly hold.
She could only do things like sending Kenji clothing through others or giving him soup ingredients like leeks and radishes.

“I ain’t had a single day where my heart felt light.”

And at the Nineteen-Night gathering, when the wives met, her true feelings would finally spill out.

“I swear, I’ve lost count how many times I’ve hidden them tabi socks from Pa and stitched ’em up.”
“When he goes stompin’ through icy patches like that, even tabi socks and straw sandals don’t last more’n a night.”

Whenever there were listeners, she’d let her feelings seep out bit by bit.
The village’s sympathy pooled around this mother alone.
The days rolled on with surface calm—save when the egg seller’s patience ran thin.

The world revived into spring once more.
Above the bamboo grass on the Kinu River embankment, high-prowed boats with sails fully billowed busily made their way upstream.
The boatman sat cross-legged, occasionally laying a hand on the rudder as the prow noisily split the water climbing upstream.
Here was the season when winter's hardships were repaid all at once—a time when tasting the south wind's favor made their work impossible to abandon.
Birds flitted through the bamboo grass with clumsy cries, venturing from rapeseed flowers to play in wheat fields.
Kenji was conscripted as a supply transport soldier during this time.
Normally he should have been seen off from his own home by tipsy well-wishers to the Kinu River crossing, but irregularly he had to depart from his temporary dwelling instead.
That morning he went to bid farewell only near his family home.
His manner showed fluster.
Neighbors grew suspicious finding their earthen-floored soup pot overturned, but later learned Kenji had come to tip over their bucket—revealing his mischief.
Being formally disowned, people whispered he likely couldn't settle affairs properly.
Beyond this, no other topics arose.
When wheat lay harvested and starling flocks crossed the skies, Kenji returned.
Daily through the village came pestles' pounding that shook the earth from somewhere.
Kenji became one of those wheat-pounders.
They began pounding at midnight, each finishing eight to measures by dawn.
Starlings crossed daybreak skies from westwards roaring like gales through air.
Then at sunset they returned west.
As birds flew distantly overhead, wheat-pounders switching pestle hands right-to-left shouted today too was fair weather.
Starlings dwindled; rice harvest came.

An autumn as cold as water pooling in harvested fields’ stubble drew to a close, and winter came again.
A siskin spread its frail wings and let out a heartrending cry as it flew from the woods to circle over harvested fields.
And so, as chill yielded once more to early spring’s warmth, people were digging potatoes in hilltop fields.

The short day was setting headlong into evening clouds that lingered like an embankment over the treetops of the village woods.
The light shining sideways grazed the wheat leaves, making the reddish oak forest glow intensely for a moment.
At the field's edge, tea bush flowers shone whitely with light.
Mount Tsukuba deepened into a rich purple hue with each passing moment.
From around when late rice was harvested in autumn's end, Mount Tsukuba would take on an indescribably beautiful purple under the setting sun's angle.
Were one to ask the farmers, they would say they had never known such a Mount Tsukuba.
Their claiming ignorance was only natural.
The several dozen minutes after sunset, when lingering afterglow still brightened, were when their work advanced most efficiently.
To prepare supper, women now rose one by one from every field.
After the women left, the farmers' hands finally sensed gathering dimness.
A Meadow Bunting flitted forlornly among mulberry branches.
The farmers, heedless of all but themselves, diligently packed potatoes into straw bags.
After Osuga returned, Kenji loaded straw bags onto the cart and hauled it out.
When he crossed Tanbo and reached the slope, potato-filled bags slightly overpacked proved beyond his strength.
Just as he relaxed and stretched his back—suddenly from behind—

“C’mon now—put your back into it!”

At that voice, the cart suddenly became lighter.
When he looked back from the top of the slope, Kenji’s father—who had brought potato-filled straw bags on a horse—let go of the reins he’d been holding and pushed from behind.

“Who did I think it was? It was Pa!”

And Kenji spoke with heartfelt joy.
The horse, now on its own, clattered off energetically to the right.
Father ran after the horse.
Kenji bent his waist at a sharp angle, put strength into his legs, and hauled the cart leftward.
Blue smoke rising from the village’s bamboo grove lingered in several strands as if to welcome the farmers in the fields, stretching from Tanbo to the hill.
At that time, the farmers were returning one after another from Tanbo through the twilight.
From somewhere unseen, a snipe cried sharply and flew away.
As the farmers’ retreating figures were pressed into the village, night’s grasp soon spread from Tanbo to the fields, until it enveloped all between heaven and earth.
(Published in Hototogisu, Volume 11, Issue 6, March 1, 1908)