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"Ah!" said Fusa, "I shall tell father and mother about it."

But Katsugor at once began to cry, and said:—

"Please do not tell!—it would not be good to tell father and mother."

Fusa made answer, after a little while:—

"Well, this time I shall not tell. But the next time that you do anything naughty, then I will tell."

After that day whenever a dispute arose between the two, the sister would threaten the brother, saying, "Very well, then—I shall tell that thing to father and mother." At these words the boy would always yield to his sister. This happened many times; and the parents one day overheard Fusa making her threat. Thinking Katsugor must have been doing something wrong, they desired to know what the matter was, and Fusa, being questioned, told them the truth. Then Genz and his wife, and Tsuya, the grandmother of Katsugor, thought it a very strange thing. They called Katsugor, therefore; and tried, first by coaxing, and then by threatening, to make him tell what he had meant by those words.

After hesitation, Katsugor said:—"I will tell you everything. I used to be the son of Kybei San of Hodokubo, and the name of my mother then was O-Shidzu San. When I was five years old, Kybei San died; and there came in his place a man called Hanshir San, who loved me very much. But in the following year, when I was six years old, I died of smallpox. In the third year after that I entered mother's honorable womb, and was born again."

The parents and the grandmother of the boy wondered greatly at hearing this; and they decided to make all possible inquiry as to the man called Hanshir of Hodokubo. But as they all had to work very hard every day to earn a living, and so could spare but little time for any other matter, they could not at once carry out their intention.

Now Sei, the mother of Katsugor, had nightly to suckle her little daughter Tsun, who was four years old;[5]—and Katsugor therefore slept with his grandmother, Tsuya. Sometimes he used to talk to her in bed; and one night when he was in a very confiding mood, she persuaded him to tell her what happened at the time when he had died. Then he said:—"Until I was four years old I used to remember everything; but since then I have become more and more forgetful; and now I forget many, many things. But I still remember that I died of smallpox; I remember that I was put into a jar;[6] I remember that I was buried on a hill. There was a hole made in the ground; and the people let the jar drop into that hole. It fell pon!—I remember that sound well. Then somehow I returned to the house, and I stopped on my own pillow there.[7] In a short time some old man,—looking like a grandfather—came and took me away. I do not know who or what he was. As I walked I went through empty air as if flying. I remember it was neither night nor day as we went: it was always like sunset-time. I did not feel either warm or cold or hungry. We went very far, I think; but still I could hear always, faintly, the voices of people talking at home; and the sound of the Nembutsu[8] being said for me. I remember also that when the people at home set offerings of hot botamochi[9] before the household shrinen [butsudan], I inhaled the vapor of the offerings.... Grandmother, never forget to offer warm food to the honorable dead [Hotok Sama], and do not forget to give to priests—I am sure it is very good to do these things.[10] ... After that, I only remember that the old man led me by some roundabout way to this place—I remember we passed the road beyond the village. Then we came here, and he pointed to this house, and said to me:—'Now you must be reborn,—for it is three years since you died. You are to be reborn in that house. The person who will become your grandmother is very kind; so it will be well for you to be conceived and born there.' After saying this, the old man went away. I remained a little time under the kaki-tree before the entrance of this house. Then I was going to enter when I heard talking inside: some one said that because father was now earning so little, mother would have to go to service in Yedo. I thought, "I will not go into that house;" and I stopped three days in the garden. On the third clay it was decided that, after all, mother would not have to go to Yedo. The same night I passed into the house through a knot-hole in the sliding-shutters;—and after that I stayed for three days beside the kamado.[11] Then I entered mother's honorable womb.[12] ... I remember that I was born without any pain at all.—Grandmother, you may tell this to father and mother, but please never tell it to anybody else."

*

The grandmother told Genz and his wife what Katsugor had related to her; and after that the boy was not afraid to speak freely with his parents on the subject of his former existence, and would often say to them: "I want to go to Hodokubo. Please let me make a visit to the tomb of Kybei San." Genz thought that Katsugor, being a strange child, would probably die before long, and that it might therefore be better to make inquiry at once as to whether there really was a man in Hodokubo called Hanshir. But he did not wish to make the inquiry himself, because for a man to do so [under such circumstances?] would seem inconsiderate or forward. Therefore, instead of going himself to Hodokubo, he asked his mother Tsuya, on the twentieth day of the first month of this year, to take her grandson there.

Tsuya went with Katsugor to Hodokubo; and when they entered the village she pointed to the nearer dwellings, and asked the boy," Which house is it?—is it this house or that one?" "No," answered Katsugor,—"it is further on—much further,"—and he hurried before her. Reaching a certain dwelling at last, he cried, "This is the house!"—and ran in, without waiting for his grandmother. Tsuya followed him in, and asked the people there what was the name of the owner of the house. "Hanshir," one of them answered. She asked the name of Hanshir's wife. "Shidzu," was the reply. Then she asked whether there had ever been a son called Tz born in that house. "Yes," was the answer; "but that boy died thirteen years ago, when he was six years old."

Then for the first time Tsuya was convinced that Katsugor had spoken the truth; and she could not help shedding tears. She related to the people of the house all that Katsugor had told her about his remembrance of his former birth. Then Hanshir and his wife wondered greatly. They caressed Katsugor and wept; and they remarked that he was much handsomer now than he had been as Tz before dying at the age of six. In the mean time, Katsugor was looking all about; and seeing the roof of a tobacco shop opposite to the house of Hanshir, he pointed to it, and said:—"That used not to be there." And he also said,—"The tree yonder used not to be there." All this was true. So from the minds of Hanshir and his wife every doubt departed [ga wo orishi].

On the same day Tsuya and Katsugor returned to Tanitsuiri, Nakano-mura. Afterwards Genz sent his son several times to Hanshir's house, and allowed him to visit the tomb of Kybei his real father in his previous existence.