ONE:"'Once upon a time, it is said, there lived a very old badger in the temple known as Morin-je, where there was also an iron teapot called Bumbuku Chagama, which was a precious thing in that sacred place. One day when the chief priest, who was fond of tea and kept the pot always hanging in his sitting-room, was about taking it, as usual, to make tea for drinking, a tail came out of it. He was startled, and called together all the little bourges, his pupils, that they might behold the apparition. Supposing it to be the mischievous work of a fox or badger, and being resolved to ascertain its real character, they made due preparations. Some of them tied handkerchiefs about their heads, and some stripped the coats from their shoulders, and armed themselves with sticks and bits of firewood. But when they were about to beat the vessel down, wings came out of it; and as it flew about from one side to another, like a dragon-fly, while they pursued it, they could neither strike nor secure it. Finally, however, having[Pg 237] closed all the windows and sliding-doors, after hunting it vigorously from one corner to another, they succeeded in confining it in a small space, and presently in capturing it.Day came swiftly. By the time I could trot down to the sycamore it was perfectly light even in the shade of an old cotton-gin house close inside the corner of the small field around which I was to turn. The vast arms of its horse-power press, spreading rigidly downward, offered the only weird aspect that lingered in the lovely morning. I have a later and shuddering memory of it, but now the dewy air was full of sweet odors, the squirrel barked from the woods, the woodpecker tapped, and the lark, the cardinal and the mocking-bird were singing all around. The lint-box of the old cotton-press was covered with wet morning-glories. I took the bridle-path between the woods and the field and very soon was down in the dense forest beyond them. But the moment I was hid from house and clearing I turned my horse square to the left, stooped to his neck, and made straight through the pathless tangle.
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