Now, the old woman was very unhappy
because she had no children; it seemed to her that if she only had a son
or a daughter she would be the most fortunate old woman in the world.
Well, one day she was washing the clothes in the river, when she saw
something floating down the stream towards her. It proved to be a great
pear, and she seized it and carried it home. As she carried it she heard a
sound like the cry of a child. She looked right and left, up and down, but
no child was to be seen. She heard the cry again, and now she fancied that
it came from the big pear. So she cut the pear open at once, and, to her
great surprise and delight, she found that there was a fine baby sitting in
the middle of it. She took the child and brought it up, and because he was
born in a pear she called him Momotaro.
Momotaro grew up a strong, fine boy, and when he was seventeen years old
he started out to seek his fortune. He had made up his mind to attack an
island where lived a very dreadful ogre. The old woman gave him plenty of
food to eat on the way--corn and rice wrapped in a bamboo-leaf, and many
other things--and away he went. He had not gone far when he met a wasp.
"Give me a share of your food, Momotaro," said the wasp, "and I will go
with you and help you to overcome the ogre."
"With all my heart," said Momotaro, and he shared his food at once with the
wasp.
Soon he met a crab, and the same agreement was made with the crab, and then
with a chestnut, and last of all with a millstone.
Pages:
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62