The boy's long braid of black hair kept getting in his way, until Halmoni loaned him a woman's hairpin to fasten the braid up on the crown of his head. This made his sister Ok Cha laugh louder than ever. She laughed and laughed, until her very sides ached.
"Take care, Jade Child," her grandmother warned her. "Take care, or like the ant that laughed too much, you will meet with disaster."
"What happened to the ant, Halmoni?" the little girl asked, with one eye still on Yong Tu. He had tired of trying to get his feet up into the air and was now rolling about on the ground, playing with Dog.
"You shall hear, blessed girl," the old grandmother said, hoping to calm the giggling child. "This ant was a wise old ant and greatly respected in the garden where she lived. Everyone came to her for advice, and so it was not at all strange that the earthworm should choose her to act as a go-between and find him a wife.
"'I badly want a good wife, Omoni,' the earthworm said to the ant. Someone who will take care of my clothes and prepare my rice and kimchee. Find me a young wife, a healthy and strong one. I know you will choose wisely.'
"The ant agreed, and she was thinking over the problem one sunny afternoon, when she met a strong, healthy centipede.
"'How would you like to become a bride?' the ant asked the young centipede.
"'Well enough! Well enough!' was the centipede's reply. 'But you must tell me first about the bridegroom.'
"'The bridegroom is industrious. He is calm. He is patient,' the ant replied with enthusiasm.
It was a splendid fair, with clowns and dancers who ran along straw ropes high up in the air.
"'Does he live in this garden?' the centipede asked.
"'Yé, he lives in this garden, though often he is out of sight of those who walk on its paths.'
"'That is true of all garden creatures.' the centipede said. 'Tell me more about the bridegroom.'
"'Well, he is many times longer than you, and he moves about well, although he has no legs.'
"'That would be a fine centipede,' the prospective bride said with scorn. 'What kind of husband for me would be one without any legs?'
"'He is an honorable earthworm,' the ant then confessed.
"'Ai, a damp, clammy earthworm!' The centipede shook her head. 'An earthworm would never do. His body reaches too far. I should never have patience enough to make a coat for such a long creature.'
"The ant thought this very funny. She laughed and she laughed as she scurried down the garden path to tell the bad news to the waiting bridegroom.
"'Ai, Earthworm,' she said between her fits of laughter. 'I found a young bride, a beautiful centipede, healthy and strong, but she will have none of you. She says she will never have a husband without any legs. She says you are too long. She would never have patience enough to sew up your clothes.' And the ant went off into fits of laughter again.
"'I do not find this joke funny,' the earthworm said indignantly. 'Why should a centipede laugh at a fine earthworm like me? I would not have her either. With all those legs of hers! No! Again, no! How should I ever get enough straw to make shoes for so many feet? The bargain is off.'
"Well, the ant thought this even funnier than the remarks of the centipede. She laughed and she laughed until her sides ached. She feared she would burst. So she took a straw rope and tied herself tightly together about her middle.
"Only when she had forgotten about her adventures as go-between for the earthworm and the centipede, did the ant untie the rope. And what do you think had happened, Ok Cha?" The grandmother paused for a moment, enjoying the little girl's eager, questioning face.
"That ant had laughed too much. Her waist was so firmly pinched in by the straw rope that it never grew iarge again. Remember this story, Ok Cha, the next time you meet an ant on the path in our Garden of Green Gems. Then you will understand why that ant's waist is so small."
RICE
FROM
A
CAT'S
FUR
ALMOST every day beggars knocked at the bamboo gate A of the wealthy Kim family. When Dog's barking brought Old Pak, the gatekeeper, out to greet them, they pleaded, "Will the Gentleman of this House spare us a few grains of rice from his great store? Our rice bowls are empty. We have tasted nothing but grass roots and the bark off the trees for many days."
Yong Tu's curiosity took him into the entrance court almost every time Dog gave warning of such visitors.
"Their clothes are in rags. Halmoni," he would report. "Their hair is uncombed. Their faces are thin. They look very hungry. The children are crying."
Ok Cha would then gaze eagerly up at their grandmother. She knew well the tender-hearted woman would give her usual order that rice be provided for these poor hungry people.
"Why are there so many more beggars now than at any other time of the year, Halmoni?" Ok Cha asked one afternoon when Yong Tu had returned from taking some rice out to the bamboo gate.
"It's the time of the 'Spring Suffering,' precious Jade Child," was the old woman's answer. "At this season few in our land have much rice left in their storerooms. Under many a grass roof hunger comes each year with the Spring. The grain stored for the Winter then is all eaten. The new rice or millet plants are only just starting to shoot their green spears up through the earth. There is nothing yet in the gardens. Many families have not enough cash in their money chests with which to buy rice. They never taste meat or fish. They can't even afford to buy an old dog from the dog-meat shop."
"What do those poor people do, Halmoni?" Ok Cha asked, her narrow, dark eyes filling with tears.
"Why, they eat grass roots and bark, my child, just as those beggars said yesterday. And perhaps luckier people help them as we do. Or else some good spirit rides on the wind to their aid." The grandmother noticed the distress in the child's eyes, and she wanted to comfort her. "Perhaps they find a magic cat like the one whose fur dripped rice in the old story."
"That would be good, Halmoni," Ok Cha said eagerly. "Did that truly happen?"
"Ai, child, what does it matter whether it really happened? Who can say it did not? I like to think that it did, for the people in this story were good people. They did not deserve to be hungry.
"Many hundreds of years ago, perhaps even a thousand, there lived in our country a good scholar named Yo. What his other names were I have forgotten, but they were not important. So wise a scholar was this Yo that his fame spread over the land, even to the ears of the King himself.
"'Send for that Scholar Yo,' the King commanded. 'He shall give us his wise counsel. He shall have a post at our court. He shall have the right to wear the precious peacock feather in his hat.'
"Now Yo was a kind man as well as a man of great learning. While the other ministers grew rich in their office, Yo seemed to grow poor. So busy was he in his great position at Court that he gave no thought to his own affairs. His three daughters, who looked after his house, often found no rice in the storeroom. Their father had thoughtlessly given it all to the beggars who came to his gate.
"That was in a time when our Little Kingdom badly needed the help of its elder brother, China. Who could better be sent to persuade the Emperor on that Dragon Throne than wise Minister Yo? The journey was long. The men who would carry Yo's traveling chair could go no faster then than such men go today. Full three years would pass before Yo could return from his mission to China.
"'Ai-go! Ai-go! What shall we do?' Yo's daughters wept when their father announced his departure. 'We have but one dress apiece, Abuji. Two of us must wash the dress of the other. She must remain hidden under the coverlids until we have brought it out from under the ironing sticks. We manage badly. There is but one jar of rice left in our storeroom. How shall we eat when you are gone and there is no one to put more cash in our money box?'
"Now in this household the favorite pet of the Master was a clever black cat. Not wild like the cats we know, Ok Cha, but gentle and loving! When Yo bent over his books in his Hall of Perfect Learning, the cat lay in his la
p. It purred and it purred while the man rubbed the soft fur just under its chin. One strange thing about this cat was that it never closed its eyes. No one had ever caught it asleep. It just lay still, purred and purred, and watched over the household.
"'Of course you will eat, my daughters,' Yo said, as he climbed into his traveling chair. 'Heaven will care for you while I am gone. And if your rice should give out, and there should be no other way, turn to my black cat. Rub his fur carefully in this fashion.' The man ran his slim fingers through the soft fur of the cat, which had jumped into his lap. He began at its tail, and he stroked its fur towards its head. Then he gently handed the black cat down into the arms of one of his daughters.
"The girls did not love the black cat so dearly as did their father, and I am afraid they forgot these parting words. As long as the rice in their storeroom held out, they managed to live. But they ate only nine times in a month, and always they were hungry. Now, even the largest jar becomes empty at last, my children, and the day came when there was no rice at all in their kitchen.
"'We must sell our belongings,' the sisters cried sadly. Fine chests bound with brass, handsome embroidered silks, even their treasured hairpins of silver and coral, had to be sold to give them money for rice. But that too was eaten. Soon their house was as empty as the rice jars in the storeroom.
"'What was it our father said about the black cat?' one sister then asked the others.
The Emperor gave Yo a post at his court and the right to wear the precious peacock feather in his hat.
"'Perhaps he spoke a riddle which will help us get food,' another sister suggested.
"'If only we could remember what he said about the black cat!' the third one cried.
"That evening, as they sat hungry in their Inner Chamber, the black cat jumped into the lap of the youngest girl 'It was this way we should rub his fur. Now I remember!' she cried suddenly, and she began to run her fingers gently along the cat's soft furry back from his tail to his head. Some call this rubbing a cat's fur the wrong way, but for them it proved to be the right way.
"'Hé! Hai! Hai!' they all cried. 'Rice drips from the cat's fur!'
"It was true! Before their very eyes a steady stream of rice grains dripped from the fur of their father's black cat. Fine, whole grains they were, white as the snow of winter, clean and smooth enough for the cooking pot. The more the girl rubbed the cat's fur, the more rice showered from it. It made a great mound upon the clean floor.
"Laughter and rejoicing filled Yo's house that evening. Once more his daughters' stomachs were full, and the days ahead seemed as rosy and fair as the rising sun. Never would they be hungry again, no matter how long their father tarried.
"The sisters took turns in rubbing the black cat's soft fur. When they had more rice than they needed to fill their own rice jars, they sold it for much money. Now they could buy back their fine brassbound chests, their handsome embroideries, and their precious hairpins of coral and silver. Now they could buy cloth for new dresses, and even black oil to make their hair neat and shining. If they had wished, they could have had an Ancestors' Feast every day of the year.
"At the end of three years Yo returned from the court of the Chinese Emperor with his mission accomplished. As soon as he had greeted his daughters, he called for his black cat. When he heard how the magic rice had dripped out of its fur to save them from starving, he said, 'Now I am home again. I have secured for the King the aid our land needs from China. My reward will be great. Our cash chest will overflow. Never will our food jars be empty again. Nevermore shall we need to rub rice from our cat's fur.'
"And never again did it happen, my dear ones. Secretly the youngest girl tried rubbing the cat's fur from its tail to its head. But the cat only purred and purred and watched over the household through his wide-open eyes."
THE
BEGGARS'
FRIEND
THE white-clad Korean grandmother looked anxiously up at the dark clouds racing across the heavens above her.
"The rain comes, blessed ones," she warned the children in the Inner Court. "Hurry, like the crickets, into the house!"
The boys and girls scarcely heard her, so intent were they on the games they were playing on the hard-packed earth of the Inner Court. Ok Cha and two of her small cousins were sitting with their legs tucked under their full gay-colored skirts. They were busy with tja-si, or jack-stones. Instead of metal jacks, however, these small girls were tossing and picking up the thick Korean pennies, called "cash." Ok Cha had safely got through "laying the eggs" and "setting the eggs," but she missed the third toss when she tried to knock on the ground in "hatching the eggs."
Yong Tu and the other boys also were playing a game with these dark metal coins made of copper and brass. They were "hitting the cash," throwing one coin at another placed in the center of a square drawn on the ground. The boys did not mind losing a cash or two to one another. These coins were worth little, only a fraction as much as a penny of the United States.
Suddenly the dark clouds over their heads began to send huge drops of rain down on the young players. Although their grandmother's words had gone unheeded, the boys and girls jumped at this direct warning. Like startled chickens, they rushed up the veranda steps to take shelter within the old woman's room.
And just in time, too, for now the clouds seemed to open and great sheets of water were drenching the earth. It was the midsummer season of the Great Rains. Almost every day floods like this descended from the clouded sky.
"All my cash are gone but these two!" Yong Tu lamented, running the lonely coins back and forth along his cash string of braided straw. Everyone in Korea carried his cash on such strings, which were run through the square holes punched in the coins' centers. The strings of cash in this family's huge money chests were heavy and long. It took a sturdy servant, or even a pony, to carry enough cash to buy the family supplies in the city market.
"You should have a magic cash string, like that of Woo, the beggars' friend," Halmoni said to the boy. "That string never grew less. Sit down and wait until the rain has passed by, and I'll tell you about it."
The children all gathered about their beloved grandmother. And while they nibbled contentedly at the pine nuts and honey candy she brought forth, she told them the tale.
"The man in this story was a spoonmaker named Woo, who lived in a modest house in the Street of Spoonmakers here in our city. Woo was a kind husband and a good father. There were always bundles of grass for mending holes in his roof. There was always fresh rice straw to make sandals for his children's feet. And there were always rice and kimchee in the brown jars in his court.
"This Woo had a heart as big as the sky, my precious ones. Of course, when his children were small and needed clothing and food, he took care of them first. But when his son was grown up and his daughters were married, he began to give more and more to the beggars who knocked at the gate of his spoonmaking shop. It was a bowl of rice to this one, and a few cash to that one. Now a few cash will not buy a coat or a pig, but if you put enough raindrops together you have a river. And like a river, cash flowed out of Woo's money chests into the outstretched hands of these hungry beggars.
"How those miserable fellows fought to get to their friend, Woo the Spoonmaker! The man had to take only one step out of his gate, and they came running. Night after night he returned to his home without one coin in the belt pocket his good wife had embroidered for him.
"At last there was no cash at all left in his money chests. There was nothing with which to buy rice for his eating bowls, nor brass to make shining spoons which might have brought him new money. As happens to many, Woo began to borrow. And as happens also to those who do not pay back what they borrow, he was hauled before the judge.
"There he was soundly paddled, and it was only when the jailers found out Woo had nothing to give them that they let him go. It was a bruised, beaten Woo, a sad, sorry spoonmaker, that limped through the muddy streets to his poor home again.
"Woo was just entering his gate when the toe of his sandal tripped upon something hard. Looking down in the dirt to see what it could be, Woo found a straw string on which were strung seven pieces of cash.
"'Seven cash are not many, but they will buy us at least some rice for our supper,' Woo said to his sad wife. And he sent his son out to bring back the good grain.
"Now here the wonder took place. Woo had picked off five of the coins to give to his son. Yet when he looked down at the string, there were still seven cash on it. He could not believe his eyes. He called his good wife to come and count the coins also. He pulled off four more coins; still seven remained. When Woo lay down on the floor to sleep that night, the riddle still puzzled him. He rose again and again to test the cash string. No matter how many times he pulled coins off of its end, always seven were left.
"'Thus is goodness rewarded,' his wife said to Woo. And they hid their magic string of cash well, saying no word of its powers.
"Bright shining spoons now were made again in Woo's house on the Street of the Spoonmakers. So if the neighbors wondered about the new roof on his house and the fine new hat the man wore, they could think they were bought with money his customers paid him.
"Now Woo's great heart was still as big as the sky, and he still gave to the poor. But he made his gifts in secret now, lest the judge and the jailers should drag him back to the prison. Instead of strewing money about through the crowds on the streets, he made journeys into the country, tossing a few cash through the dogholes in the gates of poor families. Or he went even farther into the hills to the temple of the Great Buddha. There he gave strings of cash to the good priests for their poor boxes.
"At this same time, my children, there were puzzled faces in the Royal Treasure House here in the Capital. 'How can it be that so much money disappears?' the King's Treasurer asked his assistants.
Tales of a Korean Grandmother Page 9
