nd soon the fruit had
ripened: large, fragrant pears, which hung in thick clusters from the
boughs. The bonze climbed into the tree and handed down the pears to
the bystanders. In a moment all the pears had been eaten up. Then the
bonze took his pick-ax and cut down the tree. Crash, crash! so it went
for a while, and the tree was felled. Then he took the tree on his
shoulder and walked away at an easy gait.

When the bonze had begun to make his magic, the farmer, too, had
mingled with the crowd. With neck outstretched and staring eyes he had
stood there and had entirely forgotten the business he hoped to do
with his pears. When the bonze had gone off he turned around to look
after his cart. His pears had all disappeared. Then he realized that
the pears the bonze had divided had been his own. He looked more
closely, and the axle of his cart had disappeared. It was plainly
evident that it had been chopped off quite recently. The farmer fell
into a rage and hastened after the bonze as fast as ever he could. And
when he turned the corner, there lay the missing piece from the axle
by the city wall. And then he realized that the pear-tree which the
bonze had chopped down must have been his axle. The bonze, however,
was nowhere to be found. And the whole crowd in the market burst out
into loud laughter.

Note: The axle in China is really a handle, for the
little Chinese carts are one-wheel push-carts with two
handles or shafts.

XXXIV

SKY O'DAWN

Once upon a time there was a man who took a child to a woman in a
certain village, and told her to take care of him. Then he
disappeared. And because the dawn was just breaking in the sky when
the woman took the child into her home, she called him Sky O'Dawn.
When the child was three years old, he would often look up to the
heavens and talk with the stars. One day he ran away and many months
passed before he came home again. The woman gave him a whipping. But
he ran away again, and did not return for a year. His foster-mother
was frightened, and asked: "Where have you been all year long?" The
boy answered: "I only made a quick trip to the Purple Sea. There the
water stained my clothes red. So I went to the spring at which the sun
turns in, and washed them. I went away in the morning and I came back
at noon. Why do you speak about my having been gone a year?"

Then the woman asked: "And where did you pass on your way?"

The boy answered: "When I had washe