kets branded with "Accomplished and Lucky
Tea-Kettle Performance, Admit one,"--the show was opened. The house was
full and the people came in parties bringing their tea-pots full of tea
and picnic boxes full of rice and eggs, and dumplings, made of millet
meal, sugared roast-pea cakes, and other refreshments; because they came
to stay all day. Mothers brought their babies with them for the children
enjoyed it most of all.

Then the tinker, dressed up in his wide ceremonial clothes, with a big
fan in his hand, came out on the platform, made his bow and set the
wonderful tea-kettle on the stage. Then at a wave of his fan, the kettle
ran around on four legs, half badger and half iron, clanking its lid and
wagging its tail. Next it turned into a badger, swelled out its body and
beat a tune on it like a drum. It danced a jig on the tight rope, and
walked the slack rope, holding a fan, or an umbrella in his paw, stood on
his head, and finally at a flourish of his master's fan became a cold and
rusty tea-kettle again. The audience were wild with delight, and as the
fame of the wonderful tea-kettle spread, many people came from great
distances.

Year after year the tinker exhibited the wonder until he grew immensely
rich. Then he retired from the show business, and out of gratitude took
the old kettle to the temple again and deposited it there as a precious
relic. It was then named Bumbuku Dai Mio Jin (The Great Illustrious,
Accomplished in Literature and the Military Art).

PEACH-PRINCE, AND THE TREASURE ISLAND.

Very long, long ago, there lived an old man and woman in a village near a
mountain, from which flowed a stream of purest water. This old couple
loved each other so dearly and lived together so happily, that the
neighbors called them _oshi-dori fu-fu_ (a love-bird couple), after the
mandarin ducks which always dwell together in pairs, and are so
affectionate that they are said to pine and die if one be taken from the
other. The old man was a woodcutter, and the old woman kept house, but
they were very lonely for they had no child, and often grieved over their
hard lot.

One day while the man was out on the mountain cutting brush, his old
crone took her shallow tub and clothes down to the brook to wash. She had
not yet begun, when she saw a peach floating with its stem and two leaves
in the stream. She picked up the fruit and set it aside to take home and
share it with her old man. When he returned she set