6.--[COPY OF THE ACCOUNT WRITTEN IN POPULAR STYLE BY MATSUDAIRA KWANZAN DONO, DAIMYO.]

Some time in the eleventh month of the past year, when Katsugoro was playing in the rice-field with his elder sister, Fusa, he asked her,--

[1. The second husband, by adoption, of a daughter who lives with her own parents.]

"Elder Sister, where did you come from before you were born into our household?

Fusa answered him:--

"How can I know what happened to me before I was born?"

Katsugoro looked surprised and exclaimed:

"Then you cannot remember anything that happened before you were born?"

"Do you remember?" asked Fusa.

"Indeed I do," replied Katsugoro. "I used to be the son of Kyubei San of Hodokubo, and my name was then Tozo--do you not know all that?"

"Ah!" said Fusa, "I shall tell father and mother about it."

But Katsugoro at once began to cry, and said:--

"Please do not tell!--it would not be good to tell father and mother."

Fusa made answer, after a little while:--

"Well, this time I shall not tell. But the next time that you do anything naughty, then I will tell."

After that day whenever a dispute arose between the two, the sister would threaten the brother, saying, "Very well, then--I shall

tell that thing to father and mother." At these words the boy would always yield to his sister. This happened many times; and the parents one day overheard Fusa making her threat. Thinking Katsugoro must have been doing something wrong, they desired to know what the matter was, and Fusa, being questioned, told them the truth. Then Genzo and his wife, and Tsuya, the grandmother of Katsugoro, thought it a very strange thing. They called Katsugoro, therefore; and tried, first by coaxing, and then by threatening, to make him tell what he had meant by those words.

After hesitation, Katsugoro said:--"I will tell you everything. I used to be the son of Kyubei San of Hodokubo, and the name of my mother then was O-Shidzu San. When I was five years old, Kyubei San died; and there came in his place a man called Hanshiro San, who loved me very much. But in the following year, when I was six years old, I died of smallpox. In the third year after that I entered mother's honorable womb, and was born again."

The parents and the grandmother of the boy wondered greatly at hearing this; and

they decided to make all possible inquiry as to the man called Hanshiro of Hodokubo. But as they all had to work very hard every day to earn a living, and so could spare but little time for any other matter, they could not at once carry out their intention.